NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16149, 1 March 1918, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

< 0 , THE METHODS OF THE HUN. j It was probably only by accident j that tlio German U-boat torpedoed the c hospital ship Glenart Castle on her i outward, and not her inward, trip. No ? one by this time would credit the Hun j with such feelings of chivalry and } humanity as might restrain them from , warring on helpless wounded soldiers. 1 If the submarine commander had Lad ' better luck—from his point of view— 2 he would have got the hospital ship j as she was bringing home a pitiful j cargo of the victims of the battlefield, j For it is barely -two months since in i the same stretch of water as that in < which the Glenart Castle met her fate, { another hospital ship, the llewa, with ] 250 wounded and a large number of J nurses on board, was torpedoed at i midnight, sinking in a little over i<n t hour. By a combination of heroism and good fortune all on board except • a! few members of the crew, believed to have been killed by the explosion, were safely landed. Althougn the Glenart Castle had no wounded on board, her death-roll is believed to exceed 200, suggesting either that she sank very quickly or that the weather conditions were unfavourable for rescue work. It will be interesting to see what excuse the German papers make on * this occasion for the torpedoing of a 1 hospital ship. They could not agree « when the Rcwa was sunk. Some j assarted that she had struck a mino, although the torpedo had gone right \ through the Red Cross painted on her j side, and the Admiralty asserted' ( definitely that there were no mines in ■ the vicinity where she sank. Others, 1 possibly realising that the facts were , against the mine theory, revived itie J baseless accusations that the Admir- ] alty misused the Red Cross by employing hospital ships for the transport of troops on active service. This lie, too, j was nailed to the counter, but of j course the Germans do not really mind whether their falsehoods are refuted or ] not. They are as ready to ignore . their agreement to give safe conduct to hospital ships, providing Spanish ] naval officers were aboard them as a ( guarantee of good faith, as they are to ( tear up any other bond from,, the ] original ''scrap of paper" onwards. ( THE FRENCH ARMY. ! The report by Router's correspondent ( at French Headquarters of the roadi- ; ness of the French Army to meet the i coming offensive, wherever it may fall, ] and the unconquerable spirit of the men i themselves, is comforting news. It is ; true that the drain upon the man- 1 power of France is becoming increasing- ] ly heavy, so much so that the despatch of French reinforcements to Italy made 1 it necessarv to call to the colours men £ of fifty. Further than that, on January 15th last, a measure came into force by which workmen mobilised for munitions work, belonging to the 191-1 class—that is, 23 and 24 years of age— and younger, who had -been mobilised for munition work, were withdrawn from the workshops and placed at the 1 disposal of the Commander-in-Chief. But as long as France has the power to make sacrifices she will make them. j "I found the French Army," said a prominent Canadian officer who recently returned to Canada aftor spending several months at the front, "not only very far from being exhausted, but confident and buoyant and full of 'pep.'" (Anglice "ginger.") The watchword of ! every officer and soldier in the Armv ® V s ' ~ les aura ' ! -"we shall get 1 them. It was absolute nonsense to be- ( lieve that the French Army was tired ' out or incapable ot further striking ]jower. It had been on the offensive for fifteen months, and had never in that time failed to reach a single objective ] it set out to reach, and. never perma- I nentlv lost a foot of ground once taken. < The flew methods of attack were irre- i

sistiblc, and made for a savinjr of effectives out of all proportion to tlw gaips. GERMAN "WEAPONS OUTCLASSED. As to weapons, technique, and strategy, the Germans hrd no advantage over their French and British opponents. "We hear of the terrible gases used by tlieni," continued the officer, "but the most abominable gas they have smells like eau-de-Cologne compared to some of the lieavier-than-air stuff blown into their dug-outs by tho Franco-British fonces. The Allies have heavier and more deadly artillery, trench mortars, bombs, and aerial torpedoes; also a rifle with practic.illy a flat trajectory—nothing Ilk: 1 it has ever been seen before. The efficiency of the Army Medical Corps has never been equalled by the Germans. "Taking all these things into consideration," he declared, ''not to mention tanks, tricks, and other teasers, by comparison the German war'machine of to-day looks like a back number.'' This sounds almost too good to hb true; in any case, no good ever came of under-estiniatinrr the enemy's strength or capacity for attack. But that is a lesson which we ought to have learned by this time. And if, as we believe is tho case, the Allies are now better prepared to meet a German offensive than ever before, then confidence that they are going to win is an excellent help, and a phrase is sometimes a most heartening thing. "On les aura" may prove as potent in adding fire and vigour to the French attack as "lis lie passeront pas" was in stiffening their defenco at Verdnn. Let us hope that it will be as well justified by the event as was that historic Vow. WHEN WILL THE WAR END? Ihc best answer to the question which was being widely discussed at the beginning or the year in England and America was that the war would end when we had achieved victory. It is true that this was no real answer to tho question, but • there can, of courso. be no answer to such a question at the present stage. Opinions as to tho time that would elapse before peace is declared varied in an extraordinary manner. One view was that peace would come in four months or a year, another in a year or four years, while the members of the American Mission to Great Britain and France, of which Colonel House was th© head, oppressed the opinion that the Allies and th© United States could lay a firm foundation for peace this year, but they held out no hope that the war wou'd actually end in less than two years. Those who believed in January that another four months might possibly se& the end of the struggle pinned tlioir faith to the efforts of the diplomats, but without any very strong conviction that those efforts would be successful. It, was argued by some that if it had not been for America's entry into tho war, peace would .hav© come in the early part of tho year. The opinion is not quite so mad as it looks, because, if the Allies were not trusting to America to be of some material assistance to them in the field, something like a stalemate might conceivably have been arrived at beforo long, both sides being unable to fight to a decision. But the resulting peace could not have been permanent; all that it would have yielded would have been a breathing space in which the combatants could recruit their energies. Better to fight for another year, or even two if j in the end, w e win the peace that victory will give us, one that shall ensure the end of the war for our time at least, possibly for much longer. And it is because they look forward longingly to 'that peace that the Allies and America are prorared to fight for even two years lo»ger.