TUESDAY, JULY. 1Oth, 1917. ALLIES' SUPERIORITY.

Grey River Argus, Volume 10, 10 July 1917, Page 2

TUESDAY, JULY. lOth, 1917. ALLIES' SUPERIORITY.

MR. G. G.* ROBINSON'S review of the fifthting on the British front points out definitely to the superiority of our forces over .the enemy. There have been several severe engagements at diffrent points on the line and all have been in our favour Not only have the British, taken a very larjre number of prisoners and material but they have been able to block the enemy, from achieving anything" to which he can point as a definite success. It has been Germany's task to defend vigorously many strategic points and where the British have penetrated the enemy's line he has been forced to spend an enormous number of lives in efforts to recapture those joints. So heavily has he been engraged th.at Mr. Robinson estimates that during the year the total number. ,of Germans flung into the fray has exceeded numerically the whole German . army. Many of the' divisions' have been cut to. pieces and have hjßen withdrawn from' the line reconditioning. The Brk tish army consisting of men who have been drawn from all parts of the Empire has never claimed to be a first-class pantding- force trained by years of discipline and reviews, but it has shown itself far more powerful in the field. Its morale is uniformly high and all Tanks ihave shown a couragre and sense of duty which have completely nonplussed the Germans. Clerks, labourers, sportsmen and men who never gave a thought to war in peace times have come forward in their thousands and within a few months have been pitted against the greatest troops in the world, beating them in every branch of the terrible business.- The Prussian Guards have on various occasions been severely, beaten by the men of Britain and her . colonies, and they have good cause" to remember that the British spirit, whether it be shown in the men of the Old Country Canada or Australasia, refuses to know defeat. At LaR-nicourt the Kaiser's' best troops received thorough defeat from the Australians and -at Messines the New Zealanders showed German^ that they weve equal to. any task. We believe that ' it is very largely due to the freer methods adopted by the British that our men have achieved such fame. The German army is trained- ' as - a body and in /its constitution the indivWnal *01-' is counted;' asf of small vah'o. l The' Prussian system is blind to the losses '- entailed : by " its . methods and '

provided it can claim the capture of any place of strategic value it does not care very much how many men it loses in the process. It is the carrying of the German line to its objectives, whatever the resistance, that appeals to the enemy's leaders. We saw that very plainly at Verdun and we have news of a similar method in the Crown Prince's effort on the twelve-mile front from Jouy to Ciaonne where great efforts with dense formations have been made during the past few weeks to break the French front. The effort to re capture Bullecourt was also a costly busines for the Germans. The British command and also the French hold a different opinion and the cost in men is a first consideration. If the objective can be taken with a minimum of losses then the attack is launched, but on the other hand the. Allied 'leaders, if they find that the enemy defence is too powerful, are willing to take the slower course of thoroughly reducing the defence by systematic arfd incessant artillery fire until the enemy's works are so shattered and his men exhausted that the infantry can proceed without fear of defeat. In other words it may be said that the British and French regard the individual soldier as of more worth than large captures of territory at unreasonable cost. Of course, there must be times when it is necessary to lose heavily to thwart what would be a great enemy success. .Thus we find that the German army has • suffered enormous losses during the British and French offensives and it has failed to stop the advance definitely at any one point. The German position has become one of tremendous difficulty — the army cannot retreat with any hope of safety and the longer it endeavours to hold the territory which it gained from Belgium and France must be its ultimate defeat. The hard-worked troops must in turn be passed through tlie mill and each- time they will be much reduced in strength. The fears of the enemy's leaders were expressed in the Reichstag when the War Minister stated that the British had presumably planned feTeater actions north of Arras, the Russian offensive was more energetic, and the abandonment of the Salonika enterprise was improbable. The only ray of hope which he would show was • the statement: that the French were exhausted, a statement which, we believe, 'the Crown Prince; at' anv rate, would not for the" moment be -prepared to admit. The speaker, it may br noted, had nothi"^r 'o say con cp.frn'ng the Italians. Tf the results of the next three months nve as definite in the West as those achicvd durincr the la c t thvpp. .nnrl if J?"scin cor\Hnu { .c on her wav without inter-* mptinn n-°rnia"v rr>"=t he thrvnuirlii'-' hep^n before the winter crtc ?n. ,i« f l ft is vr"* v nuosH'-'vniilr v>-ho<her the r^itv-il TWo,.c x.-iii be able to under♦"■ikc another winter.