NOTES ON THE WAR.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17079, 31 January 1916, Page 6

NOTES ON THE WAR.

The feature of the day's news from the western theatre is the persistence of the German attacks in Artois and Pieardv 'Hie activity extended from Lens southwards to the region of Chaulnes. on a front, that is to say, of about/forty miles. The attack was not pushed everywhere with the same onergv, and seems rather to have been in the nature of a simultaneous number of local a,nd positional offensives, the centres of importance being the much-contested Hill 140, just south of Givenchv. the Neuville sector, Roolincourt, and the St Laurent sector, immediatclv north of Arras, the sector east of Albert and that immediately south of the Somme. For the most pnrt these actions call for no special notes. The position of Hill 140 was sufficientlv described the other day. Eoclincourt is less than three miles north-east of Arras, 011 the road to Lens, and St Laurent and St Nicholas are suburbs of Arras.

The Teport concerning the German attack at Carnoy comes from the British headquarters. This is on the sector lately taken over by the British, immediately east of Albert. Mametz, on the same sector, was recently mentioned as a point at which fighting had occurred, and then, as now, it was a. British force that was concerned. No indication has been igiven of the extent of front held by the British in this region, the reports indicating only a small sector, but there is no reason to doubt! that the transfer of tho trenches from French to British is steadily processing, and it would be sound poliov on tho part of tho enemy to maintain attacks while the work is proceeding. South of the Somme the trenches are held by the French. Frise, where the Germans managed to' penetrate the Allied first lino, is on the left bank of the river. Onco or twice, by the way, French attacks have been threatened at this point, but apparently the German defences were too well organised to permit progress.

Freiburg im Broisgau, which has been subjected to bombardment by a French dirigible, by way of reprisal, is a famous city in its way. It gave its name to one of the big battles of the Thirty Years' War. a sanguinary struggle which at one time appeared to have ended in an expensive failure for tho Frcttch, but which ultimately, through the retreat of Bavarians and Austrians, left, the French masters of the Rhine valley from Basel to Coblenz. Freiburg is a citv about the same sizo'as Christchurch, at the foot of the Black Forest range. It has a famous university, dating from the fifteenth century, and a great library. Tt has one of the finest Gothic churches in Germany, built in tho twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with a tower rising nearly 400 feet. This: building is praised because of artistic completeness, but its chief glory is the spire of exquisite openwork in stone. Freiburg, being on one of the main highways, enjoyed great prosperity in medieval times, and for the same reason it was frequently involved in warfare. It is no longer a. fortified town, but in bygone days it suffered many sieges.

The news that Sir Percy Lake has joined General Aylmer indicates that the Commander-in-Chief, who lately succeeded iSir John Nixon, is assuming tho personal direction of the relief operation's. No hint is given whether reinforcements have reached the relieving column on the Tigris, but it may bo assumed that troops are being hastened up the Tigris as rapidly as possible. A portion of the Indian contingetu.. which formerly was fighting in Flanders, is now stated to have reached Basra, so that it is clearly intended to develop tho campaign in Mesopotamia on a larger scale. Meantime a second relief column is marching north by the Sbntt-el-Hai. the old channel by which the waters of the Tigris used to flow down to join the Euphrates. A few years ago this channel was still navigable, but according to recent reports the course is virtually dry during the season of low river. At present, however, the Shatt-el-Hai is sure to be full of water. From Nnsiriyoh, on the Euphrates, which was occupied by the British in July, there is a. inarch of 120 miles to Kut-el-Amara, and although the country is not likely to be as swampy as that on the banks of the Tigris, it is hardly likely that the Nasiriyeh column will be able to advance at all rapidly.

Not the least interesting of the war news this morning is Mr Lansing's attempt to adapt the former rules of international law regarding merchant vessels in war time to the modern coaditions. The submarine attacks on commerce and passenger ships have to be accepted as an established feature of warfare, and Mr Lansing's task has been to devise a code of rules embodying, as far as prssiblo. the principles of the former law. From the neutral point of view the proposition may appear reasonable enough. Theoretically no merchantman is liable to be sunk, the rule being that if a. ship of war encounters a, trading vessel belonging to the enemy it shall put a prize crew aboard and send rlie capture to port. The only exception to this rule is in the case when the warship cannot eon-

venientlv send the capture to port. Tho custom of nations then provides that tho merchantman may be sunk, but tho crew and passengers must first he removed to safety.

Tt is obviously impossible for a German submarine to send British merchantmen to German-porta, and therefor the rule should apply that the crews and passengers should be allowed to leave in the ship's boats before the ship is sunk. There is small prospect of the Germans and Austrians accepting so humane and civilised a rule, for the murder of non-combatants is an essential feature of their war policy But Mr Lansing's proposal, apparently, is that the Germans should be left without a shadow of excuse for murder. A merchantman desiring tho protection of international law, he thinks, should be absolutely unarmed, so that by no stretch of imagination could it be regarded as a ship of war. The obvious objection to this idealistic suggestion is that international law provides no protection against a barbarous policy of the systematic murder of non-combatants, and that therefor merchant ships must adopt whatever measures they can for their own protection. _^_