BEFORE THE PUSH

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9621, 29 March 1917, Page 6

BEFORE THE PUSH

“COMING GRAND DECISION” GERMANY RILING UP RESERVES FOR THE NEW “DAY.” From Our Own Correspondent. LONDON, February I. Major Moraht, the ablest and probably the best-informed of the German military writers, has been explaining to his readers the reason of the present relative lull on all the lighting fronts. “It is not the cold,” he writes, “which has this year brought about the almost complete stoppage of tho military operations on tho various fronts. It is more a question of the re-groupment of the forces and tho piling up of material for the coming grand decision.” The Allies would bo well justified in replying to this by inviting Major Moraht to speak for himself. The explanation he gives is no doubt accurate so far as Germany is concerned. The opinion has already been expressed in this column that tho ineffective reply of tho enemy artillery to onr own incessant bonrbaroment on the Western front is due not so much to any immediate shortage of munitions as to a desire to pile up reserves against the requirements of the coming spring and summer. But this does not get rid of the fact that the Allies , already show, themselves better equipped than Germany for what Major Moraht describes as tho “coming grand decision.” That all Germany’s energies are concentrated at the moment on “the regroupment of forces and the piling up of material,” is, in itself, a confession of weakness. Major Moraht tells us that amongst all the belligerents concentration on the means of transport has assumed tremendous proportions, and he adds the, significant admission that “rolling plant and available workmen do not always come up to the expectations of the requirements of the Headquarters Staff.” He expresses the pious hope that in Germany difficulties of organisation “will not impede at the critical moment tho freedom of decision of the supreme command.” Reading between the lines of all this we are justified in assuming that the enemy has fallen somewhat behind with his preparations, and is now feverishly engaged in trying to overtake the lead which the Allies have established. FROM DUNKIRK TO BELFORT. So far as the Allies are concerned, it is tho weather, and not the necessity of piling up material, which delays the launching of the great offensive. We have proof of this in the activity displayed all along the Western front whenever the conditions admit of trench raids and of local offensives, such as that which was struck in the neighbourhood of Transloy a few days ago. A correspondent of “The Times" has borne witness this week to the perfect organisation of the Allied resources on tho Western front. “During the last three months,” he writes, “I have been able to visit practically the whole of the French front, from Dunkirk to Belfort, and everywhere there is the same report to mako. As far as I am able to judge, the conditions are such that it would be possible for tho French High Command, whenever and wherever they choose, to launch an attack without giving the enemy more warning that what they must necessarily gather from tho increased number of rounds fired beforehand by the artillery at any given point before the attack takes place.” ‘ The same writer argues that even that amount of notice need not necessarily be given. It is a question of ammunition, for a simultaneous bombardment all along the front would leave the Germans in complete uncertainty as to where the blow was to be struck. Aerial observation, of course, makes it very difficult for any largo body of troops to be moved without the enemy obtaining information of what is going forward, but we were able to establish a complete aerial ascendancy last summer, and if our authorities at Home have been alive to their responsibilities in tho matter of aeroplane construction, there is no reason whatever why this supremacy should ever he lost.' RUSSIA’S PART.-

It is not pretended, of course, that Russia will be as well equipped for the summer offensive as the Western Allies. Russia has difficulties peculiai\to herself which all her loyalty and all her enthusiasm have not entirely succeeded in meeting. And not the least of these difficulties is the problem of transport. Russia is a country of great distances, ill-equipped with strategic railways. Her position in this respect must not be construed as displaying a lack of national foresight. Russia’s military plans have always been based on the probability that in any great European conflagration she would probably bo called upon to fight a defensive rather than an offensive campaign. Her intuition proved correct enough in the earlier stages of the present war. Her policy, based it may be on the memories of the disaster which hefell Napoleon’s armv when that groat commander had the hardihood to.maroh on Moscow with an army of 400,000 men and lost them nearly all, has always been to discourage rather than encourage railway construction on her Western frontiers when those railways might conceivably prove more valuable to a prospective enemy than to herself.

But the situation is fundamentally changed now that Russia finds herself in a position to co-operate with the Allies in a great offensive. Cut off as she is from outside assistance Russia is gravely handicapped also by being largely dependent on her own resources for munitions and other material of war. People talk glibly of the assistance which both Japan and Great Britain are rendering to her in this particular; but they do not always pause to reflect on the enormous distances over which supplies from either of these outside sources have to he carried. That Russia’s weakness in these particulars is receiving the earnest attention of the Allies is indicated by the Allied Conference which is now taking place at Potrograd. Lord Milner, who has o_wide experience in South Africa both in problems of administration and in problems of railway transport, is attending this Conference as the British representative, and has with him as one of his colleagues an expert who has had much to do with building np the wonderful organisation under which hero in Great Britain we are now turning out munitions on a scale unexampled in the world’s history. SOME GENERAL PRINCIPLES. The lull in nearly every theatre of the war affords at least an opportunity for a more general surrey of the military situation than is sometimes pps-

siblc. Everyone recognises both here and apparently in Germany as well, that tho present year, though it may not mark the end, will certainly mark the decisive phase of tho war. It is a hopeful sign that the enemy does not seem to view this prospect with any' very great confidence. There are significant indications that the German people are being prepared for_ tho probability that the lines in the West, which their armies have maintained ever since the Battle of the Marne, are not likely to prove tenable very much longer. This want of confidence is attributed in many quarters to the fact that the*offensivo against Eoumania has proved a more costly enterprise than von Hindenburg anticipated. No doubt this has been a contributory cause.

But, looking at the war in its full perspective, it nevertheless represents little more than the proverbial last straw on tho camel’s back. For it has been the very essence of Allied strategy ever since the beginning of tho war gradually to wear down the enemy’s strength. This was the object of that policy of ‘‘nibbling” at tho enemy’s lines which General Joffre adopted from the very first when the main burden of the campaign fell upon France, and Russia was busy equipping her armies ,and Great Britain was feverishly bent on creating new army corps. We saw this same purpose of wearing down tho enemy’s strength in many of tho offensives undertaken by Russia on tho Eastern front. And tho policy has succeeded. Of that there can hardly be any doubt. We see evidences of it in all directions.

Germany is still asking the world to believe, and has almost succeeded in persuading herself to believe also, that tlie Somme offensive was a triumph for her arms and a reverse for the Allies. A reverse for us it certainly would have been if the military objective with which we had set out had really been to pierce the enemy’s line. But that never was the objective with which we sot out. If assurances on this point are still necessary after Sir Douglas Haig’s famous dispatch, such assurances may bo given in the most emphatic way possible. It was known to many people in London in July of last year exactly what Sir Douglas Haig and General Joffre hoped to Achieve by the Somme offensive. Their minimum expectations were attained before the great battle was half over; their maximum hope only fell short of realisation through tho sudden break up of the weather. If the Germans choose to claim this as a victory they are welcome to any satisfaction they can derive from their optimism. But military leaders on "the Allied side at least would like a few more hypothetical, victories of the same kind. To sum up, we have been engaged for something like two years now on tho task of effecting the gradual destruction of the enemy’s fighting machine. And the confident hope and belief is that the time now' draws very near when that task will be accomplished. The Allied strategy has been marked in its details by some big blunders and errors of judgment. But at least they have kept steadily to one main purpose, their faces soteadily against the political temptations which constantly present themselves in any great war to stray aside into easy by-ways. There are, of course, some clouds on the horizon. 1 " Brl; the Allied position on the Western front, where everyone recognises that the decisive battle of tho' war must be fought, is stronger now than it has been at any time during the two and a half years that the war has been in progress. Suggestions that Fiance, who for so long had to bear the main heat and burden of the day, cannot stand the pace very much longer may happily he dismissed. We have heard stories of this kind before and we have shrewd suspicion whence they originate. /