NOTES ON THE WAR CABLES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17321, 22 May 1918, Page 5

NOTES ON THE WAR CABLES.

Br Shhapnsl» WHAT'S IN A NAME? .) udgwl from tlio messages which v.e are rnoat of tlio operations which wero carried out on tko western front are tile outcome of British activity designed to give tlio Germans little rest. At Ville-sur-Ancre, south of Albert, the Australians carried out a raid, which was very suocessiul, and apparently extensive as lar as raids may be considered. The number of prisoners that wero taken is a tidy total to have mopped up in one of these surprise visits to the enemy's lines. An enfilading position must have been seized on the enemy's line, so that the Germans, put in a. tight corner, were compelled to make their choice of being killed or becoming prisoners. Id is somctlxing to have such a reputation as tlio Australians have. Their lighting qualities have been recognised by the German press, which has said it admits the capabilities of tho Australians in 6tern lighting, and, though it docs not always appreciate their methods, it grudgingly confesses that tho overseas troops of tho British Empire aro not an " untrained rabble" but are foes to be respected when bitter fighting is the order of tho day. As tho reputation both of the New Zealanders and Australians for dogged and merciless lighting when tho occasion demands it has becomo known throughout tho German ranks on tho wost front, tho Germans, when tactically outwitted by them, decide that discretion is tho better part of valour. A German paper has said that the Australasians make good soldiers because they fight without sentiment, meaning thereby that there are occasions when it is dangerous to bother about prisoners. Some of tho returned men can tell of extraordinary incidents that have happened in attacks, and ttiey give reasons why German troops at times surrender without making a serious attempt to resist. It is related: of the fighting in some pill boxes" on the Passchendaelo front that when an attack was going forward the machine guns wero firing in a peculiarly erratic m{inner. Needless to say, very few of those pill boxes were bombed. That was a time when it paid to havo a good reputation. Quito evidently from the captures made on the Ancro by the Australians the other day and by the New Zealanders some time ago, near Serre, there is something in the abovo story. AN AIR RAID ON LONDON. While the British are trying to stir the Germans on the Franco-British front, the enemy is significantly quiet. The continuous stinging of allied hornets in the matter of air raids has, however, produced a response from the Germans in the form of an air raid upon London. Taking the t advantage of the sufficiency of light afforded by the moon in its first quarter, tho enemy sent a considerable squadron of air raiders across to London on Sunday night. This raid may have been a reprisal for the recent visits by the Allies' airmen to Saarbrucken and Cologne, but an obvious purpose if it is an endeavour to divert a number of British airmen from France for home defence or to prevent the British from augmenting the number of machines at the front Recent air operations by the fliers have supplied grounds for the belief that tho Allies have obtained largely the dominant position in the air along the lines, and, if so, that is a factor which has operated as a deterrent to the Germans taking the offensive. If the Germans cannot prevent our airmen from making numerous and extensive air raids behind their lines, the Allies will enjoy a great handicap over the enemy in the artillery actions which are so necessary as a preliminary opening to a great attack and as a .protecting barrage for the advancing troops. Unless the Germans can prevent the allied airmen from "spotting" the German batteries, it will be a dangerous policy for the German guns to begin to play, because with the help of the airmen observing and signalling the positions of the German batteries, the gunners. of the Allies will have an excellent chance to destroy batteries and smother the fire of tho German gunners. THE DANGER IN THE EAST. From information afforded us on tho strategy of the war, the Americans and French seem to have a better appreciation of the danger of not meeting the Germans in the Balkans and the East than have the British and Italians. The advance. of the Austro-Germans in Southern and the talcing of Odessa and Sebastopol is likely to prove a very serious matter for the Allies if they do not take the means of defeating in Russia the policy of the Germans and Bolsheviks. Everything Trotsky and Lenin have done has tended to weaken Russia and to assist tho Germans to an easy conquest These two precious "idealists " seem to bo running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. Even though tho Germans are robbing, burning, murdering, and breaking every important clause in tho Brest-Litovsk treaty, those in power in Russia —amongst whom are shrewd German agents—are everywhere yielding to the forward pressure of the German flying columns. Russia is being militarily, commercially, and financially betrayed into tlio hands of the Austro-German burglars. Apart from the strictly military strategical advantage that is being given to the combined forccs of the Allied enemies, by means of which they may yet be able to outflank the British in Mesopotamia and find a road through Persia and into Siberia, Germany will bo able to find, in Russia, tho sinows of war to put her in a very strong position it. tho war lasts another year. Germany may change her mind and fight on tho west front simply to find strong defensive lines, while she strengthens her position in all the Russias and penetrates Central Asia.