Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, FRIDAY, JULY 20, 1917.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 14354, 20 July 1917, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, FRIDAY, JULY 20, 1917.

A YEAR'S WORK. Twelve months. have elapsed since the Allies, after nearly two years of preparation, opened their offensive on the Somme, and an interesting review of the operations and results' of the intervening period has been given by Mr Pirrie Robinson, the London Times correspondent at headquarters m France. Mr Robinson emphasises the distinct gain m supremacy over the enemy that has been made during the past twelve months. Our armies have won the initiative and Germany is hard-pressed along all sections of the line." The sph'it of ascendancy prevails m every engagement, trench raid, .or patrol , encounter. The correspondent says it is impossible to sp-eak m adequate phrases of the Empire troops' share- m the great ""achievements. Canadians, -Australians, New Zealanders, Africans, Newfoundlanders, ! English, Scottish, Irish' and Welsh were all glorious, taking the whole grim business with a curious careless earnestness, but oh, how they fight. The Australian achievement at Pozieres, for longprotracted, stout fighting, was never excelled aiid hardly rivalled m the whole war. Yet even the Australians equalled their own desperate valor at Bullecourt and the irresistible advance at Messines. In Ihe vast confused operations . all troops have not* ah equal chance. The enemy's behaviour is an unknown' quantity. Sometimes the Germans fight like tigers, sometimes less fiercely than rabbits, so tliat the immediate suoeess of any operation is no necessary measure of the behaviour of the troops engaged. Sometimes failure is more glorious than any victory. Fathers,, mothers, ahd wives who have lost loved ones may feel that they -were sacrificed uselessly, but frequently m. such fighting the real work of breaking- the German strength has been no less than m such sudden and sweeping victories as Messines. In the enormous development of oiir military machine we have out-geriei&lled the enemy as plainly as we have outfought him. Witness such things as Theipval, Beaumpnt Hamel. and Messines. We have learnt tb strike with a fist more heavily mailed than Germany has been ever known to use. We have learnt to provide ourselves with all our mechanical aids to warfare, which ai*e supei'ior I to Germany's. She had the opportunity for two veil's, while we were feeble, and never learnt to strike as we strike her now. The road may be long. The German tide had hardly begun visibly to' turn m July and August, 1916/ but the ebb is now' plainly visible. However slow, it'is certain to continue. Our . army has , perfect confidence, and both mail for man and as a ( fighting machine is better than the German. The correspondent says the feeling that Britain's maximum effort in -the 1917 campaign on "he, Western fiont has not yet come is' " especially strong m Cermany. These are the plainest indica-j tions that the German High Command regards as a great menace the possibili-j ties of the Belgian front where undoubtedly it expects a big blow to full soon. This is shown by the numerous reports of German war correspondents. For example, the correspondent of the 1 Frankfurter Zeitung says: "The battle of Flanders was conceived, not only as a menace to Lille, but as a break through on the whole Yse'r front. There is no reason to suppose that Field Marshal Haig will content, himself with what has already been achieved." Some speculation has existed as to the strength of the armies which we have assembled behind our battle line m Franco and Flanders ready to strike when an army operation order directs the blow. Lord Northeliffe gave the information at New York last week when he declared that "Britain has 2.200,000 men on the Western front alone.'' The gathering together of this great army, its equipment and training, the construction of , roads and railways to enable it to move with facility r the provision* of- guns and munitions'/ m such aburfdaht supply that artillery commanders are never v troubled now about shortage of gun-power, their only problem being how to most widely use the enormous supplies "at their command ; the building up o.' the air service which is so important an adjunct to our armies — all that has been accomplished m these directions m the past year has been most .wonderful. According to Colonel Repington. the Germans will have well over 2,000,-00 men on the Western front, and of these about half are opposed to Sir Douglas Haig.. At this rate the British forces are to the German m a ratio of about to one. This under old standards 6f warfare would npt be : counted too great a superiority for a. force that is endeavoring to push an enemy back:--' from series after series of strong positions, but considering the proof that has already been obtained m the past twelve months that man for man our soldiers are superior, m the ratio perhaps of two to one or even* three to one; considering our superiority m gun and munition power and our ahilitv to blast the German defences to smithereens- and to utterly destroy the morale of the troops ' m trenches subject to our hail of fire ; censidering also the development df new tactics and the invaluable aid received from our airmen, there is gopd reason to believe that we have ample forces at our command to accomplish the work of evicting the enemy from the occupied territories of France and Belgium.