PROGRESS OF THE WAR

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9755, 3 September 1917, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

The Austrians announce that Italian cavalry are marching on Laibach. This means that the Italian advance in the centre of the great forty-mile front has reached the Valley of the Vipaocio, and that the most mobile of the Italian troops, the cavalry—a very strong arm of the Italian army, and specially trained for moving over difficult country, particularly in the swimming of mountain rivers, and moving swiftly along bridle paths—are moving up the V'ipaccio Valley. It means that there is no natural obstacle in front of them; that, in fact, the spurs of the Julian Alps beyond the bead of the valley are practicable for .a.- march on Laibach. In a word, it means that it is feasible for cavalry to follow the line of the branch railway between Gorizia and Laibach, This is assuming, of course, that the Austrian statement is correct. If it is correct, the Italian commander has in the course of his advance in the centre, ordered a movement of strong forces on Laibach, and the heads of the columns have started.

It may mean more, for . the movement of. a column of cavalry under such circumstances implies that the enemy has given up the hill positions at the head of the v ipaocio, and fallen back precipitately on Laibaoh. if these positions were held, they would not be attacked by cavalry, which would be liable to very severe handling by artillery and machine-gun lire from heights commanding all the avenues of approach. The advance of the cavalry implies that the enemy has gone off in great naste, and prooably much disorder, and is being pursued by the arm of greatest rapidity, if only to secure the advance of the rest by occupying positions which the enemy might rooccupy if his troops were quickly ral.iid. The explanation suggested in the second half of the messsage giving the Austrian statement, is that the enemy's announcement is believed to be “intended to justify the necessity for evacuating Trieste and the Oarso, to enable the armies to concentrate for the defence of Laibach.”

If the Austrian announcement is correct, and the explanation really fits, it follows that the situation 'is even worse. For the message, in that case, means that the Italian pursuit is likely to reach Laibach before the evacuations of Trieste and the Carso can be accomplished. In short, tlie implication is that the Austrian centre is pierced, its communication grievously threatened; that the troops in and about Trieste may get a.wav to Laibach to help take up a new line of de. fence; but that the army on the Carso is within measurable distance of destruction. If the announcement i« true that the Italian cavalry is moving on Laibach through the defiles of the lower Italian Alps, it is clearly, by reason of the obvious possibility, of the greatest importance. The announcement is Austrian, but not official, and wo hear of it from Home. In a matter of euoh tremendous moment we must have confirmation. A Homan version of an Austrian statement (clearlv not official, as shqwn by its treatment as not official), with a suggestive explanation, quite sufficient to justifv the very serious view of The situation presented by it.

Tho Austrian official report does not refer to the Laibach story at all. On the contrary, it puts a bold complexion on the Austrian resistance; declares repulse of the assaults at San Gabriolle (on the way to the Vipaccio position! and counts 10,000 prisoners. • • ♦ On the other hand, we have the Italian estimate of the enemy’s losses and the Italian summary of the operations. The losses are stated at 100.00(1 men, incurred in the losing of fourteen strongly-fortified mountain positions; a, the widening of the breach in the enemy's line to 11 miles: in the rent of the armv of the centre under Hi. •ievich so precipitate, as to leave he. kind in position guns, and stores galore, undamaged, hidden aw.iv in caverns, and officers’ quarters in the plenitude of luxury. The booty includes 1000 yoke oxen and 17 trench mortars of the oiggest and newest. I‘kis information does not confirm the Austrian statement of the cavalry advance. but it does give it & much stronger air of verisimilitude. • • • > That impressiop is deepened by the news from Berlin, which is that the

High Command is talring the Isonzo news very seriously; that, in fact, million' eirclcH arc alarmed. The Prussian Kaiser has arranged a special interview with the Austrian Kaiser, who is appealing desperately for help, and it is said that Hindenburg has begun to dispatch German troops to the Italian front. All this news comes sandwiched with reports of riots and halfrevolutions all ever Austria, and train loads of troops sent off post haste to put them down, and of the aggravating effect on the people of the bad harvest.

Paris newspapers are discussing, very naturally, the possibility of putting Austria out of the war. They point tut that the Italian General Cadorna hag from the first declared that a severe defeat on the Italian front would force Austria to a separate peace, and that he has always maintained that the Italian front is the only front where an offensive has any chance of being decisive. This fact is, no doubt, tjie inspiration of the inflated suggestions of the Italian F® -658 , referred to later on. Taking all these messages Into consideration, they will he found supporting the suggestion very strongly that the Austrian central army has suffered a disastrous defeat, and has in panic rout fled, leaving a yawning gap fojj the Italians to rush swiftly through. If the story of the cavalry move on Laibach is not confirmed, it certainly is made to look very likely. After a great disaster such an advance of the most mobile arm would be the very thing that would happen.

A French expert is quoted, in another message, as declaring that "t* the Italians, after the occupation of Monte Santo and Hermada, follow tiio road to Trieste or the road that Napoleon traced to Vienna, they wifi striae Austria a vital blow,” and the export proceeds to point out the consequence of such an invasion of the Austrian Empire—no less/ than humble overtures for peace with the Allies from Vienna. Now, this opinion has been expressed without any. knowledge of the alleged Austrian statement about the advance of the Italian cavalry on Laibach. That advance implies a direct blow at Laibach, whereas the French expert discusses the possibility of a blow at Laibach through Trieste, which, moreover, cannot be delivered until the Italians occupy the Hermada pos.tion (dominating th© Carso), which is not yet in their hands. It is important to bear in mind that the French message, being entirely without knowledge of th© Homan, throws no light _ upon the latter, and must bo considered quite apart from it. And we must conclude that the fact of the separation tends to discredit the Roman message. ,At all events, it increases the necessity for strong corroboration of that message if it is to be accepted.

The French message means that in the opinion of an expert, distinguished enough to be sent out for general information, the Italian strategy lias the choice between two roads, for the invasion of Austria, The possession of Monte Santo and the high country on the Italian left enabled the Italian general to take the road by which Napoleon struck at Vienna, compelling peace overtures from Vienna, which stopped his march half-way. This is the road past Tolmino through Villach, or Klangenfurt, or both, reached by crossing well-known passes, now; in’ this expert’s opinion, practically, at the mercy of the Italian advance. As they have swept the Ternoya ' and Ba.n&izza country to the Chiapovano Valley, if is easy to understand that the advance of the Italians will quickly reach and seize TTle passes. That is one of the expert’s alternatives.

The other he indicates as the capture of Hermada and the consequent advance on Trieste, leading in its turn to an advance on Laibach by the line of the Tricste-liuda-l’esth railway, which pssos through Laibaoh. Whether that route would support as formidable an invasion as Napoleon’s, we do not know. Evidently the French expert thinks that it can. At nil events, his view is that the Italian strategy has before it two objectives, one by the higher Alps, the other by Trieste; that it is able to pursue the former at once; and requires to capture Hermada (which he regards as about to fall) before it can pursue the other. That this view of the development of the, great Italian offensive is widely held now in Italy, we may gather from the statement of a Roman newspaper that the Italian is now the principal and decisive front, and its suggestion to Britain “to put forth her greatest effort here.” We can scarcely regard this as a suggestion to send the bulk of the British Army, or even a great part of it, through France and across Italy to the Isonzo front; though it looks not unlike such a proposition. But it does show that Italian opinion is proud of the iJossibility that the Italian armies .are going to open the way at once for the final stroke of decision. If that ' proves true, what a dramatic situation for Italy! A century ago in the dust under the feet of Austria and the weight of the Holy Alliance—today the striker of the “knock-out blow” at tlie strongest military machine in the world, deciding the greatest war in history 1 This is, however, a digression into sentiment. But that we now await news from the Italian front with a new interest, more intense than any aroused since tho opening of the battle of Verdun, is beyond doubt. • • • On the northern portion of the AVest front the weather is in possession. When “Flanders is a quagmire,” and trees and telegraph poles are failing all over that, country, it is useless to expect to hear of decisive fighting, if, indeed, it is possible, to fight at afl. But the bad weather does not prevent ns from hearing details of the sufferings (of which starvation is a large ipart) which the northern French districts in occupation of the enemy are enduring at his hands. • • • It is good to road tho addresses of General Godiey to the troops under his command. They did wonderful work at M casinos, which the General t 0... them —a siatc-fncut corroborated by everyone who ha, written of the bail.. —..as “the groitcst daii-ac the lies mans have hud in this war.” They deserved to be to.d so by their commanding general, and General Godiey, fully real, sing the duty of a commanding general, lost no time in telling them so. That he did his work very well, picking out and emphasising the points of the great fight, both those that were strategic and those most likely to go straight to tho hearts of his men,; we can realise from the text of the addresses forwarded by the offi-

cial correspondent. But look at iho date of the forwarding—June 15th. And the battle, the greatest of the war, the best-co-ordinated, the most skilfully planned, most accurately carried out of all, and as gaAantly fought (we cannot, in the face of the great records made on that very spot say more gallantly) as any of its predecessors, was fought on Juno 7th. The commanding general had to wait a few days, it is explained, before some of the units came out of the line for a spell. But why not have cabled the text to New Zealand, the proud, waiting, yearning mother of those splendid young troops V The text-, describing with justice their great exploit, and giving it its due proportion in the fighting-line and in the history of the campaign, ought to have been cabled at the public expense as soon as delivered. The army of New Zealand achieved a great victory, taking positions of tremendous strength, establishing advantages of great consequence, and there is no limelight. Nearly three months afterwards the postman brings an envelope containing the general’s address to the troops. The general ought to have sent an address down the lino before morning, and when he did make his address it ought to have come out faster than Ariel’s famous girdle, which he said he could put round the earth in forty minutes.

Outside of Flanders, where a little raiding cast of Uytschaete represents most of the fighting, the British and the enemy have been very busy. The recent sector, consisting of positions captured from the enemy at Gouzeaucourt, Bpehy, and Hargicourt (within a dozen miles of St. Quentin) has been the object of the enemy’s attention. The sector is too near_ St, Quexitm, which is one of the minor hinges ot the hostile line, and was therefore heavily bombarded and attacked. But the only result to the enemy was loss of men and waste of munitions. It is only another instance of the rule now everywhere enforced against the enemy, that when he is thrust out of any position he comes back to find “No thoroughfare” written across tho front in letters of living barrage, with a resolute infantry behind of proved ascendancy. • • • At Lens the fighting is reported as continuing with great violence. The fall of tile place is about due, but the lighting is still hand-to-hand. August has been, on his line before the Uritish, outside of Flanders, very expensive to the enemy, his losses including 10,607 prisoners, 44 guns, 300 machine-guns, and 73 trench mortars. Adding what we know about the great seventy of the fighting m Flanders during the month, wa do not. find it impossible to believe the Amsterdam report that there are signs of the enemy's preparing to evacuate the coast country before the winter—deportation of civilians from towns and villages, starvation of the civilian population, transfer oi gold in the banks to Brussels. •• ■ * At the last moment very suggestive news comes from the Aisne Plateau. The French have, after the usual very heavy artillery ■ preparation, attacked a fort half-way between Craonne and the western bend (at Hurbebise), a section of 1500 yards of the German front," penetrated 300 yards, and beaten off throe counter-attacks. This establishes the fact that the French are adopting the same offensive tactics as the British, of hammering'thrusts into the enemy’s line at various places. It;,was -JTexdun other then Mbrdrivillers in the Champagne, and now it, .is the Aisne plateau. The French in Flanders at the northern end are bombarding heavily, on tho left of the British pressure at.Langemarch and the Menin road, Tho enemy’s line is being pressed on both its flanks, and his attempts to release the’pressure in the centre (Epeby section as above-mentioned) have failed. The-offensive of the Allies is'developing strongly all along the line. This at the moment when-he is drawing off troops to -help his Ally on the Italian front, is of the first importance. * "