THE WINTER OUTLOOK

Otago Witness, Issue 3327, 19 December 1917, Page 46

THE WINTER OUTLOOK

A BRIGHTER PROSPECT

HIE GERMANS DEFEATED

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

LONDON, October 5

The last week or two of the autumn campaign promises to improve the favourable complexion the affairs of the Allies already bore when I last discussed the subject. The new push east of Ypres, in which the New Zealaridera advanced yesterday morning, gives a very reasonable hope that the whole of the Passchcndaele Ridge will soon be in our hands, and. that thereby the Germans will' be\ condemned to spend tho» winter on tho flat under observation of our gunners, as the British have spent the last three winters on the much worse, flat at Yprce. The Hun has not a ghost of a chance of regaining any of the ground he has lost. His power of counter-attacking with success has apparently cone altogether, and probably his engineers are now digging away for dear life on a new "Hindenburg ' or "Kaiser" line in the rear. Where? This is a matter of conjecture. The Boone will not wish to spend the winter in the dyke country of Menin, which is just the same as the Yores salient from which Haig has just delivered his men. It would bo too wet and too exposed to our observation. But he will not make his retreat just yet. He would rather let us settle down on our new ridges for a while, what 'time he prepares his own line, and then ooze out of the Menin flats and draw us- over the marshes after him. The position on tne new line will depend a good deal on the necessity for protecting Lille and Roubaix, to which the Hun must cling like grim death. " THE MAGNET OF LILLE. The German High Command to-day is fighting for its presnge with tho civil population of Germany. Civilians are cniefly sheep. Nine-tenths of us were disappointed with tho Somm.6 because .the area from which we drove the Germans contained no large towns. To the lay mind large towns are great objectives, whereas agricultural ridges are not The German High Command knows this. Apart altogether from the economic treasure of the Lille coat and hon*iield, the German Staff knows that when once a large town like Lille passes into the hands of the Allies it is useless to try to "kid" the German civilians that they are not losing. Thus the fall of Lilla will matter more to Germany than any of the great military objectives which have already fallen to the Allied arms. The German new line will probably therefore lie behind the Lys, north-eastward from Armentieres to Menin, thence northward by the railway to Ostend. Lille will then be in the centre of a rather sharp salient, having its apex at La Bassee, as in October, 1914 For the same purpose of deceiving the civil population the Belgian coast will bo hung to fo* all it is worth. It is one of Germany's "war aims." It is her outlook on the English seas and her point d'appui foi-l-aiding England, and, moreover, it covers tho great railway junction of Ghent. When once Lille and the Belgian coast fall the German people will understand. It wa s believed a fortnight ago that Lille oould hold out another nine months. BEATEN IN THE FIELD-.

The summer campaign of 1917 has shown the German army beaten in the field in the most decisive manner by the British. There is no question of the Allies at all. Man for man and army for army the Germans have been beaten. The German soldier knows it, too, and he is getting down to a particularly miserable winter. The speech of General Smuts, as a member of the War Cabinet, puts the matter in a nutshell. "I propose," he said, "to take the Germans in the ground on which they are strongest, on which they challenged the world and calculated success to be certain. I mean their purely military fighting power. That, I may point out bv the way, was a wrong irround for them to assume, and in choosing it they have made the gravest mistake of their history, for this is far more than a military war, and its decision will more and more depend on political, economic, psychological, and other nonmilitary factors. But let us look at the matter from a German angle, and see how the purely military situation stands.

GERMANY BLEEDING TO DEATH. " With one or two exceptions the enemy is everywhere on the defensive, everywhere slowly retiring before us. That the movement is necessarily slow is inherent in the very nature of a new form of warfare which requires enormous transport of heavy artillery and mechanical apparatus of all kinds. But even the advance of a mile by us involves tremendous losses...for the enemy, losses comparable to those sustained in the great battles of former wars; and such losses and defeats are now being continually inflicted on' the enemy. Take the western front, where to-day the flower of the German army is gathered. One continuous retirement has been proceeding from the summer of last year, very slow, but very sure. Verdun, Champagne, Vimy, Arras, Messines, Langemarck,. Westhoek, Zonnebeke; and that almost immovable line the manhood of Germany is bleeding to death, and a tragedy of slaughter is being enacted which probably has had no parallel in the history of the world. It is not a question of great pushes; the war of machinery on the western front is largely immobile, the movement is very slow, but the results are the more terrible and crushing. To defeat Germany you need not advance to the Rhine or to the German frontier. One strip of country is as good as another if the enemy will only make a stand. I assure you that long before we have reached the Rhino Germany will have sued for peace. Our military predominance on the western front is no longer in question, and remember that it was that very issue of military predominance on which Germany challenged the whole'world in August, 1914. "Take, again, the Italian front. Can anyono doubt that our Allies have gained a complete predominance on that front over the Austvians? Or take again, the Turkish front. Ths Turks have already lost Armenia and Egypt and Arabia and Mesopotamia. I do r.ot say that there will not be a keen struggle, and that w_e should not take all necessary precautions, but in the end Turkey will find that phe is not going to be saved by her German masters from still further humiliation and defeat. "Defeated and retiring everywhere, the enemy has singled out onoopponent for his offensive blow. Germany is doing her best to strike down Russia. Great as have boon

tho German blunders in tho par,t, I am not sure that from the point of view of a farsighted policy this h not her greatest and most fatal blunder of all. The invasion of Belgium and the submarine campaign were colossal mistakes which will cost Germany this war. Her striking down of Russia at this juncture may do more, and may'even compromise her distant future, for in striking Russia she is striking one who cannot defend herself, who like herself was an autocracy, but has received a new consciousness from the sufferings of this terrible war. one who has reached some inward crisis of the soul like Saul on the way to Damascus, and is now beinff led blindfold and incapable of offensive action. Russia is a woman labouring in childbirth, and this is the moment chosen by Germany to strike her down. Whatever may be the strict risrhts of the case, the spirit of history will never forerive her. The liberty which has been painfully born in Russia will rise to vindicate her in the coming generation, and will become the most impineahle foe of a future Germany.—(Cheers.) If I were a German statesman I would at this crisis carefully bear in mind the wise old Bismarokian policy, and avoid making the Slav' the future historic enemy of the Teuton. THE SPECTRE OF BANKRUPTCY.

"This is the military situation—the Central Alliance everywhere beaten, everywhere retiring except in Russia. To their military dangers you have to add the exhausted, demoralised, internal conditions of which there is no manner of doubt, and tho spectre of a bankrupt future, and then you can see that 'the end is no longei uncertain. More and more" 1 this real inwardness of the war situation is being appreciated in Germany. " Defeated on the battlefield, baulked in his submarine campaign, the enemy is now, in his impotent rage, more and more striking at us through our non-combatants, through our women and children. At every opportunity bombs are being dropped on our towns and cities in order to strike terror to the hearts of our civilian population and to weaken and destroy the national spirit. Aerial warfare against the defenceless is the new weapon, I venture to predict that this weapon will not only fail, but will prove a terrible boomerang to the enemy. —(Loud cheers.) THE WAR IS WON.

" Without being an optimist, and with a full appreciation of the obscurities, uncertainties, and dangers which surround us, I believe that essentially and in the deepest sense the war is won, and that there are to-day marshalled against the German autocracy forces—military, moral, and economio —which in the end oughtTto and will prove invincible. What is required of you is an unalterable determination to hold on and see the struggle through—(cheers), —not in a selfish, imperialist spirit, but in the conviction that this is the Armageddon in which the power of militarism must be slain for ever, and that it is not only our duty, but our right and our privilege, to fight to the uttermost to secure that victory. " What is required of your political leaders is calmness and foresight, wisdom to avoid all false moves in this last decisive phaso of the struggle, and moderation which will not prolong its agony one day beyond what is necessary to the high end in view with people and leaders understanding and trusting each other and co-operat-ing on that high moral basis I have absolutely no doubt ■of the result." —(Loud cheers.)