BRITISH SOLDIER THE BEST MATERIAL IN EUROPE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3247, 3 July 1917, Page 2

BRITISH SOLDIER THE BEST MATERIAL IN EUROPE.

By FRANK H. SYMONDS,

(Author of "The Ureal War, "Thou Shalt Not l'ass.") In a very ablo and very interesting article in the New York "Tribune" for .March I>, Mr. Symonds, who knows tiie war zone as very few laymen do, deals wtili the "lirifci.su Armies, somewhere in France."' It w'll Ih> recalled that ho was quite recently on the Western front, and, alter describing the details and the organisation ot the British Army in France, he goes on to say:— The now ground which the British have token over of the Soninie is less broken and has been more heavily fortified by the Germans than any |>ortion of the Noyon salient; that is, the portion of the'r line nearest to Paris. As it stands, the British now occupy something like one hundred'and twentyfive miles out of a total of four hundred and fiity miles ot t/ie westernfront. Hut tlio portion held by the British lias been the scene of almost all of the severe fighting, aside from the attack of the Germans at Verdun and the French in Champagne, during the la.st two years of titencli warfare. It is, too,* the mojt difficult stretch, long sections of the French front, notably the Yosges districts, beuig totally unsuited for any operations. BRITISH EXTENSION TO THE ELBOW AT NOYON. flio (luestion of a further extension ot tho British front remains oj>en. My guess would be that some time this year the British may take over a,s far south as the Oise. This would make a natural dividing po'nt and would greatly simplify the question of transport, for the British would thus occupy all the sectors ltetween the Channel and the great l>end or elbow in the line at Noyon. Tlr.s would mean but a slight increase in British linos, materially loss than twenty miles. If tho Germans should attack the French, as they did last year, U is probable that this extension would take place promptly. On the other hand, the demands upon Bnt'sh numbers elsewhere are considerable ; there is a strong force at Salonika, another in Egypt, and a third in Mesopotamia, while the British navy requires many hundred.; cf thousandis of men. Uriti.-li man power for the front is aKo limited, Ikm a use Brita'n is supplying her allies with many things from her workshops and mines. It may bo doubted, therefore, if the British front will ever be extended beyond Oise, but iH'tween Hove and Ypres on the present British front, and fighting is huely to bo more desperate and more sustained than any fighting so far 'n tho British field of operations, and there is a calm recognition in Britain that British losses. which last year amounted to about Lv/O.tXM) at the Sonime alone, will pass the million mark. !t rema'ns now to d'seuss the condition of the British army. 1 think there is a general agreement tliat its morale and its efficiency have reached the point where it has become one of the effective national armies. All that I Maw of it reminded me of the accounts that 1 have read and heard of Grant's army in 1864, when ho started his great campaign from tee Wilderness to Petersburg.

.t i.s well to remember that tJi's British army, like Grant's, is now mainly a volunteer army. Only a few of the recruits that were obtained by conscription have begun to arrive at the front. A very large number of the officers have come from rivil ltfo and the men themselves represent the very lx>st of the British population.

THIS BEST MATERIAL IX EUROPE. Physically, my gues* is that tlio British army to-day includes t/he hest material in Europe. Watching the thousands »and thousand's of troops along the roads, in the training <>nnips, and hack of tlve front, the impression is liunris-ta-kable of young phys'eally fit and welltrained soldiers. I was iu France during a period of zero weather, unprecedented in recent years. Xoth'ng wan more striking than the impression of health and of vigour given by the men I saw along all the roads. Tiiey seemed well fed, well cared for, and in striking contrast to the soldiers one saw in our own camps during the Spanish Wat Certa'nly the question of health luw been settled with marvellous siuvess by tho British. As to the spirit of the army, it is hard to exaggerate the confidence of officers and men. For two years the British army held its ground in the face of an army superior in num- ' hers, possessing every kind of implement of modern warfare that German prevision could supply. The British infantry was only in a ridiculously .slight degree helped by it-o artillery, because there were lacking both the guns and the high explosive munitions which had become the prune essentials of modern war. They also lacked machine-gums, having only a very few, perhaps one to twenty as compared with the Germans. Through all this jjeriod, largely through the grit and determination of the private solider, who made bom Its out of meat tins and who used all his ingenuity to prov'ue weapons to meet his foe armed with all the Krupp resources, the British stuck to it. f They opposed flesh to machinery, and either died where they stood or were sacrificed iu hopeless attacks—attacks made hopeless by the absence of artillery support. To-day the British are pending four V shells to the German one. British ar-*~*T tdlery outnumbers and outreaches the f German. The supply of munitions far exceeds the German. At the battle of the Somnie the British aviators had control of the air, and Gerni in artillery "shot into tho blue."' It was the Germans who were then handicapped by the failure of their artillery to support them.

•• TOP I) 0(;" AT LAST. To-day. from one end ot the British front to the other, there is going forward an endless and ceaseless pounding, and under it the German strength is beginning to weaken. Ihe British soldier sees day after day German deserters coming in : he has the confidence which a slow but Mire progress forward .rive-: and lie feels himself to be top \ dog." Ha\ ing held his ground •iif tbe terrible months when lie destitute alike of munitions and plements of war, having held the German at. the moment when the Gorman organisation and morale were at their highest point. the British soldier now fool si that his superiority must give him a virtorv where, while still inferior, »io checked the most powerful Germqp 11 There is little foolish optimism in the miml of the man in the french- H does not talk m terms ot the capture ot Berlin or the collapse of tho Armv. He does not talk much Mt ••starving Germany out" or »hout infernal revolutions in Germain. But so tar ns ho talks ot all no talks of definite evidences in<' largely viable through this poris("p;> and disclosed to him when he goes m raids.