The Timaru Herald MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 1918. THE WAR IN THE WEST.

Timaru Herald, Volume CVII, Issue 16619, 26 August 1918, Page 4

The Timaru Herald MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 1918. THE WAR IN THE WEST.

2S"o change in. the history of tko VV estern w ariare nas Deen so coiupi<Jio or dramatic as that which for weeks past has converted the tremendous -menace of the German offensive into a shaken, saddened, scries of retirements with reduced forces on half of the most) important sectors of the long: front. The first shock of the enemy's offensive in March, on a front of fifty miles, was a more severe blow to the "Allies than any they have delivered. yet in reply, but only the immense weight of it was unexpected. It was foreseen that, with the help received from It-nssia's defection, and in the interval before Americans could come in in force, the initiative must pass to the Germans for a time, and the Allies be reduced to a defensive role in the theatre where for nearly two years they had been superior. The German, offensive, lasting for four months, was made in five great, blows, of which the first and third, on the Somme and Aisne fronts, were alarmingly successful, the second, in Flanders, though dangerous for a time, was far too costly and succeeded on too narrow a front to be ioiher than a disadvantage to the enemy, the fourth was an expensive and the fifth a disastrous failure. Three months after the first greaij effort it seemed impossible to expect' that the Allies would be able to do more this year than, maintain a successfull defensive till superior force imd the initiative should return to them in the spring. But the Germans have exhaustd themselves and Americans have come in faster than that outlook anticipatedGeneral Focli kuew how his reserves stood, while the Germans were boasting of their destruction. In the five weeks that have followed his assumption of the initiative the Allies have struck jat least' five great blows, with the special advantage, as compared with the enemy's effort, that they have struck frequently on two fronts at once. The Allies have not nearly Avon back yet all the ground which the Germans took in their main rushes, but the balance of superiority has completely ohanged, and the front has never before been shaken and disrupted on so long a line. There has been no diminishing strength in Marshal Foch's blows. The latest of them, on the Somme front, has been at least as successful as the first. The combined operations of Generals Humbert and Mangin between Lassigny and the Aisne give promise of the greatest developments in that arena,and the Germans cannot relieve either their Somme or their southern front by troops sent from the other, because their armies are equally hard pressed on both, while the hard-won Flanders salient to a great extent is viewed as a place to be retired from under British pressure to save heavier losses.

The question naturally arising is: What is Germany going- to do ahnufc it r* Her offensive is noc ended, it is only postponed, to be renewed in the autumn, savs a German paper. If that renewal should be possible it is plain that no German offensive can be made in the autumn in anything- like such favourable conditions as those which the enemv enjoyed in the spring, but armies that are being hustled from pillar to post as the German armies are, not on one front only, but! on most parts of iihe front between Ypres and Rheims, do not easily prepare for an offensive, ;ind the Allies can be trusted to keep ivo their hustling. By the autumn the ?ernians will have their 1920 class, half a million boys of eighteen years, badly nourished boys at this stage of Germany's warfare, ready for tile field, and thev have still reserves, variously stated at sixteen and thirty divisions, which they have kejit intact so far. The Somme fighting- will make demands on those, and Ave. should soon have more precise knowledge of their strength. L\us.trians and Bolsheviks mar give some help, but they are not much to count on. There have been German retirements on-sections <>f the front) where the enemy has not been greatly pushed, but no big retirement, for the advantage of a. shorter front, is likely Jo be madevoluntarilv this year. Such movementsrcfjuiiv almost as much prepnvalion as a bijr offensive, n?i'l the TTi<jh Command will not w"|lingly give a lmngrv people ;r reheat to look hack upon dimmr vV- winter months thai will test

the German, spirit. Tlic enemy will go back as far as the Allies can push Mm, and no further, until the spring, the time chosen for the last "Hindenburg retreat." He may have hopes of holding out eventually on the Meuse or Rhine line, and daring the Allies to do their worst, but the Rhine would not give immunity from aircraft, which, may be the decisive arm next year, and it is not proved that it; can not be turned. The French huxe clung so closely to certain dominating positions in Alsace as to raise a. strong pre* sumption that they have no unimportant prospective use for them.