ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express. TUESDAY; AUGUST 7, 1917. Notes on the War

Marlborough Express, Volume LI, Issue 185, 7 August 1917, Page 4

ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express. TUESDAY; AUGUST 7, 1917. Notes on the War

. Foi- the,sixtly;fcfr_e. Czernowitz, ha,s, been captured, thfe iahious, Bukovina; town being now pnce .again in. the hands of the ; A^strp-Germans!. ( . The fatis of. Czernowitzi hy being the, scene of so ihfiny'sanguinary,! encounters is even worse ; than ••, 'was !that of St. Quentin during.. .the,' .Franco-J?r.ussiaJi War, when the French town!, was twice captured' by £t'he"" Prussians and twice recaptured !b^„the French, only, finally, to fall into the possession of the invaders. The;loss,of Cssernowitz is .a grievous blow, to. the Russians, lor it is a place of considerable strategical importance, being re? garded as the key to south-western Russia. It is, however, somewhat premature for fears to be entertained, such as we read of in yesterday's cablegrams, of its capture' being the opening stage in ..a campaign which would tead the enemy to Odessa. Unless Russia has ;gone irretrievably to pieces—and, bad as its present condition is, it is difficult to believe it is so bad as tha _f-the enemy should find the task of penetrating through Roumaiiia into south-western Russia and making his way to Odessa far too lengthy ,and arduous a task to be accomplished before! the earlv winter rains make the roads impassable for his artillery. That the enemy would like to reach Odessa is only natural, and that he will spare no effort to do so is equally conceivable. For at Odessa are stored millions of bushels of grain \yhjch would be a rich prize tor the invaders, a' prize specially welcome at a time ;;like the .present, :when the German liarvest is understood to be much below the average. Even should the worst come to the worst and. Odessa be reached, the bulk of the gram, stored at Russia's greatest commercial port on the Black Sea would probably be removed or destroyed long' before the enemy succeeded in reaching the citv. There is, however,, probably a .good deal of truth m the cablegram emanating :_omxr e Stockhohn correspondent of the New York World,, who reports ■that; the people of ' the Central Empires are being "skilfully prepared to receive news of the /petering' out' ot the offensive against Russia." Hindenburg may be doing a bit of •gallery play, or he' may realise that he simply has-not the troops to spare tor a further advance.

Last week, -so the French Premier told tlie Chamber of Deputies, was the most critical week of the war." 1 his may or may not mean that M Ribot feared some serious upheaval in ..rench politics as the result of che split between the Socialists and the Government. Or it mav mean, which might, as regards immediate results, be lar worse, that there has been some danger of Italv and Austria coming to an - agreement about tlie Irentino, and of a separate peace being concluded; lry these 1 owers. It must not be forgotten that Italian foreign policy, the policy of a country of which Machiavelli was .1 son, has always been characterised by a certain subtlety. But it is almost inconceivable that Italv would follow the disgraceful example of Germany m treating a solemn international agreement as "a mere scrap of paper," and break the pledge mutually made by the Allies of tlie Entente that no separate peace treaty would be made the terms ot which were not agreed to by her partners. Jt is a thousand pities that M. Ribot could not have stated exactly what it was which made last week the "most critical week of the war."

From New York, that natural nome ot jounialistie sensationmongering, comes a confident prediction that the days of the Lloyd -reorge Government are numbered, and that Mr Balfour will be the next Prime Minister. The' story comes originally from the London correspondent of the New York Tribune, who, however, refrains from stating the exact grounds for the belief he has expressed. The hostility to Winston Miurclnll is, lie says, : increasing. Which is not in the least astonishing, tor in view of the extraordinary disclosures made before the Dardanelles Commissiou as to that gentleman's yet more extraordinary conduct with legal_ to tlie movements of the Fleet in connection with the Gallipoli venture it ls to us, quite inexplicable that he should ever have been taken back into the Cabinet and entrusted witli so important a port-

folio as that of Minister for Munitions. Still, this is scarcely enough lo warrant a prediction of Mr Lloyd George's coining downfall,' still less his replacement by such a weak though no doubt personally amiable a man as Mr Balfour; and we must refuse all credence to the rumor until further evidence of ' the predicted Ministerial break-up is forthcoming.

Many vile, indeed/unspeakably atrocious crimes have been committed by the Germans during the war, but no more- horrible and abominable act has ever been attributed ,yto a so-called y civilised nation than that- .whdeii • ■ has been reported in the lease \eh the destruction of the steamer , Belgian Prince. It is a stoiy of foul and deliberate murder, a murder so utterly atrocious in its details as to .be almost incredible. Apparently, the German commander had made up ; his mind that not a single member, of "the illfated steamer's ;crew? should survive to tell the work! .what an irreclaimable savage the*latter-day Hun has become. Fortunately,, however, his villainous project failed, for survivors there were, and -these .have told a tale at which the ..whole: civilised world will stand' aghast with horror. No wonder, when such deeds as these are made public, British seamen and firemen should. refuse to man steamers which will take creatures of the Ramsay MacDonald type to Stockholm, there to take part in the extreme Socialist conspiracy to bring about a peace which would leave the murderers of British.. seamen unpunished and unavenged. These peace-at-any-pric(j makers would fain pose as the friends,! and champions of democracy. - As a matter of fact, they are the basest traitors to and bitterest enemies, of all true democracy. A "compromise peace" wouldx leave Germany, \yhioh;.stands as the embodiment of autocracy;-in such,-t ;i positionas to make;it all too probable' :that'within 'a; very few vears she j would; he the tyrant-dictator of not* only Europe but of the whole world." Witlv _ triumphant Germany demo^ cracy "would be a ; lost and ■'irretrievably ruined cause. »' •-:.