Western Star AND WALLACE COUNTY GAZETTE. PUBLISHED Every Tuesday and Friday. TUESDAY, JULY 30, 1918. THE WAR.

Western Star, 30 August 1918, Page 2

Western Star AND WALLACE COUNTY GAZETTE. PUBLISHED Every Tuesday and Friday. TUESDAY, JULY 30, 1918. THE WAR.

The Germans have abandoned the Marne salient, and notwithstanding that they are in a, dangerous position, the orders for further retreat have been countermanded. The assumption is than Von Boehm, or the Crown Prince decided to retreat before their only outlet from the bottetoj of the pocket in the south of the salient tcaiching the Marne has become too narrow owing to the closing in of the Allies, and the Higher Command overruled their decision. The German stand portends some heavy fighting, and the enemy having bad communications has placed himself in a position where lie can he severely punished by our artillery. As it is the Germans have been forced back eleven miles, have had one hundred and fifty thousand casualties since General Foolx commenced his offensive, while they lost by capture thirty thousand. Behind the enemy lines air observers report that guns, supplies, and troops are in the greatest congestion, and that -un transportable supplies have been destroyed by fire. The German retreat was made inevitable not only because they wore in a dangerous salient formed by a triangle of which Soissons and Rheims. made the base and Chateau Thierry the apex, but because defective communications made it impossible to renew the wastage Avitlf ease and rapidity. Seventy-two enemy divisions have been identified in the Marne fighting, and it is now believed that there are only thirty left behind Prince Rupprecht’s armies. If this bo so, it is a good sign. The Crown Prince’s reserves have evidently been entirely used up, and Prince Rupprecht’s are all that are left on the. western front. Fbr this reason the enemy will bo disinclined to stake everything on an isolated attack on another front, particularly as the man-power situation is not so good as he would like, and he cannot expect an improvement until the 1920 classes are ready to take the field two months hence. In the Champagne country, where the French had been driven back to their main battle line, the enemy has been dispossessed of his gains, the French having regained the ground by a series of local operations, capturing eleven thousand prisoners in the operations. On the northern front there have been a number of successful British raids. Under the protection of a heavy bombardment the Germans attacked the New Zealanders’ left flank at Hobuterne but were vigorously repulsed, leaving prisoners. Elsewhere on this front there has been mutual shelling, the Germans using mostly gas. America is sending troops to the Italian front, and: ait present has one million and a-quarter men in France, sixty per cent, of whom will cuter the fighting line. In the United States the sugar ration has been cut

vTTT' down to 21bs a month iso tn.u ..-.c troops might have a sufficiency. II the shipyards work to their full capacity they will complete twelve hundred steel and a similar number of wooden ships in 1919, by which time the enormous strength of the American nation will bo felt by the Huns. In aviation work the British (airmen are very active, dumps, villages, and railways all receiving attention from the intrepid flyers. Lord Weir has appealed to 1 America to send aeroplane motors to Britain where they would ho installed in planes in which British pilots would give the enemy a foretaste of what they might expect, in steadily increasing volume. In Russia Lenin has found that while it was easy to start a revolution it was extraordinarily difficult to continue and conclude it. The strike of munition workers in England is a veij serious matter, and the Government has decided that all wilfully absent from work on the 29th lost, would be deemed as voluntarily placing themselves outside the munition industries. Their certificates of exemption would cease as from that date, and they ■would then be liable fcr service under the Military Service Act.