PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2341, 24 December 1914, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

The great semi-circle of armies, extending from the Flanders coast to Verdun, with which the Allies are sweeping back the German invasion of Belgium and France, continues to make slow but consistent progress. For the moment there seems to be a comparative lull on the north, where the British and Belgian troops have recently been so active, but along the French line brisk fighting has been going on and the trendies and entanglements of the enemy are being captured at'many places.- Successes arc reported at Lille, at places south of Arras, in the Champagne district, and elsewhere. Evidently the Allies arc maintaining a fierce attack, with tew and slight intermissions, from end to end of the long lino, and the backward movement of tllf. Gnrmans scorns to he, gcuoi-al and .confirmed,.

A3 to the exact nature of the fighting the cablegrams leave a good deal to tho imagination, but some illuminating glimpses are given. Near Lille the Allies are fighting their way forward through a sea of mud; in parts of. Belgium they are engaged in and around inundated areas. _ Campaigning _ under these conditions, in severe winter weather, must entail extreme physical discomfort, apart from the arduous toil involved in moving guns and transport, and the high and unbroken spirit with which the troops are universally credited is on that account all the more praiseworthy.

Mr. Martin Donohoe furnishes a vivid description of the conflict between the French and Germans which raged for nearly two months at the town of Vermolles, near La Bassee. The town was contested house by house, and each house was a fort. A fortified chateau and concretelined trenches six feet deep were amongst the obstacles which the French had to surmount in the long and sanguinary encounter. To gain an entrance to the chateau, the French had. to mine and blow down one of the walls, and even then the Germans defended the place room by room. When the desperate struggle was ovor only one German remained alive in the building. A grimmer and more deadly conflict could not well be imagined, and even in this war it would be hard to find a parallel, unless perhaps in the case of the Indian' troops, Gurkhas and others, who charge home with the knife and turn aside bayonets with their naked hands in order to reach their enemies. * * # * To judge from a detailed account which we publish to-day. the land and sea forces of the Allies were very capably organised in the battle which resulted in the Germans being ejected from Nieuport. While the land attack was driven home from many points in a fashion which confused and demoralised the enemy, the fleet of monitors at sea maintained a terrific cannonade which was exceedingly destructive in its effects. Such was the precision and deadly effect of the shrapnel fire, it is stated, that groups of Germans were blown' away bodily over the sand-dunes. Meantime three French aeroplanes, hovering overhead, maintained a sharp look-out for submarines and by keeping the destroyers constantly informed enabled them to ward off the attacks of the underwater craft. It is one of the weaknesses of the submarine that it can be easily observed from an aeroplane even when submerged to a considerable depth. The story of the battle as a whole is summed up in the expressive phrase that the plans of the Allies worked like clock-work."

A message from the Times correspondent at Petrograd confirms the impression that the ■ Russians are comfortably developing their campaign in the Eastern theatre of war. He emphasises the fact that the recent backward movement of the Russian armies in Poland was deliberately undertaken for strategical reasons, and adds that the German attack north of the Vistula has plainly failed, and that the Austrian movement from the Carpathians has been defeated. *«* . * Details of the recent fighting in Poland ' indicate that the Germans have suffered heavy losses in attempting to pierce the Russian lines without any compensating gain. _ They are now, it is stated, attempting to outflank the Opoczno force and make an opening to Sochaczew. Opoczno is fifty miles south-east of Lodz (which the Germans evacuated the other day) and Sochaczew is sixty miles north of Opoczno and, thirty miles west of Warsaw. Apparently therefore the Germans, in their attempt to outflank the Opoczno force, are intent upon forcing the whole Russian line from that place to Bocha-cze.w to retire, and upon getting within striking distance of Warsaw, but as matters have been going lately their prospects of success are distinctly poor. ■* » * * In viewing this great game of strategy, it has to bo, remembered that the only really notable success gained by the Germans at the expense of the Russians was in the region of the Masurian Lakes. The veteran General Hindenberq has made almost a life study of the intricate and difficult topography of this region, and it was a comparatively easy matter for him to so frame his tactics, as to lead his impetuously advancing opponents on to their discomfiture. Now, however, the Russians are fighting on familiar ground,, and are working out a broad strategical plan which as it develops will probably enable them to, overcome such detail difficulties as are presented by the physical features of some portions of the German frontier. The genera] excellence of the Russian strategy is admitted by military experts to be one of the surprises of the war, and nothing is more unlikely than that the Germans will succeed in piercing at any vital point the carefully-ordered lines of the Russian armies in Poland. * * # * There are reported to be now some 600,000 Austrians and Germans in Western Galicia, attempting to relievo Cracow and Przemysl, but in this region also the tide of war appears to have turned against them. The garrison of Przemysl, at all events, is in serious difficulties, and has suffered heavily in fruitless attempts to break through the Russian investing forces. That Przemysl has escaped the fate of Liege and Namur and the French fortresses which were evacuated by their defenders or easily captured by the Germans in their Western advance must be set down either to a lack of Russian heavy artillery fit to cope with the fortress guns or to a reluctance to needlessly sacrifice life in taking by assault a place which can in any case bo starved out. Strong as it is, the fate of Przemysl appears to bo none the less assured, and the _ best possible evidence that its fall is in prospect, if not imminent, is furnished in the desperate attempts which the Austrian defending army has made to cut its way through tho Russian lines of investment.

The valour of tho British troops is earning praise from friends and foes alike. One cablegram tells of a gallant affair in the Bethune district, in which the British drove the enemy before them from a position which had been stubbornly contested for weeks to a place ten miles from Bethune. Equally gratifying is an account given by a A'ew York Times correspondent of an interview with a German commander, Gesrhai. von Heeringkn. This officer, _ according to flic correspondent, testified to tho quality of the British troops as tough and seasoned soldiers, and nvnlxtstl their expert skill upon tho battlefields. Mention is made of an

attempt by General von Heeringen's troops to shake tho nerve of the British by throwing handgrenades into their trenches, preparatory to an assault, and it is recorded that the Scotsmen at whom these attentions were directed, so far from being dismayed, came out of the trenches to meet their assailants with the bayonet. There is a sting in the tail of the story, for General von Heeringen, whilo testifying to the warlike prowess of the British soldiers, accused them of abusing tho Red Cross and of using dum-dum bullets. These detractions will command no credence from those who know tho standard which British soldiers invariably maintain, but they strengthen the probability that the reported interview is genuine.

The enforced retreat of tho German invading Armies in France and Belgium to some extent robs of interest the ■ announcement that the defences of Paris have been greatly strengthened by the construction of entrenchments and the mounting of heavy guns which, in the aggregate, have made the fortifications of the French capital much more formidable than in the days when tho Germans were checked at the Marne. It is exceedingly improbable, to say the least, that the Germans will again come within striking distance of Paris, but now that the weaknesses of the place have been made good, no secret is made of the fact that they existed in the early days of the war. When the Germans first pushed into France, Paris lacked the heavy guns necessary to cope with the enormous German siege-howitzers and an equally serious defect was the absence of entrenchments, linking up the forts of the defending, circle, which the experience of the war has shown to be essential to a strong defence.

These defects have now been made good, more, presumably, as a precautionary measure than from any belief that the defences of Paris will be actually tested by a siege. The unpreparedness of the French was not wholly confined to their fortifications, but extended also in some degree to the organisation of their field armies. The neglect thus exposed was no doubt unwise, but it has at least supplied evidence that the French people had no thought of aggressive war. In the immediate presence of the war they have risen nobly to the occasion. They have not only improved the fortifications of Paris and other places, but have laboured untiringly on the vastly more important task of raising their Army to the highest pitch of organisation and efficiency, and the result is seen inthe statement that patient organisation has got General Joffre's machine into the smoothest working order. In the earlier passages of the war, although the French and their. Allies repeatedly demonstrated their personal superiority in actual fighting, the advantages of superior organisation and careful preparation rested witn the Germans. Now that the French organisation has been perfected, and with the British Army rapidly being built up _to impressive dimensions, the position is vastly improved for the Allies.

Tee scale of the British preparations has been indicated by Me. Lloyd George (Chancellor of the Exchequer) in an interview with the representative of a Paris newspaper. He said that the English war expenditure now amounted, to £46,000,000 a month and that two million British soldiers and sailors would be under arms before the spring, when half a million fresh British troops would join those now fighting in France and Belgium. Against this splendid tide of reinforcements Germany can set almost nothing. She has staked everything upon a single throw and practically the whole of her male population fit to fight is already under arms. Decidedly the outlook is encouraging for the Allies. * * * * Naturally enough little is heard of the public attitude in Germany towards the war, but an air of probability attaches to a circumstantial account in a cablegram published today _ of anti-war demonstrations in Berlin which reached the dimensions of a riot. A significant addition is the statement that a Landwehr regiment, which was ordered to charge the crowd, refused. A late message states that the German, censorship of news is stricter than at any time since the war began and that nothing is being disclosed regarding the operations in: Poland. This seems to suggest that the Germans may have met some more severe reverse in that quarter than has yet been made known. *•* * * The spirit of German militarism is perhaps typified in a grim story told by a Petrograd correspondent of the Daily Chronicle. He declares that German soldiers going forth to assault the Eussian trenches were ordored to leave their tunics behind them, the idea being that if the owners failed to return their tunics would serve to clothe another batch of victims. The same correspondent states that the men of the attacking forces were served with spirits mixed with ether. That also is characteristic of the ruthless militarism which regards men only as so many, detail parts of a great machine.