PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2349, 4 January 1915, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

The sinking of the battleship Formidable is shrouded in a certain amount of mystery. Whether it was the result of a torpedo from an enemy's submarine, or due to a floating mine set adrift by a Germa.a vessel, .or a fixed- mine which had broken loose' from one of the British minefields along the Channel coast is not known, or at least j s ' not disclosed. The fact remains that, Britain has lost a fighting ship of a somewhat inferior, class, and a number of .officers and men, the exact total oi whom is not yet known. If is consoling to think that a fair number of the crew have been saved, and that there is .a probability of still more being rescued. ■*■ # * # ' The Formidable was a useful class of vessel which a dozen years ago would have had a place in the fighting jine, but which has been outstripped in armour, armament,' dimensions, and speed by more modern vessel?. _ Compared with the latest battleships she was quite outclassed, but she carried' four 12-}nch guns and might have been expected to come in handy in an engagement with some of the lesser craft of the enemy. Nowadays the big fighting ships are being armed with eight 16-inch guns, while a .number are in commission with ten 13.5-inch, and many more with eight, ten,' or twelve 12-inch guns. The Formidable was laid down in 1898, but was not .completed until 1901. Her displacement is put clown at 15,000 tons, and her speed at 18 knots. Theri are quite a number of battleships of a somewhat similar type in the British "Navy (they cost about a million each), but they no longer belong to the First Battle Fleet. Both the Formidable and the Bulwark (which was lost some weeks ago through an explosion which occurred on board while she was 1 lying in port) belonged to what is known as the Second Fleet. !» * K * While the' loss of • these vessels should not be treated too lightly, Britain could afford to lose a dozen such and still remain vastly superior to Germany in fighting strength. At the outset of the war Britain, including the two new Turkish battleships she took over, had in" the North Sea something like 30 battleships and battle-cruisers carrying at least eight 12-inch guns, against Germany's 18, a numher of the- latter being armed with 11-inch guns. In addition, Britain had four battle-cruisers in the Mediterranean, and the battlecruiser Australia in the Pacific. At the outbreak of the war Britain had three other battleships and a battlecruiser nearing completion, while Germany had three battleships well advanced. Since then Me. CmntCHill has told us that Britain is building faster than Germany can possibly hope to do, and that the margin of superiority held at the outset can be maintained so far as the building of new fighting ships is concerned. It will be seen from this that the loss of a few inferior battleships of the Formidable class, however much we may deplore tho loss of the gallant men who rran them, can have little.effect in the direction of bringing the British Fleet down to the fighting strength of the German battle fleet.

Accounts to-day indicate that the Russians are carrying all before them in Poland and Galicia. The Germans/have been severely handled between the Vistula and the Pilica, that is to say along a front of sixty or seventy miles, extending south from the Lower-Vistula.. Much importance attaches to the statement that the Russians are preparing to cross the Vistula at Plock, in order to threaten the Thorn-Lowicz railway, the possess : on of which is so important to the' German armies in Central Poland and north towards the Lower Vistula. In" all likelihood the reported departure of six German Army Corps from the region of Sochaczew, on the Bzura; west of Warsaw, for an "unknown destination," is a direct outcome of the Russian movement against the Thorn-Lowicz railway. ,

Last week the, Russians were reported to have reached Wloclawek, on the southern bank of the Lower Vistula, twenty miles' from the Prussian frontier, and to be mounting guns at that point to command the Thorn-Lowicz railway. Plock is twenty-seven miles further cast, and twenty-four miles north of the railway. The later message makes no. mention of Wloclawek, but it is quite possible that operations are still proceeding' in that quarter, though the railway is apparently still,intact. The reported departure of a big German force from the region of Sochaczew certainly, suggests that the Russian advance by way of the Lower Vistula is making itself felt, whatever'its detail developments at the moment may be.

The Russians sum up the general progress of affairs in' Western Galicia in the' statement that .they are making victorious progress. This is supplemented by an intimation that they have captured fortifications "on the heights south of Kotan and Krempa, "Krempa" is probably iCrepna, a village twelve miles west of Dtikk, and 15 miles north-west of the Pass of that name. This suggests that although the Austrians recently reported that they had declined an engagement north of the Dnkla Pass, and had taken up a position near to the crest of the Carpathians, they still hold some outlying positions in the spin's ,oE the mountains. The Russians, however, are evidently closing in on the Dukla Pass from all sides, and the invasion of Hungary cannot now be long delayed.

* * * « A panio in the 'Hungarian fronticr provinces is the latest testimony to the successes of the Russians in Western Galicia and in the passes of the Carpathians, ancHfc does not seem to have arisen without good and sufficient; revison.. Despite tho assurance credited the other day to the EMpehor I ? hancis .Joseph that lift Austrian, fol'c*!i had proved thch' warlike snint and fdjown mi, thay.

are capable of emerging with honour from any trial, however severe, there can be-no doubt that Austria is in a desperate plight. The Russians are steadily gaining ground in Western Galicia, and all reports agree that the Austrian _ defending armies in the Carpathians have been reduced to a pitiful state of demoralisation. The flight of tho inhabitants of the frontier provinces of Hungary into the interior is in all likelihood the prelude to a Russian invasion in force, to which it seems impossible that the Austrians should oiler any effective resistance. Their difficulties are of course intensified by the advance of the Serbs on the east. The position of Austria seems in fact to be desperate.

The tone adopted by the Neue Freie Presse, a Vienna newspaper.of semi-official standing, suggests that the spirit, which has recently found vent in anti-war demonstrations and rioting in many parts of the country, is by no means confined to the ignorant and unthinking. It demands the publication of the documents which woul'l disclose the Aus-tro-Hiingarian standpoint in the negotiations preceding the war, and asks why Austria silently accepts blame instead of proclaiming its efforts on behalf of peace. It is of course far too late in the day for such a publication to be of any avail. Austria has obediently followed Germany's lead and nothing can now save her from the consequences which will include &m& defeat and subsequent dismemberment of the Empire. The belated utterance of the Freie Presse is of interest only as emphasising the fact that Austria has almost reached the end of her tether.

Although no considerable advance is recorded, the heavy fighting reported along the_ Western line .seems to have been going at some points decidedly in ' favour of the Allied woops. The Germans themselve6 now admit that they have abandoned tEe idea of recapturing St. Georges, near* Nieuport. • "on account of the floods. The Allies have also captured positions southeast of Zonnebeke, which lies five miles cast-north-east of Ypres, and claim marked progress in the Champagne district. A Rotterdam report speaks of another British bombardment (from the sea) of Zeebrugge, which on account of these attentions must have greatly lost its value to the Germans as a submarine base. Upon the whole, the reports suggest that, the Allies are everywhere more than holding their own, and that at several places, notably on the Flanders coast and in Alsace, they are making slow but substantial _ headway. Where armies are fighting in' such a labyrinth of entrenchments a-s "Eye-Witness" describes to-day, even such gains as are reported at St. ■Georges. Zonnebeke, Steinbach, and in the Champagne district, must be of very real importance.

Reports by the French that they, have captured one-half of- the village of Steinbach jn Alsace, taking it house by house in hard and lon/' continued fighting, are contradicted by an official message from Berlin, which states that the Germans have not lost a single house in Steinbach and have repulsed all attacks. The French official reports have been distinguished by their terse and moderate statement of facts, and so far as can be judged are invariably reliable. Statements emanating, from the Germans, on the other hand, are, to say the least, notoriously unreliable and very often, represent nothing more than an attempt to cover up inconvenient facts.- Alsace is one of Germany's weak points, and doubtless she is already - feeling a pressure in that quarter. * a « *

Turkey seems to be goinc downhill rapidly. Enver Pasha lias been badly Deaten in the Caucasus, and is, so dispirited with his first experience as a commander that he has quitted the army; transferring his command to a German" officer, General von Sanders. It is possible, of course, that the transfer wan made undor German pressure, and the possibility, is heightened by the fact that Marshal von der Goltz, who recently became War Minister, and military dictator of Turkey, is reported to be on his .way to the Caucasus front. 1 The same fact suggests that the recent Russian vie-, tories in the Caucasus are' no mere passing events of the war, but represent a, ser,ious invasion of Asia Minor.

Meantime affairs are going no more prosperously with the Turks in other places, it is reported from Paris that the Turks oh the Egyptian frontier (presumably those in the eastern part of the Sinai Peninsula) have. revolted against their German commanders, killing many, and Djemal Pasha (commander of the Turkish armies in Syria)- is reported to have been murdered at Damascus, where he was in command of an/army of five thousand men. It becomes clearer every day that the . Turks have no heart in this, war, and are feeling an increasing resentment against the Germans By whom they were jockeyed into it. No doubt the Petrograd message is strictly accurate which states that the Germans employed the Goeben and Breslaii in a treacherous attack on the Russians, against the wishes , of _ the Turks, and in order ,to ; precipitate the nation into a desperate course from which even the Young Turks would have shrunk.

The statement that the British War Office is reorganising the forces by the creation of armies each consisting of three Corps, and naming the officers-appointed to command six of these armies, suggests that'the British Army in France and Belgium will shortly be increased to at least something over half a million men. This of course is on.ly a beginning, for Britain will have to place considerably, upwards of a million men in the field before she can fulfil her obligations to her Allies, but the "contemptible little army" (as the Germans called it) with which Britain began the war is already attaining formidable dimensions.

It is a matter of some difficulty to estimate the exact trend of public and political feeling in Bulgaria, hut a message from Sofia, published to-day, indicates that although tho Government - has depended to some extent in the past on the support of the extreme antivßussiah group, it is able and willing to resist complete domination by that section. The. message is to the effect that the Bulgarian Government has successfully resisted a demand by tho extreme anti-Russian croup that their leader should be made Foreign Minister, and that in the event of tho support of this group as a conseCjueucc being lost, the Government can depend upon the Democratic and other groups. .So far as it goes this suggests that Bulgaria is likely to a-t least refrain from joining Turkey* but the flosiUba-is'ttaventhelesa

not completely Batisfactory from the point of view of the Entente Powers. This is sufficiently indicated in the fact that the Bulgarian Government is or was prepared to compromise with the extreme antiJlussian group on the basis of entrusting its leader with some less influential portfolio than that of Foreign Minister.

There is something almost startlingly frank about the epitomised ostimate of British opinion regarding the Note on neutral trading which the American Ambassador at London has cabled home to Washington. _ Mit. Page finds that in Britain it is believed that the American Note is intended chiefly for 'home consumption, and that its dispatch was also duo in part to the pressure of German-American This is no doubt true and faithful reporting, although.it may seem, a somewhatinjudicious way of putting theposition. It is at any rate certain that if the public believed that the Note implied a serious attempt to interfere with Britain's necessary exercise of the right of search at sea the outcome would be a very definite sentiment of hostility towards the country.by which the attempt was made,.. The absence of any such sentiment is the'saving grace of the situation, and possibly causes just as much gratification in America as it does in Great Britain.