THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 1914. AT BERLIN IN THREE WEEKS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16165, 29 August 1914, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 1914. AT BERLIN IN THREE WEEKS.

Tiieke is a confident ring about the assertion that tho Russian forces expect to be at Berlin in three weeks. It can, we should think, only be by persistently heavy marching that, even if they are not confronted by much greater forces than the Gernvuis—preoccupied by their aim of striking a formidable and irresistible blow at Paris—have yet placed in the field against them, they can fulfil the sanguine expectations which they have expressed. Already, however, it is suggested that the Germans are withdrawing troops from their western theatre of operations in order to strengthen their defences in the eastern theatre. By the mere weight ot numbers the Russians should be able to roll back the forces that will be charged with the task of resisting their advance. The mobilisation, we are told, of eight million soldiers has been practically completed by them, and these have oeen divided into four armies each composed of two million men. The imagination positively reels at the thought of such vast bodies of armed men as these iigures imply. No force comparable, in size with that embodied by the Russians has at any earlier period of the world's history been placed by any nation in the field. Armies of such huge dimensions as these necessarily move 'slowly, and for this reason, however effectually they may overwhelm the armies of defence that are opposed to them, it is difficult to believe that so short a period as three weeks will see the invaders from the great Eastern Empire hammering at the gates of Berlin. The Germans seem to have been comforting themselves with the reflection that their invading army is only half the distance from Paris that the Russians are from Berlin. They are welcome to ail the satisfaction they can derive from this consideration. After virtually a month's campaign they have penetrated the northern part of France. At least the latest advices suggest that their western army has crossed the French frontier and that it is upon French soil that the Allies are now engaging tlvsm. Apparently the Allies have fallen back upon a position of some strength ih which the British are sup ported by the French on both fianks. But the Germans have, we judge ; been unable to claim any advantage in the fighting ot the past week, some of the details of which are included in the news we publish this morning. The honours of the conflict in its latest stages probably belong to the British more than to any of the other forces. General Joffre, commander-in-chief of the French army, has expressed in the most handsome terms his appreciation of the devotion, energy, and per c evprance with which the British, contending with a German force that possessed a great numerical superiority, secured the left flank of the army under his direction in the recent engagement. The accounts we have received of this battle—accounts that leave a great deal to the imagination—as well as those we have now received of the fighting five and six days ago, suggest that the Germans have been subjected to enoimou-3 losses in their desperate efforts to beat back tho allied army. The point is, however, that the Germans are not making any appreciably headway. So Ion;.: as they are held in check by tb.6 Allies they are, as a plain matter of fact, suffering a Teverse. Every day that they are kept pounding away on the French frontier without reducing materially the dis tance that separates them from Paris, the inenacj in the East is becoming increasingly grave. In Time the Germans have a remorseless enemy in this war.