NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16164, 19 March 1918, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE GREAT OFFENSIVE.^ The delay in the commencement of the expected great offensive is beginning, we fancy, to get on people's nerves. In a "way, this ; is not .to be wondered at, but it will'be regrettable if it leads, as apparently; it has a tendency to do, to a lowering.of the public's confidence in the ability of the Allied armies to throw back the German attiick, whenever and wherever it i> made. So far as such details of the preparations as' have been given .ire concerned, it must be remembered that we have been told much more iiliout tho enemy than about our own -id??, and this lor the obvious reason that the British and French authori- 1 tn\s an; giving away no information to the enemy- "What «» hear of tho Normans is the result of the observations of our airmen and of the revelations'of German prisoners. It sounds very impressive, no doubt but it is well to remember that it is only half the story, an<l that in the line and a half which Router's correspondent, in vooterday's cable, devoted to the Allied side, in which he said; "Our defence preparations are on the most formidable scale," is hidden, possibly, quite i as Aiuch as, if not more than, he tells | in twenty lines, of the immense preparations* by the enemy. Ludendorf's remarks to a German interviewer may be taken for what thev arc worth, and j that does not amount to much when it j is neinembered that he was plainly talking iof the double purpose of "bucking; til)'' the German Nation, and of' scar- i ing the Allies. On the latter point j Mr Philip Gibbs recently wrote:—! •The (German) Higher Command seems! to wish to alarm us by exaggerating the scale of the menace- The enemy's plans of attack in the West arc serious enough. But he is trying to build \ up a mightier bogey- than the power lie can actually command, so that the Allies may be demoralised by its ferocious aspect. They arc not'likely to be deceived by sucli camouflage, which is transparently thin." Tt may be taken for granted that the Allies were never better prepared to meet a great assault than they are 1 now, both as regards men and munitions. The troops, as all correspondents agree, have wintered well. Tho Mck rate among the Australians, for instance, is said to have been under 1 per cent., and the hospitals have been idmost empty, and there is no reason to believe 'that the Australians have been any better off jn this respect than thtf other divisions' of the British Army. The men have been well clothed and fed, they h'avo had plenty of rest, and their moral is admirable. They arc absolutely confident of victory, and it is a poor compliment to them to doubt/ tlieir ability to meet j nnd defeat the enemy's onset.

THE PLIGHT OF RUSSIA. The situation in .Russia shares public thought and attention with the coming In this case, hdwever, -the position is recognised as hopeless. AVeeks ago one gave up any hope that Russia, conld be of any service as an Ally j.and the only interest that the unfortunate country possesses is the spectacle of its disintegration into absolute and unchecked anarchy, and the use that Germany wnl make of her over it. On the actual condition of affairs in Russia I>r. Harold Williams, in some of his. recent despatches; has some illuminating remarks. "The vagaries of the extreme Russian sects," he says, s "aro repeated on a colossal scale; It is as though the whole people had decided to follow the example of those Old Believers who, just before -the timo of Peter the • Great { defended their- integrity by 6clf-immolation. "Why this rage of destruction ? "Why this senseless cruelty that makes looting peasants skin the landowners' cattla alive, and send them pitifully beldown the road?" He goes on v.v point out that all this anarchy increzser. tenfold the difficulties of tho Gfrrjats, "They aimed steadily at tLo drjro.rganisatiozr of Russia. But cne msimagine that they are aghast at the result of their own efforts. And the anarcbv is steadily growing worse. With all their violations of law and right, the Germans have certain mental conventions which are not flexible enough for the present Russian situation."

THE MURDER OF OFFICERS. ! In to-day's report that, beforei retiring from Odessa, as the Germans advanced on the city, a Bolshevik "general" ordered the massacre of , the officers, capitalists, and .. bourgeoisie, we are uot told whether the order was carricd out in its entirety, but an effort would no doubt be made to give effect to instructions apparently so much in keeping with Bolshevik * tastes. On this- suEject Dr. Williams, writing early in January, said: — "Officers are a persecuted race. Stripped of all marks of distinction and compelled to live on soldier's pay, while their families are deprived of their maintenance allowance, they are subjected to daily insults and indignities, and aro luckv if their lives are spared. Those who can have fled to the Don, while many resort to physical labour to keep their families alive."

BACK TO BARBARISM. And, in another striking despatch, lie "gave a and appalling pic- * turo-of Russia in ruin. "I cannot tell," he said, "of all the* brutalities, the fierce excesses," that are. ravaging Russia from end to end more ruthlessly than an invading army. Horrors pall on, us—robbery, plunder, and • the cruellest forms of murder have grown " a part of the atmosphere we live in. How is it that tlie war has recoiled on Russia in such, a national suicide? Tlio tyranny of to-day is worse than the tyranny of Nicholas 11. • . Yet it would, be the extreme of folly to wish Nicholas back, for it the war, combined with the long past of Russian tyranny, that is crowding down on Russia in a new, wild despotism of chaotic revenge for tne jvrongs of many generations. "The Bolsheviks are emphatically not pacifists; their object is to substitute for the war between nations a war between classes. ... . The Bolsheviks have stopped war with Germany only to kindle civil war in Russia. * The weapons forged against Germanv are being used to shoot down the citizens of Petrograd and Moscow, to mow down officers of the Rnssian Armv and Fleet. "The Bolsheviks do not profess to encourage any illusions as to their real filature. They treat the bourgeois of it 11 countries with equal contempt;

:hv «ioi v .n all violence directed a-tllr- ruling classes: they despise laws an<l decencies that they consider effete, they trample on the arts and refinements of life. It is nothing to them if in the throes of the great upheaval the world relapses into barbarism."