Western Star AND WALLACE COUNTY GAZETTE PUBLISHED Every Tuesday and Friday. FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 1917. THE ADVANCE ON THE WEST.

Western Star, 23 March 1917, Page 2

Western Star AND WALLACE COUNTY GAZETTE PUBLISHED Every Tuesday and Friday. FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 1917. THE ADVANCE ON THE WEST.

Russian liberation from the bondage of privileged officialdom and caste government, the attainment of freedom and through freedom of justice, is a revolution that will change the whole national and civic life of Russia, and will prove its best asset as tbe result of this war. The immedate result, however, is of the utmost importance to us. This will be the generation of a new interest by the people in the war—the creation of a fixed determination to- overthrow Prussiauism, which stands in Germany for all that was bad in the government of the old Russian regime. Democratic, liberal Russia having successfully opposed autocratic, bureaucratic Russia, who knows what effect it may have on the progressive section of the German nation who have been dragooned into the acceptance of Prussian ideals? Great events are transpiring quickly in these times. There are many things in the German system analogous to those which corrupted the Russian, and it remains to be seen whether they can stand the strain of this war. If the German constitution does not respond to the influences that are pervading all peoples, a break must be the inevitable Consequence. Such an occurrence at present would be a tremendous help to the Allies; but German bureaucracy is more scientific than Russian, and it may be assumed that they have taken safeguards to stave off the evil day. The Allies, however, are not basing their hope of victory upon any revolution in Germany, but upon their power to beat back her armies and those fighting with her. That they are doing this slowly but surely is proved, by recent intelligence from the theatre of war. Contemporaneously with the report's of Russia’s doings came the gratifying news of the fall of Bapaume and Peronne on the western front, a rapid British advance in continuation of the Somme thrust of last year of ten miles on ai forty-five mile front in twenty-four hours in the direction of Arras, the retirement of the Germans from the Bapaume Ridge, where it was anticipated they would stubbornly resist the British offensive of this spring, and the occupation of about one hundred villages in which Hun savagery played havoc before evacuation, not forgetting to put arsenic in the wells. There is no longer any doubt that a serious breach has been made in Germany’s wall of steel. This breach extends from Monchy, south west of Arras, to the Noyon plateau, a distance of one hundred miles as the trenches go. All the German armies in this sector are falling back towards the Belgian frontier, with the Anglo-French cavalry in pursuit. It must not, however, bo thought that the retreat is a collapse, although it must have a demoralising effect . oh the enemy whose morale is not now too good, as the extraordinary number of German prisoners who gave up without resistance at Verdun showed. In fact, a German official wireless message states that what ‘ we call a retreat was a voluntary evacuation between Arras and the Aisne. If an evacuation, then no hint is given of their object. It has been suggested that they will gradually retire until well into Belgian territory where surprises are in store for the Allies. The British are within five miles of Camhrai, a most important centre not far from the border, and it has been said that if Camhrai and St. Quentin fall, the. Germans will have to put a hustle on in their northward path. Camhrai is the main lino of communication of the Germans between Lille and the Oise, and the occupation of St. Quentin would command the Champagne Plain. From St. Quentin the Allies are now only eight miles. It would not bo surprising to hear of the fall of both places. The German argument that theirs is a strategic retirement is hardly tenable. The Turks made the same statement on the Fall of Baghdad, and this week’s cables bring the information that all Turkish forces arc being withdrawn from the Austro-Germnn-Russian front to be rushed to the East, while all males in the Empire have been called up. Germany boasted that the whole of Northern.

France would be retained in order to claim an indemnity from the French, and now she is steadily abandoning the whole of it. Would Germany give up territory so easily which had only been won at the expense of her best blood and enormtoua treasure? Would she vacate the whole old German line, south of Arras, which was one vast fortress, built by the labor of millions of men, with thousands of machine guns in redoubts, forests of barbed wire, and lay waste a countryside she hoped to annex, in part at least? Would she do all this for any problematical advantage she hopes to gain on Belgian soil? It seems hardly credible. It might be that anticipating an extraordinary onslaught from British artillery, ' which will be the deciding factor, and knowing-that the monster guns cannot be moved in a day, the Germans have moved north! to new defences so far undiscovered where they hope to meet the Allies before the big guns can be brought up. This and other matters are all speculation. The fact remains that the big push of last year has been extended, the Germans are vacating the territory they declared they would not yield, and in their retirement are committing acts which proclaim as powerfully as words that they have abandoned all hope of reoccupying the evacuated country.