THE PELORUS GUARDIAN and Miners’ Advocate. TUESDAY, 27th FEBRUARY, 1917. ’l4 AND '16.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 29, Issue 16, 27 February 1917, Page 4

THE PELORUS GUARDIAN and Miners’ Advocate. TUESDAY, 27th FEBRUARY, 1917. ’l4 AND 'l6.

An English writer draws a striking comparison in the equipment and strength 0f... the opposing armies in 1914—when the Western front settled down into a state of seige —and the end of 1916. In 14 we were being beseiged; in 16 the Germans were being besiged, The Allies are now prepared to persecute the war on a grand scale. In 14, and in fact well into 15, the Germans had an overwhelming advantage in shells; now the position is reversed. The allied commanders were until a few months ago limited to a very low average in tbe daily expenditure of munitions for the limited number of guns. But now the of both are, if anything, beyond requirements, and are used with a prodigality beyond belief. Practically the only limit now is the speed with which the ammunition can be brought up to the guns. To speed up this supply, horse teams, motors, and light railways are kept going day and night. All over the country behind the fighting zones are huge * dumps,” or stacks of shells. The rails or tbe motor lorries stream in constantly with full loads, and the boxes are piled, in huge stacks that are in unceasing process of melting away and being rebuilt. There are millions of shells in these “dumps,” and yet as fast as they come just so fast do they go pushing up to the guns. ( Only those who have seen these dumps ’ at work could form any idea of the number of shells that pass through them. No need nowadays for a battery commander to fume and fret over the idleness of his guns. He can shoot to his heart’s content, can keep firing day and night—'and what is more, does so often enough, working his officers and men in regular shifts. And as our gun-power has enormously increased, so has our saving o| casualties in attack or defence. Two years ago we had not the guns or the shells to compete with the enemy artillery. We could not keep down their artillery or infantry fire, and necessarily had to pay the price of our inferiority in casualties. We could not prevent a hurricane of shells and bullets pouring on, say, a .certain front-line trench. But that trench had to bo held, had to be kept manned by sufficient of our infantry to repel an attack on it, or to make an attack from it. As the line was thinned out by casualties, there remained nothing for it but to push more men up into it, to be shattered in turn. In blunt words, we had to expend flesh and blood where the Germans expended steel and high explosive. _ And the same story of the turning of the tables applies to the British air service, which has developed during these two critical years from practically nothing to absolute supremacy. The Navy has never lost its command of the sea, and now, on the shell-battered battlefields, the Army is proving week by week (and setting on the proof the seal of captured prisoners, guns, and ground) the last

link of the chain of victory. It may be this year, it may not be for yet another, but the end must be victory to the Allies, victory complete and absolute out and out—earth, air, and sea.