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Timaru Herald, Volume CVI, Issue 16235, 3 April 1917, Page 7

The British have captured the .village of Savy, not much more than three miles west of St. jUuentin, and advanced a mile beyond it, notwithstanding the opportunities for resistance afforded ,by a wood. They were not expected so soon at Savy, and the place fell almost without a struggle. The important centre of St. Quentin, one of the buttresses of the German front, is threatened now by the converging progress of the French and British. Further north Marshal Haig'a "forces have seized Vendelles and Epehny, on the railway which joins St. Quentin and lkpauaie. From Epehny another line runs northward to Cambrai. Its capture therefore holds unusual promise." The French report good progress north pf the Aisne.

There seems little chance that the Germans will be able to hold the Arras-St. Quentin line. Tho question is how far they will elec* to fall, or be driven, back. Ths •"Providence Journal," of America, claims to have received iniformation that the Allied commaaders hold the view that the German plans incjude a retirement to the Ehine. The Allied generals are not accustomed to confide to newspapers the deductions they may make from the lenemy's movements, but the "PrdVidence Journal" is not Igiven to ■ sensationalism, and we can gather at least that an impression exists in some parts of the British Army that this time the Germans mean to go right back. That impression does, not necessarily conflict with Sir William Robertson's assurance thafj their withdrawal is not voluntary. Nhe Germans may be making- the: retirement under pressure, and they may be convinced, by thia time, that no half-way retirement will give them the relief they Iwant.

If military advantage had been the only consideration, the Germans would have Mien back to the Rhine, or at least to the halfway -lino of the Meuse, fully a year ago, as soon as it appeared that they could make no further progress in the west. Either retirement would have given them a huge reserve of troops, which they might have used with deadly effect on the eastern front, and by falling back all the way to the Rhine this reserve would have been greater, and the strongest of all lines would have been held by them against the Allies. They ifeared, however, the results of euch a movement on the German people, and hoped to hold on to their long western lines, making guns take the place of men as far as possible. Now they are outgunned ; and the withdrawal, ,which might have been made by a superior army, has to be made, [with greater dangers, by a reduced one, while the moral effect in Germany will be tho same. 'The German High Command is. striving hard to represent its withdrawal as a victory,, but that effort will be less convincing the (further the withdrawal goes.

We can take it that the Germans will not fall back to the llhine, however, unless they are .extremely pushed for men to

carry on operations which they might hope to. be decisive in an-' •other theatre, or unless the Allies 5 pressure makes it impossible for them to stop before. We do not know what the enemy's strategic reserve amounts to,, or what the

massed levy, made three months before Great Britain began counter-measures, may have ad- , ded to it. The reserve compiled i'pr the conquest of. Eoumania, less the losses incurred in ihat campaign, remains to him, and apparently it is not now beingused in lloumania,. where the .German forces are to-day reported to be much reduced. . A .{great blow at .Russia would be ,weil timed while the revolution is still new, but if the Germans have already the floating reserve of. a million men attributed to them by General Creagh they .would not need to find more, by a shortening of their lines in Prance, for that or any other purpose. It is almost certain that General Creagh has hugely exaggerated their, reserve.

as declaring that some people in' Urusseis and other Delgian cities are quite coniiortabie in the midst-* of war. Mr Whitaker was reported a few days ago as stating that tho Belgians at Koubaix were suffering worse oppression than had been suspected at the hands ot German occupiers, who were stealing the good Hour sent to them from America and substituting for it German rye fioui mixed with sawdust, by which many deaths had been Not knowing Mr Whitaker some journals took his name to be a mutilation of that of Mr Wythe Williams,, correspondent of the New York "Times," who had been mentioned in a previous message, but apparently there is such a person somewhere on the western front. His description of conditions in Brussels, unless It refers only to a few rich Belgians, who may be supposed to have made their peace good with Ger- I many, is surprising, however, in the light of his 'other statement, and of a story told recently by Mr Hoover, the managing head of the American Relief Commission. Mr Hoover stated tha;fc he watched 1200 Bele-ian children, in a district near Brussels, wait ing for their food to be doled out to them, and was surprised to see some children back by their mothers from the line before they could get their share. The explanation wa.s that, although hungry, thev were not under weight, and that onlv those who had lost weight and were '■Fncincr starvation could have food. There was not enough to go round otherwise.