THE CAMPAIGNS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17100, 24 February 1916, Page 6

THE CAMPAIGNS.

The communiques arc never , very expansive, but as a rule their economy of language and of news is bearable because there is little of consequence to be reported, but their brevity is very trying at a time like the present, when big events are in progress and when the Allied lines are being subjected to an unusually severe series of tests. YY e have as vet no indication that the German offensive is other than a number of simultaneous local and positional attacks, and the narrow front affected in each of the fights concerning which wc have been given information leaves little room for doubt on the point, but 'the intensity of these local efforts seems to be quite exceptional. So far the Germans in France have shown nothing approaching in magnitude the sustained offensive developed by tbe French in Artois or Champagne or by the British at boos, but wc rend of sections of trenches obliterated by their artillery fire and of hot and almost irresistible short rushes that carry the battered first line positions and occasionally reach the second lino. Clearly there lias been a strengthening of the German artillery on most sectors, and probably also a. special concentration at certain points, and it. is beginning to be apparent that tbe continued activity is covering a bigger movement and preparing the way for it. At any rate we have every reason to expect that the diffused assaults will subside and that the purpose of them will he revealed in the development of a great concentrated attack. The natural assumption is that, while on special sectors like the Somme-Arras and ArrasHens fronts a local explanation of the attacks is admissible, the intention of the policy of the past week has been to distract the attention of French and British from the districts where the main attack is being prepn»ed. If this is ihe case, we shall find the enemy shortly rushing his. reserves to the appointed sectors, launching his gas clouds with the first favourable wind, and hurling his waves of men at the trenches he has beer, battering. Our deductions may he unsound, but wo shall watch the western theatre rather anxiously during the next. week or two.

There has been comparatively little movement in the other theatres, but the Italians announce that they have been carrying out a methodical offensive in spite of the seasonal difficulties. In the Armenian region the Russians are now, apparently, developing a movement against Trebizond. Troops have been transported from Batum by sea and landed on the coast east of the city and Rizeh. forty miles clue east of Trebizond, is now in Russian hands.