THE GREAT ADVANCE.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 14143, 21 July 1916, Page 2

THE GREAT ADVANCE.

BEGINNING OF THE END

Colonel F. N.- Maude, the well known military expert, in. the June number of the ' Royal Magazine" wrote:— When we do advance, it will be because the demoralisation of the enemy lias been so completely established bY observation at the front that the whole series of combined movements will o-o forward with an irresistible rush. Modern weapons, with all their mechanical perfection and potential power, still depend on the nerves of tho men who servo them, and the troops least broken.'by previous punishment oan be certain that, to them will fall the eventual victory. ■ v -'« It is quite possible, . th'buglt— -it always is on (any battlefield—that sudden local Allied successes may break .the enemy's line---with such. completeness that the hour and direction of our advance may be'hastened. Once the break-up, of an army through gradual demoralisation begins, no one ca.n say how rapidly events may crowd ■one'on the other.

In the nature of things there is no reason why a beaten German Army should not be driven back on the Rhine within six. weeks, the distance thither has often been/covered in similar circumstances in the same time, and the passage of the great river itself presents no more formidable difficulties to ns than did that of tho Danufbe to the Russians at Rustchuk in 1877, or tho. crossing of the Vistula to the Germans last spring. ■' ' .

THE FINAL STAND

How far we may have "to fight our way beyond the-Rhine into the"middle of Germany will depend principally on the progress made by the Russians' and Italians towards the meeting of the Allies. My-own idea has always been that the Germans will attempo a final stand between Muiden-Paderborn and' Hanau, their extreme left resting on the Thiiringian Forest, where a great French .army- moving down the right bank of the' Rhine from Basle Will work

round their flnnk. while thr reet of the' Allied forces from the .Westf wUI press forward on a broad front by all possible roads and-river crossings. Onco the Allies have reached Berlin and joined hands., will follow a, period of "negotiations, during which, as, the Germans did before Paris in 1870 for the French, we shall give the enemy facilities to elect a new Government with which we can treat. j Exactly how long this' final stage may take no one can tell with certainty, but from the experience of many former campaigns six months to a year should I see the end of the reckoning with "thit bitter and hasty nation," who, like the Chaldeans of old, "marched through the breadth of the land to possess the dwel-ling-places that are not tiheirs."