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Taranaki Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 145999, 4 December 1917, Page 2

An American correspondent writes home from Stockholm that the (icrnuins intend to carry out a. whirlwind campaign on the western front in the winter and early spring so as to forestall the arrival of the troops from America. No doubt it would bo very pleasing for Hindenburg to gain a triumph in the west, hut things arc not too easy there and, as another correspondent remarks, ho is far more likely to attack Koumanin than to try to take Paris. So far as the western front is concerned, the time has long passed when we need trouble very seriously about what the Gormans arc going to do; it is the Gormans who have to keep renewing and strengthening the barriers they have set np against the steadily advancing tide of the British and French offensive. On Saturday and Sunday the Gormans made a carefully prepared attack in very great force on the salient the British have recently formed opposite Cambrai as the result of the most brilliant surprise attack of the whole war. But they gained practically nothing, though at one part of the lino the vast numbers attacking could not be shot down fast enough to stop them and thus some ground was taken, only to bo afterwards lost. It has been proved a score of times that once British troops are firmly settled in possession of positions which arc reasonably defensible no German attack can turn them out. The Gorman commanders know' this, and the men know it too from hard experience. We, therefore, do not expect to see the whirlwind campaign predicted, but do expect to see a considerable withdrawal of the German lino before next spring. There are a number of places on tho German front where an advance by the Allies of half a dozen miles would prove extremely dangerous, and it is very unlikely that tho Germans will stay long enough in these positions to test the Allies' powers of carrying out enveloping movements.