LULL CONTINUES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23941, 17 October 1939, Page 7

LULL CONTINUES

THE WESTERN FRONT BRITISH DIVISIONS UNITS NOW IN POSITION "A METHODICAL WAR" (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) LONDON, Oct. 15. The correspondent of The Times on the Western Front state* that British troops hold a front several miles long. More units are moving up continuously to relieve the French, and to extend and deepen the trenches with.the aid of excavating machines, to survey sites for pill boxes, and to construct anti-tank traps. The British have taken over an elaborate system of strong points, some being miniature cement-built fortresses banked with earth and housing guns of various calibres capable of presenting, by interlocking fire, a continuous curtain of metal. A Paris message says the lull on the Western Front continues. It is now revealed that 100 French warships, including submarine chasers, destroyers, and torpedo boats, participated in convoying the British troops to France. The newspaper Excelsior states that the original estimate of 32 divisions will be considerably exceeded. More British planes have taken up their war positions, and fresh batteries, fully supplied with ammunition, are being landed every day. The military correspondent of the Swiss newspaper Nationalzeitung says the most amazing feature of the war in the west « that the Germans have done nothing to prevent the arrival of the Allied armies in their positions, the organisation of their lines of communication, and the mobilisation of their war industries. Germanv's opponents, this writer points out, have completed these movements with the precision and calm of manoeuvres, and thus it is now too late to hinder them. In the .same paper a picture is presented of the Siegfried Line as intact and unscathed by the French bombardment • It is not doubted here that Germany would have preferred the French to launch frontal attacks, producing large casualty lists, but the British are at one with the French in realising that military operations are not the most important part of a war in its early stages. Conducting a methodical war, the French have achieved, at a very small cost in casualties, results of great value which cannot be guaged merely in terms of depth of penetration. SAARBRUCKEN SURROUNDED ON THREE SIDES Saarbrucken is an important railway junction, and the fact that it is now surrounded on three sides and that all roads and railways are under the fire of the powerful French artillery, solidly established on the surrounding heights, is of as great a value strategically as the capture of the town. The significance of the French advance, of course goesJEar beyond immediate local results. It is appreciated in Britain that he nfesertce of French troops on German soil has deeply affected the mordeof! the Rhineland population. Over 2,000,000 people have Seen evacuated from this region-and this manifestation of he power of the entemy in their own territory is an experience the Germans have not endured during the progress of a war for over a century. The economic consequences of the French advance are also seen to be of first importance. The Saar industries have been brought to a standstill, depriving Germany of as much coal and iron as she obtained from Polish Silesia.

With these solid achievements to the credit of their arms, as well as their growing mastery of the sea and air, the Allies are not Sy to fall a prey to discord, the possibility of wlnch-Nazi propagandists, by rather clumsy methods, suggest. A German communique says that there has been "slightly harassing" enemy artillery fire in the west. An enemy plane was br ught'down aVßirkenfeld on .October 13. It adds that there has been no activity of any importance on either side since October 14.