The Evening Star MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 1918.

Evening Star, Issue 16822, 26 August 1918, Page 4

The Evening Star MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 1918.

Tee news from the western battle front

continues unifcrmly gocd. The advance

"All Goes Well."

of the .Allies and the retirement of the enemy continue in ordered sequence, while the tale of captured material, and prisoners adds point and finish U> the story. " Along more than a 30-mile front, from LUions to Mercatel,'' reports Sir Duugb* Haig, "we pressed attacks vigorously and successfully."' It is natural that tho war correspondents ? iionld express their view of the situation iu more ricturesque and less guarded trr.ns. "The enemy." says Mr Percival PhrTips, "are desperately engaged in losing the -Jast battle of the iSommo series. . . . 'they are lighting blindly and desperately, and are losing blood at everv blow Vu air of incipient demoralisation, porvu las the enemy."' This view is confirm, d by the Paris correspondent of the Loudon ' Daily Telegraph,' who write* Hint " lb- 1 enemy retreat on the French front is rapid.'" Petter still, however, than any eye-witm-ss"? report is the judgment of the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armi.-s—General Foeh. Eeplying to the Pie->s interviewers, whom ho welcomed as men to whom wa3 entrusted the all-important task of making known the great news ~f the battb to a.nxious millions the world over, the allied leader ssaid: "All go.'- well. You have been able since the 18th of July to observe the development of our operations. Well, we jhall continue them. . . ■ The German

invasion of France is like a tide -iv-hich has passed high-water mark and is now receding." With such words as these to direct and inspire us, we shall take heart and wait confidently for the is3ue.

General Foc'h did well to direct the attention of his interviewers to mid-July. With the exception of the Austriaa defeat hy Italy, the to had been little prior to that date to cheer the hearts of the nation.*. Against the exultations and boastings of the enemy they had nothing to place «iv> absolute confidence and faith in their leaders and <nu*c and their own fearless h?ar-U. With them there were no "such boast:n-s as the Gentiles use, orleFter hived? without the law." Tha--,e-thinas they left to the enemy, content to krrow th-t- lie uhr. fights b'st fights last. There wn- nothing worthy of imitation hi the German treatment <<f the news that a little, while £ an was being sent from the batt'oiiwd , (•■> Berlin. Temporary successes were announced in • flamboyant terms alike hy Iviiser and correspondent, while politi.-ian and expert beer.ir.p pivtiiatiirelv husy in dividing tho spoils ' H.-u w.mhl be theirs as tho fruit* f.f certain vi.-.tory. liven so ordinarily, sober a journal as the .' Tor warts-' lo:-t "its st<nse of pro-petition, and shouted with the loudest. '• Wr welcome this victory in tli» west with special joy, because we" lteheve that this proof must destroy the last remnants of blindness and false hopes cf vkviiry. Even, the fanatical rhetoric of Ciemeneeau can hardly succeed in deceiving the French people- any longer about the rcni *itu~ticu." And- what- the Press ?e:d in their own extravagant way the military critics fostered and indorsed in their summaries. Tire Allies were already beaten. Major elaborating at length v.-hat must be the effect of Hin-denbtug's•■-strategy, wrote: "Its immediate and already very noticeable effect is that French and* English (or General Foch, who •unites them both) must spend their reserves in three directions. No fourth will be left to them in. which- they could realise their own strategic aims. Foeh, who reached hi* post too late, is confined from the very beginning strategically to the second move, and can only lift his shield to parry Hindenburg'-s sword-blows." . We need not press the moral in all its many applications. It is sufficient to iivdicate that GermariT, ill all h.er relations with the Allies, has shown an utter ignorance of them and their aims. Had she known why the Allies were fighting, she would also have known something of their spirit, and thei-efor© of the tragio absurdity of dividing up their possessions—moral as well as material—before they had- let go of -them ; and had she an elementary conception of their intellectual and spiritual outlook, she would never have put forward so poor a representative, as Dr Solf to fool the world with nonsense respecting Germany'* colonial record and German's Belgian policy. Dr Solf's recent deliverance is bom of the exigencies of the

fchanged military situation. He but speaks after the manner of his masters. Whon they think the time is opportune to threaten and boast and bully they indulge in.these characteristic traits to the uttermost; and when it is thought that the hotrr is ripe to walk circumspectly and to protest that all Germany has done and will continue to do is for the betterment of the race, then the world is favored with fulminations against England's colonial policy and a lachrymose appeal to* contrast it with that of her own. Mr Massey, in the course of his admirable answer to the German Cok>imd Secretary's assertion, said: "I have not heard that any native of Germany's late colonies wanted to fight for Germany." Nor have we. Germany, as our own Prime Minister ha« truly stated, "is a criminal among the nations." She stand's—has long stood'—judged and condemned, but not yet punished; and her promises of what she -intends to do with Belgium are aa insolent as they are valueless. The question, now as over, remains: " What right, save that of the murderer's, has Germany in Belgium at all?" The fact that Germany is where (die- is still constitutes the supremo outrage of the war. But on this, as on every crucial question, there can be no discussion with dormanv "until she is beaten.