THE WAR ON LAND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23618, 30 March 1940, Page 10

THE WAR ON LAND

March has almost passed without either Aide launching an offensive. Certainly the campaigning season is still young, hut it may be noted that in the Great War the Armies wero joined in major engagements in every spring before March had ended. On February 16 in 101;"), for instance, the French opened an attack in the Champagne which in the first two weeks of a six weeks' battle cost them 240,000 men. The British Army was at the time small in numbers, but managed by March 10 to start the minor but successful offensive of Neuve-Chapelle. In the following year the Russians, in spite of the terrific battering received in Calicia and Poland in the summer of 1015, took the initiative in the high altitudes of the Caucasus early in January and had' captured Erzerurn from (he Turks by the middle of February. Germany began the grimmest and costliest operation of the war against Verdun on February 21. 1016. The problems that h;id to be solved in that action against a fortress position are comparable with those on the Western Front to-day. The German position on the Ancre, nort.li of the Somnie battlefield, was intricately and strongly fortified. Nevertheless, in January and February of the following year, 1017, in the midst of one of the cruellest winters on record, the British sustained activity with success in this sector for six weeks and followed up on April 0 by launching a striking advance from Arras. Finally in 1018 the enemy started his "blitzkrieg" against the British on March 21, and had progressed a dangerously long way before the month was out. On this occasion the stalemate on land is unbroken. If it continues much longer, the idea that Germany feels economically strong enough to stand on the defensive will gain substance. Her military ■ disposition and outlook has never been defensive, however, and it will be strange and not unwelcome if she does in fact surrender the initiative to the Allies, losing the advantage conferred by her complete nnd intensive preparations in advance..