PROGRESS OF THE WAR

New Zealand Times, Volume XL, Issue 9094, 13 July 1915, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

At the Guildhall the keynote of the Government policy was struck by Sir E. Carson, with the plainest intimation that the Government desire the same to be applied to puhljg opinion. We have the utmost confidence in the War Minister, and we insist that the whole Empire shall share that feeling and make it the mainspring of their attitude towards the war. It is quite the logical attitude, considering who Lord Kitchener is, what he has done, and Uffiat he has been set to do. It is more, it is a vindication of Lord Kitchener against the criticism to which the Harmsworth press has been treating the marshal lately. The munitions problem solved, the Government is trusting to Lord Kitchener to see the war to the bitter end. « » • Lord Kitchener having made a spe cial appeal to the nation, only the other day, the speech of the AttorneyGeneral about him is very suggestive. “We have the utmost confidence in the marshal; we ask you to have the same ; if you give him the last man as he asked for, good and well; if you do not, let no one doubt that we shall come down with a Conscription Bill, rush it through Parliament, and put it into force.” That is the plain meaning of Sir Edward Carson’s speech. If any chance of doubt remained aftoi the Attorney-General had sat down, the speech of Lord Derby removed it promptly. He spoke as one connected with the recruiting'department, knowing all its secrets. With full knowledge and a due sense of responsibility, therefore, he told the Empire from the central distributing point of the Guildhall that the full tide of recruiting which so greatly pleased the nation and surprised the world by the enrolment of millions of men, has eno ed, and been replaced by a drought. A plain intimation that the voluntary system is not satisfying the great requirement of the situation as defined by Lord Kitchener’s demand for the last man. Lord Derby also went on to say that if this drought went on the last man -would be forthcoming nevertheless by process of compulsory service. • * * The Attorney-General had said that if the hope in the voluntary system broke down there would he compulsion, and the recruiting authority added that the hope had been disappointed, and that if it did not get an improved outlook the power of compulsion would be used. The conclusion is almost obvious that the meeting at the Guildhall was held to sound the advent of compulsory service. That seems to bo the main stamp impressed by the chief speakers on the meeting. • ♦ • We confess wo were prepared for such a happening, for the coalition of parties into a National Government looked very much as if it had been caused by the acknowledgment of the necessity for compulsory service. It is the thing required to complete the confidence the Allies of Britain'ought to have in her expressed determination' to use the whole of her resources for the vigorous prosecution of the war. The French and the Hussions are using compulsory service as the logical consequence of the duty of the manhood of their countries, and always their

people are asking when tho Kitchener armies are going to, De based on that principle. They have been informed by both tho present Government and by its predecessor that the voluntary principle can be relied on to bring the British nation into equality of war service with its Allies. But it is declared now by the statement of Lord Derby, made with official knowledge and sense of responsibility, that the things are not turning out quite as they have expected. Tho admission is necessarily an announcement that the same compulsory service will be exacted in Britain as m France, Belgium, Italy, and Russia, our Allies, and in the enemy countries of Germany, Austria, and Turkey. If it is not, the neglect to exact it will, after Lord Derby’s admission of the failure of recruiting, be followed by a loss of confidence in Britain by the Allies of Britain. That is the logic of the Guildhall position. . » * * The old argument embodied in the phrase current in the British Navy, that a volunteer is equal to three pressed men, was supported by Mr Churchill in one of his speeches on the subject, in which he said he had seen statistics which proved that out of 50,000 pressed men in the Napoleonic wars, over 40,000 had deserted. Kmglake in his Crimean war, dw'elt much on the superiority of the volunteer soldier—the man who takes to war of deliberate choice, directed by a sense of patriotism plus a martial instinct. Sir lan Hamilton, m the reply he drew up with and for Lord Haldane against Lord Roberts, took the same line with considerable ability and power, showing especially that in the matter of foreign service the British people had proved that only tn> voluntary principle can maintain 'armies, and that no nation possessed it like the British. But these arguments cannot be urged in the present case. In the first place they would be insulting to the armies of our Allies, which are fighting with a gallantry and patriotic spirit inferior u> none, am. secondly one of the heads of the recruiting department has admitted that tho recruiting is not keeping up to the proper mark. ♦ • * The. time, moreover, has come to relieve the French of a portion of their share in ' the defence of the lines of . France and Flanders. It is the lion’s share. They have held it for all the war period. Their proportion was assigned to them because of the inability of tho British army as then constituted to hold any more ground than they were set to hold. It was the wonder and the admiration of everybody that the British army held as mu oh ground as it did. In that respect the appreciative admiration Cf the French troops is as generous as anything can possibly be even among the most chivalrous people. But the facts have changed. The British army has increased Jinnumbers very greatly, and the strength of the French army has been proved unequal to the holding much longer of tho great length of trenches at present occupied .by the French troops. The British army must now take a larger share, relieving the French of that part of the burden they ought not to be called upon any longer to carry. Lord Kitchener has declared that to enable the British army to perform this duty as it ought to be performed if the Allied armies are to expect victory to crown their standards, he must have tho power, of reinforcing them to the last man capable of bearing arms in Britain, and Lord Derby has practically said that ini all probability voluntary recruiting will not supply that last man. .The shadow of the coming event—compulsory service—is projected heavily from the Guildhall oyer the situation.

• * • Some force of the new armies has already got into Flanders, as we learn for the first time from Sir John French’s last dispatch—another of the series of great dispatches in which this fine master of war is writing the history of the great campaign in which the and his men arc taking a distinguished and,increasing part. Speaking of the new divisions, the Marshal describes them as “thoroughly well officered and commanded,” their equipment he declares to be “in good order and efficient,” and of the shooting of their artillery, he pronounces it “ extremely good.” This, considering the short tiine of preparation—a fraction of the time usually held by professional soldiers to be necessary for the turning out of efficient troops—is an astonishing tribute, and a tremendous testimony to the value of Lord Kitchener ns a rapid organiser of soldiers on a great scale, fit to go anywhere and do anything.. The character of these new troops, efficient, of good physique, and “good diggers,” gives great, body to Lord Kitchener’s statement that he now has arms and equipment for as many men as the nation can give him—--4n fact, for every man able to bear arms of military age in the nation. It is no wonder the “pioneer battalions have-,” to use Marshal Frendh’s words, “created-a very favourable impression” in the great school of soldiers who have been proving for eleven months that they know the business of soldiering from A to Z. As the Marshal gives similar certificate to, the Territorials, who have been for some time in the firing line—ever since the London Scottish gave such a grand account of themselves in front of Ypres—there is nothing more to be said about the British Army, except that it has attained to Continental numbers with a style and character equal to its highest traditions. With the enlistment of the whole male population of the fighting ages, the army will play the 'leading part due to its numbers and its quality. Britain will no longer be a negligible quantity in the diplomacy of Europe by reason of the smallness of her power of fighting on land. * * • The rest of the tells the story of the very near thing which the surprise use of gas made of the last battle of Ypres. It tells at the same time that the days of the su premacy of gas are numbered, for this deliberately cruel and barbarous device, used in deliberate violation of the usages of civilised war and the Hague Convention, will never again be able to surprise or overwhelm. What else our people are going to do about it beyond the use of the defensive respirator has not been mentioned. But Lord Kitchener very definitely told the House of Lords some weeks since that there would be retaliation. For that, as the gas has met with its antidote the respirator, we are content to wait with steady patience. • ■ * » The rest of the despatch accentuates the history we have been following, with most interesting summary, and closes with a most encouraging description of the spirit and gallantry of the troops. With such troops, and the great improvement of the munition supply j it is difficult to imagine that

the present lines will hold the Allies for another winter. It is possible that the Germans will try another great assault or series of assaults in the endeavour to break through. It is probable that these will be repulsed. It is probable also that they will sensibly exhaust the German attacking power. Therefore, wo think the prediction, to which we alluded the other day, of an impending great “drive.” is one to be kept very hopefully in mind. In military circles July has been fixed for the month of this,operation. What if it were to begin before the German assaults can he delivered? We hear vaguely of various German Army Corps pointing for Belgium and Flanders with great guns and much equipment. But they Mo not materialise. What does the great meeting of chiefs in Flanders portend? And what the striking inspection of the aimy by Lord Kitchener? We hope for tho best.

For the national effort the Registration Act is now ready, and for the munitions department of the same, the enrolment of 95,000 workers has brought the organisation to such a pitch that the authorities consider it can now be safely left to the Labour Exchanges' to keep up the supply of skilled workers, who, moreover, are uot to he used in the firing line any more. In this department there is no wastage of war, and therefore no question of reinforcements. Once established, as it indeed is, the organisation will go on. Having national unity behind it, the organisation .can be depended on to, go through the ivar with flying colours. The Russians are adopting similar plans, and their people are subscribing the money. A factory at Moscow that has cost a million is just opening and as tho supply of workers is the one thing best assured in Russia we may hope that at last the munition question in Russia is no longer dependent on the Siberian railway, _or the port of Archangel, or the opening of the Dardanelles. To clinch the recruiting question, Mr Thomas has assured the workers that ,the whole nation must be made to show the same energy and solidity, perseverance and self-sacrifice be asks from them, addi.ng that if the others do not do their duty the workers will inevitably revolt. What more can be said to show tho imminence of compulsory service ?

Petrograd reports the further defeat and retirement of the Archduke’s army which the, other day was strlickso hard as it was' making for Lublin. That army was . hammered for a whole week, three of its army corps being especially pounded, one of them being practically destroyed. The pressure was 1 so great in the destroyed corps that the guns were rushed to the rear, the infantry being left to their fate. The story reads like a page out of the history of the Austrian defeat in this very region a year ago. Retreat and pursuit are proceeding rapidly—what is remarkable is that von Mackensen’s army to tho east, with its right on the Bug, seems to have been unable to send any help to the unfortunate Austrian during the whole of that disastrous week. It looks like a total collapse of the Aus-tro-German move Upon Warsaw and Brest-Litovsk. ' * .*

Elsewhere, Petrograd reports AtistroGerman activity. The only details come from the Narew and Polish fronts. In the former the activity » Russian—a sortie from Ossoviec—in the latter the German attack was with deadlier gases, but with what results we are not informed.

The South African campaign is neatly rounded off by the warm congratulations of Lord Kitchener to General Botha. There is dramat’c fitness tor the historic episode which _ has- ended with such fine British citraenshfp on the part of Boer and Briton' began at Vereeniging with the final Boer sur-. render, and Vereeniging was due to the Upiomatio tact and manly generosity of Lord Kitchener. There was fitness also 'in Mr Bonar Law's congratulation, for Mr Bonar Law is the Tory successor of the Minister who completed the promise of Vereeniging by admitting the Boer people into the Empire on the best terms of autonomy. The addition of Lord Kitchener's expression of his readiness to welcome the Boer General and his South, African contingent of “all who can come over to join us” gives a final touch of glory which can never fado so long as the Empire endures. '. .

The German reference to the event is characteristic. It is a boast that Germany, will rebuild this- lost colony by victory in Europe. The boast adds the touch of farce to the story. Such is the end of the carefully-laid plan for German dominion over South Africa.