ON WHICH FRONT?

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16980, 17 April 1917, Page 6

ON WHICH FRONT?

THE DECISIVE BLOW OF THE WAR. RETIRED FRENCH GENERAL'S OPINION. On which front will the great attack be made? West or east? That is tlio most actual question (declares the Paris correspondent of the New York Evening Post, in a message dated February 1). It- is taken tor granted that any present offensive along the western front can be mado only by the Allies. The Germans, at most, may feign or even attempt a desperate attack at some particular point, to keep the Allies' armies at attention and hinder them from surprise attacks. Everyone is familiar with the new method which the English troops seem, to have begun. It may bo called the method of small raids, never lotting up, and really producing larger results than many more formal attacks. They are prepared by the usual heavy artillery fire, and protected by curtain fire—andi, as the phrase is, they "clean up" the enemy trenches at a restricted point. That is, they kill some and take others prisoner, and force the rest to fleo through the bowels of communication, doing their final damage by throwing hand grenades. These sudden dashes end by changing the front along one or two. or sometimes more, miles, which is something in this endless line of siege warfare. They undoubtedly keep the enemy on tenterhooks, never allowing him to concentrate his forces. What most interests the general public is that, last summer, they proved to ibo the immediate forerunner of the big offensive along the iSomme. By the time this is read, it will he known whether they are the same now. There is no saying beforehand what is or is not possible or probable in our sudden changes of winter from frost and snow to liquid mud and sticking, clinging, impassable ground. Nowadays the war prophet must be a weather, prophet as well, west or east. EAST VERSUS WEST.

It is another question whether, with a view of ending the. war, the western or eastern front is more important just now. In France, as in England, there has always been a certain number of war critics opposed to any offensive along tho eastern front. They barely tolerated the Salonika expedition; and they still cry aloud that tho war will end. shall end, can only end in the West. This is almost a truism, but it does not follow that their vague nolicy for the East can bo entertained The "insistence of the Allies' Note that the Turk must go puts a stop to that. The war cannot end now unless the East, too. is cleaned up. The retired French general Malaterre, abounding with the military science and experience needed for competent opinion, has just put the case in its most paradoxical form. "To talk of driving out the Turks and of the Russians, entering Constantinople when three-quarters of Rumania has fallen in three months' time into the hands of the Germans, when the Russian defensive has to pull itself together l to bar once more the threatened ways, when the army of "Salonika Iras not been able to get beyond Monastir, when German submarines infest the Mediterranean, and Bulgarians and Turks share in Gorman victories—how strange it trmist sound to cert-vn neutrals. It shows at least robust confidence in the outcome of the struggle. Ca,n we- imagine the Turks getting out of Constantinople, the Bulgarians evacuating .the Serbian and Rumanian territories which they have conquered with their armies, and the Austvo-Germans abandoning all that Kast which they have so much at heart, if the Allies' armies have not progressed and pushed them back and entered Sofia and Constantinople and Belgrade? And can wo conceive victories of the Allies on the Western and Russian fronts important enough, by bringing about Germany's capitulation, to settle accounts m south-eastern Europe, too, as the Allies have planned? "In sum. have the Balkans and the Levant now become fields of military operations so secondary that, without new efforts on that side, we have only to wait for the capital decision on the "principal fronts? Inat. I believe, is the question ever since the check of the Allies in the East. And already wo see tho fatal quarrel beginning over again between interventionists and noninterventionists in the East."

. COLONEL REPINGTON'S VIEWS. Atter this plain speaking, it is evident that the French General is going to crossexaiuine the English colonel, uepiugion, who is tor making the entire eiiorts of the Allies on the Western front. Tiie colonel thinks that, with the material which will be reauy m t:ie spring, tne rericn armies can be increased to 5,000,000 combatants, and so do for the 130 divisions of German troops along the Western front. Of course, the Russians must also work on their side and keep the Germans from dash mg their reinforcements back and forth irom. front to front. The French General pursues his line of thought:— "The formula of a single front or a common front strikes tho imagination, but it deceives tho mind. There has been no possibility of one single tront so long as the East and West aro separated by the Balkans and lurkey. 'J'he initial error of the war was not to have realised from tho beginning this rndispensible junction between the two groups of the Allies through Constantinople and the Straits."

As may be imagined. General Malaterre is not m sympathy with the plans followed in tne first years of the war i'o secure Constantinople. He says wisely, " History will shed light on them," and, of course, it is useless crying now over spilt milk , He discloses certain divergences of views Whereas (in 1915) the French plan sought to attack Constantinople by tho two coasts ?? ] . n Pabular from the Asiatic side, the English plan went back to forcing the Dardanelles. Even if the plan had succeeded he continues the diplomacy of tho Allies had given the best chance to Germany in the Balkans. Greece defaulted, and the Allies . took " a middle way—they could not save Serbia and they could not force the Dardanelles _ Then the real question of Salonika and the whole East came up "It ■ x j & the honoui- of. France that she resisted those who advised to give up and go away. r

• MORE AWKWARD QUESTIONS Hero General Malaterre puts some more awkward: questions—which are of nressinn. interest for the future conduct of toe war* •balomka not only saved the military" situation, but also, and most of ail the moral situation of tho Allies in the Ea-t Why has the year 1916 IJassed in tary inaction ot the army gathered at Salonika? Why has the intervention of lvumama, which seemed a final act repairing; all mistakes and faults, only brought with it new reverses?- How is .it that the advance of Russians in Armenia has been .stopped,-while the English have been unable to get to Bagdad, and have had the humiliation of capitulating at Ivut-el-Amara? Wo know-but why tell it/ Events speak enough by themselves " lo those who have not followed out every trail of information this is verv exasperating. One remark the French general does make to satisfy curiosity '-It, it said Kitchener was opposed to Salonika, Possibly so, but that great soldier had nro posed something else which was another torm of mtervention in the East. It w », an attack by Alexandretta and Svria t« take the Turks by the real- irTAsS^Mi'no^ thC plan of It is curious to see the name of this atter French general, who distinguished himself ,n Morocco and has periodically appeared and: disappeared during this war thus crop up unexpectedly. But let us go' on to the final conclusions of General Malaterre—for. they touch directly that which is now the burning question among neutrals also.

Wo aro still at Salonika, still on the defensive. But it would be' a worse error than those which wont before to evacuate isaiomka. For that matter, the Allies do not think of such a thing—just tho contrary. But in the presence of accomplished facts we must pull ourselves together and Ir>ok for tho new manoeuvre that shall bring victory. We now start with an idea which grows stronger and stronger in our minds, and is penetrating deeply public opinion. Wo must finish the war in 1917—and this conviction comes to us from tho very offers of peace bv Germany. And in the present state of the military situation it seems to us that on the western front the decisive stroke must bo delivered."