THE WESTERN FRONT.

Southland Times, Issue 17653, 10 February 1916, Page 4

THE WESTERN FRONT.

There is much talk again of preparations for a forward move on tiie Western front. The first signs of Spring are now beginning to appear in the Northern hemisphere, and from this Spring much is expected. Ir our hopes are realised, it will be marked by a great general offensive on the part of the Allies that will bring the end of the war appreciably nearer. The reports indicate that both sides are preparing for a great attack. So far as the • Germans are concerned these reports come to hand periodically. The Germans have a trick of closing the Dutch and Swiss frontiers in order to suggest that some great plan is afoot which must be shrouded in complete secrecy. These reports have been so frequent, however, and have proved fruitless in so large a percentage of cases that they have lost all effect. Early in December, it may be remembered, the papers were full of rumours of preparations for a great German attack. The Belgian frontier was closed half a dozen times, and the British were warned repeatedly that the enemy was about to hurl himself against their front. A despatch from General Headquarters in France, sent to Britain on December 20th, showed ihat the one place in which these ominous warnings were regarded with the most perfect indifference was the British front itself. There, the news that the Germans would attack was looked upon as too good to he true. This is what a staff officer had to say when the matter was mentioned to him: “It is true there has been quite a lot of coming and going amongst the Germans lately,” he admitted. “Bnt we know exactly the real meaning of it all. You must remember, as a school-boy, reading about the historic General who earned undying fame by marching his little army round and round a hill until the spectacle of such an endless legion got upon his adversary’s nerves and caused a stampede. I do not suggest that the Germans are actually trying to work this time-honoured trick upon us, hut the net result of what they are doing amounts to very much the same thing.” We cannot accept unreservedly the report that another great attack at Ypres is about to he made. It may he the enemy’s intention to attack again, though his offensive on a very considerable scale in Artois was recently broken down with very heavy losses, but there will be time enough to believe in the new offensive when it actually begins. In the meantime there is no ground for believing that the reports circulated are in any respect more reliable than scores of previous reports proved to be groundless. As to activity on the British front, the position is different. There must be very great activity there. It is

highly probable that some of the new armies arc crossing the Channel and taking up positions in the fighting lines. The big guns and machine guns -which Britain has been manufacturing in large numbers since last summer

are no doubt being put into position. Ever since the war began Britain has been preparing in the munition factories and at the military training camps for the Spring of 1916. and these preparations at homo must be followed by corresponding activities at the front. These activities are due to begin now. and it is therefore not unreasonable to believe that all along the British front in France at the present time there is unusual movement. Mot that an immediate attack upon the enemy is to be expected. The Spring ■will be well advanced before the Allies move, and the offensive in the West will not be launched until preparations for attack have been completed on the Russian and Italian fronts also. Part of the Allies' plan must be to engage the enemy with a maximum of violence on all fronts simultaneously so that he cannot withdraw troops from oue trout to strengthen another. Such preparations as are now being made on the Western front have their counterpart on the Isonzo and on the Eastern front, for the Allies arc working closely together and there will be no such thing as JgoJated action.