Nelson Evening Mail. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1917. SITUATION ON WESTERN FRONT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume L, Issue 175, 26 October 1917, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1917. SITUATION ON WESTERN FRONT.

THE new French attack on the Aisne front and the .marked success that has followed the effort brings into prominence again the whole strategic situation oh the Western front so far as we are permitted to know the factsi The immediate purpose of the attack, it is stated, in!,to-day's cables, is to finally and completely thrust the enemy off the crest of the line. ' Then there is the British offensive further north. It must be remembered that,no isolated .action is now taken. All the time a definite purpose is being pursued. To appreciate at all justly the meaning of ajiy episode such as the latest . series of operations round Ypres or the French attack on the Aisne front, it is necessary that a broad view be taken of _ the whole field so far as the. published facts will permit. This, Mr E. F. Allen takes in one of his rece,nt articles on the war, and his survey will be read with interest at the present time. By the beginning of last April the British and French,. he says, had gathered in the fruits of their victories of the preceding . autumn on the Somme. The Germans, with very heavy losses, had been forced . to retire from a strong series of outer positions to the so-called '.'Hindenburg line,'.' which, with its northern and southern, integral extensions, was based on the Dpuai-Cambrai-St. Quen-tin-Laon line. It covered those four ] places, but ran perilously close to one of. them, namely, St. Quentin. At the Laon end the Hindenburg line was buttressed bv the St. Gobain massif, some 12 miles north of Soissons, and other heights to the south, on the other side of tho Ailette 'River. These latter heights, formed the -westeffi escarpment of the Ohemin des Dames plateau. Eastward between, the plateau and, the Aisne. as far as Berry-au-Bac, north-east of Rheims, ran the old German lines, held bv the enemy ever since the withdrawal after the battle of the JMarne. South of the St. Gobam massif, the Hindenburg, line, as extended^ southward linked fun with the old German lines. At Berry-au-Bac those lines crossed the Aisne, bending down, round the north. andL east of Rheims, and then running due east across the_Ghainj pagne country—theatre of the French September offensive of the Argonne, after crossing which they closed round Verdun. East of Rheims, where the ■ German lines bend to traverse the Champagne, country, . they were buttressed by the rMoronvillers massifs. For the main.French offensive operations of the current _ year the points to bear specially m. mind are the St. Gobain massif, the Chemin des Dames plateau, and the Moron villers massif, 'in addition, of course to the bitterly disputed heights round Verdun. Running; from the .environs of bt. Quentin generally north-westward to Queant, about twelve, miles west of Cambrai, the Hindenburg line was continued to a few miles east of Arras, where, at that time, the beginning of April, it ioined up with the old German lines on the Vimy Ridge and from the ridge to Dens. Lens, with its protecting Vimy Ridge, was not only an important nodal point of road and rail communication . for several towns on one side or other of the front, and the southern outpost barring ;the way to Lille, but also the bastion of the left flank of the Hindenburg line. Lille itself is an outpost guarding the. approach to the Scheldt and Lvs A richt-of-way into those valleys would offer to the ; Allies, an opportunity of turning and rendering hopelessly_un tenable the whole of Germans on the Belgian, coast North of Lens, the Germans were strongly posted on which the British failed to carrv in the Loos of .1915. and which were still denied to them m soite of many, local subsequent attacks Farther north still, were, the strongly fortified German lines passing west ot La Bassee, and east of Armentieresto the Messines-Wvtschaete R^S e V ™ enemy stronghold south of the Ipres client. These, fortified lines, with the Messines-Wvtschaete Ridge barred the approaches 'to Lille from the west and north-west. Next came the Yores salient, with the Germans posted, so to speak, on the raised saucer edge, while the British were confined to a sorely constricted area in the dip of the saucer, for the little pocket in which Ypres lies is bounded on the south east, and north-east by a semi-circle of heights-only a few miles from the centre of the town, and(these were all in German hands. North lient the front ran along the Yser Canal to Dixmude and across the dunes somo two-thirds of a mile east of the canal in the neighbourhood of Nieuport to end on the seashore. »The whole of. the front described above ha* been more or at one stage or another in the_operfttions arising out of the Allied offensive of the present year. When, by the heginning of April,- the of the Somme victories had been reaped the Anglo-French commands found the Hindenburg Hue a' formidable barr er powerfully held. * hey kept im. pressure on it and continued to make slight tactical advances here. and there,

nibbling at it, they would seem for the time, at any rate, to have abandoned the idea of attempting any great frontal attack upon it or any portions of it. Instead they began new offensives on its flanks, seemingly with the intention of turning the line and compelling a retreat from it in due time, though the operations, more especially on the northern flank, opened up other strategical possibilities in addition. Hence on- April 9 the British made the. thrust whch drove the enemy back east of Aras and wrested from them the Vimy Ridge. This successful venture was a hard blow at the. weakest point of the Hindenburg line, its link with the northern defence system centring at Lens. The last-mentioned place was- also seriously threatened from the south, and might have been taken by the Canadians had Sir Douglas Haig been willing to >pay in losses the heavy price the intricate mesh of enemy machinegun fortifications would have exacted. He preferred to spend time rather than men in reducing a place which must inevitably fall to his troops ere long. The Vimy victory compelled the Germans to make a new switch connection for their Hindenburg line farther to the east, and this, the Lens-Mericourt-Oppy switch, is a very frail link in their front.

A week after the Arras-Vimy operation the French undertook an. offensive on the other flank of the Hindenburg line, which resulted, after somewhat prolonged and fluctuating fighting, in their establishing themselves firmly on the Chemin des Dames plateau and making some impression, though _not a decisive one, on the German position ori the Moronvillers massif. But the toll paid in these actions and the longdrawn counter-actions of the • Germans was too high. The French for a considerable time were engaged fighting desperately to retain their gains, and up till this week had attempted nothing in conformity with the large strategic purpose which tho combined AngloFrenctfi offensives of April on the two flanks of the Hindenburg line implied. To the British, assisted by a few French divisions in the latest phases of the forward movement, has fallen the task of sustaining the major offensive on the Western front. A new phase was opened with General Plumer's capture of the Wytschaete-Mes-sines Ridge on June 7, but the thrusts which have marked the progress of the new phase have alternated with and sometimes synchronised with further thursts (now mainly from the north) on Lens, and consequently on the weak northern flank of tire Hindenburg line

The Ypres salient has been the theatre of the new phase of the offensive. Three big thrusts, on July 31, August 16, and optember 20, with the usual consequent desperate counter-attacks and minor thrusts to consolidate gains, .were successfully carried.out by the armies under Sir Douglas Haig before . the last moderately big thrust, of, the 26th inst. These thrusts, the details of which need not be. recapitulated here, since they have been graphically depicted in our cable messages, have given the Allies virtual command of the semi-circle of heights round Ypres, destroyed all German hope of a major offensive through against the French Channel ports, and laid solidly the foundations for a future Allied offensive to clear the Belgian coast from Germans—an important point in its bearing on submarine and aerial ra?ding—or for a combined British British and French effort to turn both flanks of the Hindenburg line and force a general retreat as soon as the Americans appear in force on the stricken fields of Frapce. Apart from its strategic bearings, the progress of the Britislv offensive has a notable significance because of its convincing testimony to British mastery of tactics and British • superiorly ty in what was once the great' German specialty—-precise and scientific conduct of the 'business" of war in. all it 3 manifold branche.s. t ; .