How Goes the Fight?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11894, 1 January 1917, Page 8

How Goes the Fight?

——♦ NOTES ON THE WAR. THE POSITION ANALYSED. CERISTCHIfRCH, Jnxraray 1. The cabled summary of Sir Douglas haig's dispatch covering the period of i&e great offensive on tho Somme is ,J m some respects disappointing. Tho Connecting links and tho many ilhmiinating comments which such a document necessarily contains have been smitted in the condensation, and items of information that would have proved of the highest interest have been barely mentioned. Of course nothing like an extended summary of the dispatch could have been sent, but for all that the cabled precis inciudfs lengthy references to operations already fully reported, and the space devoted to them might profitably have been given to information not hitherto published. The technical preparations for the offensive, for example, are dismissed in a very brief paragraph. Yet the preparations must have been on a tremendous scale, and the concentration of material must have been quite without parallel. One can have no conception of the magnitude of the labours involved in the s-minrulation of stores and the provision of transport facilities, and as the jorrespondents as a rule give no account of these activities, it would bo Interesting to have the official state-1 hent on the subject. But in the actual operations on the fiommo there are many little points and some major ones still to be cleared •ap. The strength of the opposing forces has not been revealed. It is known that- opposing the British prior to the opening of the offensive there were forty German divisions and some 8000 guns. Sir Douglas Haig now says that four-fifths of the German divisions on tho western front were used against British and French north and south of the Somme. which should mean that from first to last just under 100 enemy divisions were given a spoil in the trenches and redoubts during tho Allied offensive. Up to September 30 the British had engaged thirtyeight enemy divisions, of which twentynine had been withdrawn, broken ot exhausted, leaving nine in the trenches; and thp French had a similar condition to report, thirty-three divisions having been engaged on their portion of tho front. Over seventy enemy divisions had thus been engaged tin to the end of September and during the succeeding mouths the tally reached more than ninety. A French statement issued in October credited the Germans with 193 divisions in all, of which 124 were on the western front. It is safe to say that only thirty of western divisions, were not called upon to assist in stemming the Allied advance on the Somme, and some of thoso that escaped were landwehr troops, employed, apparently, in garrison duty and on the lines of communication. As to tho strength of tho Allied forces, no information has been made public. Sir Douglas Haig states that- tho principal offensive was undertaken by Eawlinson's army, with Gough in support, and that some divisions were borrowed from Allenby, in command further north. But this reference only indicates the initial dispositions, and every New Zealander knows that a3 the offensive progressed fresh divisions were brought into the line. Sir Douglas Haig's dispatch is not likely to give details of the division* employed, but it must contain a good deal more information on the question than ! might be gathered from the summary. \ It is rather to bo regretted that greater stress has not been laid on the j activities "behind the lines," cspeci- : ally if Sir Douglas Haig has discussed i them at any length, because some of the critics are still disposed to harp on j the number of men who are in the , army, but. are not actually fighting, i Mr Churchill, it will bo remembered, ! etarted this particular lino of criticism in a speech in the House of Commons 1 some months ago. He declared that , half the total ration strength of the army was still in Great Britain, that- . of the half abroad, half fought and ] half did not fight, and that of the half : )hat- fought the greater burden fell on \ Jho three-quarters composing the infantry in tho trenches. He argued thai there was one rifle in tho trenches for every six men recruited, and that some two million soldiers had never been ( Qnder fire. It is not proposed to ris- < cuss the question at length here, but ' Sir Douglas Haig's reference to the ', enormous labours involved in the preparation for the offensive should luip , the reader to understand why so many i men are occupied behind the lines. His i statement that troops had to be used ; before their training was complete also explains, in part, why so large a proportion of the total army remained \ hi tho depots at Homo. There is i another reason, of course, and it is that nil the men recruited cannot be used in the firing line. A very large proportion must be held in training to ,c----puir the wastage of the campaigns. According to a cable message, the Austrian Emperor has got rid of jiieghart, tho maker of Ministries, Whoso career was rather widely advertised at tho time- of the assassination jf Count Sturgkh. Sieghart, whose real name is Singer, is the son of a provincial rabbi. Nothing was heard ot klim .until he obtained an appointment in the- Press Bureau of the Austrian Premier's office. By dint of hard work, intrigue and obsequiousness, he rose to , be head of the Press Bureau and controlled the secret Press funds. He gave % considerable subsidy to an obscure i Weekly organ, the " Montagspresse, of ffhich Count Sturgkh was editor; and when Singer found it expedient, in the interests of his career, to become baptised and to take the name of Sieghart, he invited Count Sturgkh to be his , sponsor at the font. In 1904 Sieghart. < perceiving that his chief, Dr von Korber, was losing ground, turned the official Press against him, hastened his , overthrow, and prepared the advent of his successor. This manoeuvre Sieghart ! repeated with four successive Premiers, until he came to be regarded as vlie i most influential personage in Austrian 1 politics. In 1910, however, one of the Premier- 3 «diom he had helped to appoint- and i had afterwards betrayed and over- j thrown, Baron Gautech, was again stJasted by the Emperor for tho Premier- i

ship. Sieghart, feeling that his days as head of the Press Bureau were numbered, procured for himself a lucrative appointment as Director-General of the Bodenkreditanstalt, or Landed Credit Bank, to which the affairs of a great part of the Austrian aristocracy are entrusted. This gave him a salary of £IO,OOO a year and an opportunity to make many times that sum hy well-in-formed speculation. Simultaneously he secured for Count Sturgkh an appointment as Minister of Public Instruction in the new Gautsch Cabinet, and upon its fall, on October 31, 1911, was instrumental in hoisting him into the Premier's seat.