THE WAR.

Evening Star, Issue 15777, 14 April 1915, Page 7

THE WAR.

TO THE EDITOII. Sir, —In yesterday’s ‘Star’ your contributor “A. Spence” refers to “ the tactics of the Press Bureau, which suef'css fully managed to represent a month of continual defeat. as a month of unbroken vicioiy." That was during August and early September, and this is not the first occasion on which Mr Spence has stated that the Allies were defeated throughout those early weeks of the war. Does your contributor imply that the British troops were actually defeated? I think he will have some difficulty in converting anyone else to that opinion. Mr Spence himself states that the German testimony to Mens is that it ‘’seemed like shooting at a wall of fog,” which, I take it, means that the British retreat was so skilfully conducted that the Germans themselves were “in a maze.” History, such as wo know it, testifies to the marvellous way in which the soldiers of our then “contemptible little army,” who were completely outnumbered by the German hosts, were extricated from their difficult positions. The French may have been defeated, but the British retreat cannot be construed as defeat. The I’. K. may be instanced—Tom Sayers and the giant Heonan. Frequently Sayers was obliged to retreat, tho rushing tactics of his huge opponent being too much to withstand. That was part of Sayers’s battle plan, and so it was with the small British force at Mons. The Germans have not yet defeated the British troops; they may some day, but I hue ma doots—l am, etc., A. E. Haeiuway. April 9.