PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2373, 1 February 1915, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

War news from all quarters to-day is good. It is now clear that in tho local encounters which have recently broken the monotony of the siegewarfare along the Western front the Allies were uniformly victorious. Where the Germans did temporarily gain a little ground it was only to bo unceremoniously ejected soon afterwards. The Turks are making poor progress in their attack on Egypt, but somo further affairs of outposts aro reported to-day. The Russians arc holding their ground in the northern part of East Prussia, and claim further successes against the Austrians in Galicia, offset only by one slight reverse. In north-western Persia, also, the Russians aro driving the Turkish invaders before Lhem. A budget of good news is capped by additional details concerning the British naval victory in '-ho North Sea, which show 'that tho disaster suffered by

tho Germans on that occasion was even more severe tban at first appeared. * * * * News from Egypt is still of outpost fighting with little to indicate the strength of the main Turkish army. The Turks are located at Katiyeh (about 22 miles east and a little north of the Suez Canal at El Kantara), and their outposts are at a place twelve miles nearer tho Canal, and therefore about 10 miles east of El Kantara. They also have outposts twenty-five'miles cast of the Bitter Lakes (which run along the Canal in a north-westerly direction for a distance of about 22 miles, from a point,ls miles north of Suez) and ten miles eastward of Suez, at tho southern extremity of the Canal. The Turks are thus threatening the Canal at various points along its length, but as might have been expected there is no word pi their presence in the immediate vicinity of the coast cither in the north or south.

Two small engagements are reported. A Turkish reconnoitring party was beaten off by a British post eastward of El Kantara, ■ and another party was easily repulsed at a point east of Suez; It is stated that uneasiness engendered by aeroplane bombardment has caused the Turks to withdraw some of their advanced posts. No official information is given concerning the construction of the light railway which they aro reported to have in hand, and the statement that it is being built rests meantime upon the authority of a correspondent as far away from tho scene of operations as Greece. * * * *

More serious fighting will doubtless be heard of before long. Apart from any action the Turks may take in pressing their attack the British commanders will no doubt make it their business to bring them to an engagement, and, as the Minister of Defence has pointed out, there is every chance of the New Zealand troops in Egypt participating in some action before long. Had the New Zealanders already been in action the Government would no doubt have been officially advised of the fact, and have made the information public.

An official message to-day states that the Germans were repulsed in attempts which they made to cross the Aisne from the position, a few miles east of Soissons, which they recently gained on the north bank of the river. This .is satisfactory in itself, but the fact that the Germans have not yet been dislodged from tho river-bank shows that they must be strongly established there.

In Belgium the _ Allies have improved their position at Lombaertzyde, on the coast Nieuport, but the only other indication to-day of activity in Flanders is supplied in a message which states that the Germans have drained largo areas along the line of the Yser seaward, and have been vainly striving to build bridges.

The possibilities of inundation have been turned to good account by the Allies in defending the line which they now hold in Flanders. The Germans got their first taste of flood-fighting early in November, when they wero struggling furiously to get a footing on. the western side of the River Yser, which was held by the Belgian Army. By tremendous efforts and at a cost of thousands of lives, they did eventually reach the western bank of the river, and a serious breach in the Allied front was threatened. It was in this emergency that the Allies resorted to inundation. For the last twenty miles of its course the Yser is canalised and embanked, and the water level is several feet above most of the surrounding country. The western embankment was broken down at selected points by the concentrated fire of heavy guns, and in a few hours the whole of the country from Nieuport to Dixmude was under water.

The Germans were compelled to, fall back, leaving behind many guns and commissariat wagons.- Whole companies of troops were drowned, and in their hasty and disorderly retreat the Germans suffered terribly under a devastating artillery fire. Later a German attempt to cross the Yser further, south was checkmated in precisely the same i way. The second inundation coincided with a fierce north-easterly gale, which drove the flood waters before it, and was even worse (from the German point of view) than the first. They again beat an enforced retreat, and besides the losses suffered from artillery fire many hundreds were drowned. "Out of the flood," wrote a correspondent, "isolated hillocks ' appeared, and these swarmed with dripping, sodden, cold, and miserable German troops, who were picked off by the Allies' guns or surrendered en masse. On the rising tide floated corpses; the fenland Became a lake of the dead." "The country," says an eyewitness of the scene, "from Nieuport to Dixmude, and to a lessor extent the country for some considerable distance south of the latter place, has been turned into a horriblo' open sewer, in which innumerable bodies are floating,' and abandoned guns and ammunition , are submerged." The inundated area stretches from the dimes on the Belgian seashore nearly all the way to Ypres.

It has been suggested that, tho Kaiser may yet feel called upon to add King Canute to his varied impersonations. At all events the Germans, to judge by to-day's message, are still struggling vainly to overcome the terrible obstacle which they have encountered in the flood waters. To the Allies, on the other hand, the floods represent a useful defensive barrier, behind'which they can shelter until they arc ready to abandon defence for attack.

According to thc_ military dorrespondent of the Times, the Allies have brought their organisation on the Western line to a high state of perfection. Guns of all calibres are in touch with the trenches by telephone, and the.defences as a whole constitute a strong framework which has so far defied all the efforts'of the Germans to break it. Fighting on tho front, save for the local battles which have been fought lately, has been largely in the nafcuro of artillery duels, and _ fighting botween snipers and men in the sap-heads. Our sniper organisation, the Times correspondent states, is making progress, and will eventually beat the Germans at their own game. The sap-heads referred to are the outlying extensions of the complicated system of trenches protecting the fronts of the opposing armies. Tho saps pushed forward from the outer line of trenches consist sometimes of opeu trenches, when it is possible to dig them in face of the cncniy'B lire. Where this is impossible, an advance is achieved by

means of a, "blinded" sap. A horizontal borc-holc about a foot in diameter and some three or four feet below ground is bored by means of a special earth-borer worked by hand. The boro is then enlarged by pick and shovel into a small tunnel, whoso roof is one or two feet below the surface. Several of these saps having been driven forward, their heads are connected by a lateral trench which becomes the front lino and can be used for stormcrs to collect for an assault.

In some cases (according to "Eyewitness," who describes these works), usually at night, a sap is driven right up to the parapet of the hostile trench, which is then blown in. The stormcrs then attempt to burst in through the opening, and work along the trench. They also assault in front. Fighting under these conditions is of the most desperate description. Wachinc-guns are • cmployed as in ordinary infantry attacks, but tho bigger guns of either side cannot fire at the cnemyjs infantry without great risk of hitting its own men. Bombs of various kinds are therefore used in place of artillery projectiles. These terrific and partly subterranean encounters are going on almost continually along the battle-line, even at times when the official communications state tersely that there is nothing to report. The trenches arc to an extent places of shelter, but they are also places of perpetual toil and danger, and almost unceasing conflict.

It is possible in this close trenchfighting to make very_ serious mistakes. For* instance, it is reported to-day that the Germans near Flirey, in the Woevre district, east of St. Mihiel, exploded a mine intended to destroy a section •of the French trenches, and succeeded instead in blowing up some of their own.

The Germans were apparently in some cases slow to grasp the lesson so forcibly taught fliem by the Allied troops in the clays surrounding the Kaiser's birthday. This was notably the case in an attack on the suburbs of Arras in the early days_ of last week. Here the Germans drove home a bayonet charge, but instead of proceeding to dig themselves in so as ( to hold the ground they had gained, they vaingloriously paraded four abreast through the suburbs of Arras. They were thus in ' no position to meet the vigorous counterattack launched by the French Territorials, who had suffered a temporary reverse, and the Kaiser, who was in the vicinity, mounted on a purple-caparisoned horse, had the mortification of seeing his soldiers driven back in. headlong rout to the places'from which they had come. It is recorded that he was so disgusted .at the spectacle that he stepped into his motor-car and went off to Lille.

Airmen on both sides have been active. Another German air-raid on Dunkirk has resulted in several persons being killed and wounded, but the material damage is described as insignificant. ■ Meantime the Allied airmen have been bombarding the German camps on the lines north and north-east of Soissons. It is mentioned by a Times correspondent that the Allied airmen have missed flights on only six days since August, the month in which the war began, and are maintaining their supremacy. * * * *

The Russians appear to bo pressing forward vigorously in the northern part of East Prussia. They not only report continued in the forests north of Pilkallen, which lies about twelve miles north and a little east of Gumbinnen, and thirty miles south-west of Tilsit, but have apparently crossed the frontier still further north. It is reported to-day that they have destroyed the station at Pogegen, which stands about five or six miles due north of Tilsit. Whether or not the "Russians have found a gateway for the further invasion of Germany in this northern territory, their incursion will undoubtedly create a useful diversion and weaken the German forces further south. The Russians also report some minor successes on the left bank 'of the Lower Vistula.

An Amsterdam message states that the Germans admit the non-return of the airship which was destroyed by the Russians at Libau, a port'on the Baltic, but state that it was a Parseval and not a Zeppelin. Airships of the Parseval type are nonrigid instead of being built, with n. rigid framework, like the Zeppelins, and are smaller than the latter craft. Another message states that the Russians are not treating the crew of the airship which bombarded Libau as ordinary, prisoners of war, but will try them on 'a charge of murder, or attempted murder, in attacking an undefended place. The first report of the incident stated that the Germans dropped bombs on an undefended portion of the town, and if their offence was at all on a par with that of the air-raiders who recently bombarded towns and villages in Norfolk the Russians are well within their rights in treating them as oriminals.

A statement by the Paris Matik that the Russians have defeated the Turks in Azerbaijan (the north-west-ern province of Persia) and entered Tabriz, which lies about sixty miles south of the Russian Caucasian frontier, appears to bo somewhat ahead of the facts, but a Pctrograd account states that the Turks have been defeated in tho northern part of tho province with a loss of several hundred killed and are retreating towards Tabriz. ° * * * *

The Austrians appear to bave fared badly in attempts to break put through the Carpathian passes and advance north through Galicia to the relief of, Przemysl: Fighting has been going on at various points along a front extending from the Dukla, Pass, ninety miles south-east of Cracow, to tho Wyskow (or Vyszkof) Pass, about a hundred miles south-cast of Dukla. Przemysl, which has long been invested by tho Russians, lies about fifty miles north of the Uszok Pass, which is roughly midway between the Dukla Pass and the Wyskow Pass. In the operations along the mountain line the Russians admit a minor reverse at one point, where their advance guards were driven in, but elsewhere claim an unbroken tide of success. Along the whole front, > in tho space of three days, they captured somo 3000 prisoners, and a number of guns. At some points, notably south-west of Dukla, tho Russians have progressed. The Stryj-Munkacs railway, mentioned in one message, crosses the Carpathians by the Vcrcczkc Pass, 18 miles west of the Wyskow Pass. This railway connects with Lemberg, and by an indirect route with Przemysl. More convenient access to the'latter place'is furnished bv a lino which runs north through the Uszok Pass. The attempt to relievo Przemysl seems, however,, to be

a feeble effort, and the Russians are more likely to shortly penetrate the mountains than to be forced back into the plains to the nortu. * * * *

Additional details concerning the damage inflicted upon the German ships in the North Sea naval battle suggest that the British official accounts erred on the side of moderation. The statement that the prisoners rescued and taken to England represent every largo ship and most of the small ships in the Ge> man squadran is an impressive tribute to the accuracy and devastating effect of the deadly hail of shells which the British ships poured upon their I enemies from a distance as great as ten miles. It is not yet clear by how much the distance separating pursuers and pursued was shortened, but evidence as to the terrible effect of the British gunfire is conclusive. It was so deadly that many of the Germans preferred death by drowning to remaining aboard their ships, and doubtless many were drowned, though some were picked up by the British ships. According to these prisoners practically every ship swept by the British shells was set on fire and reduced to such a state as to be unfit to do more than trust to her engines to take her out of action. Further positive evidence is supplied in the announcement that three of the finest German battle-cruisers arc lying in port badly damaged, the Dcrfflinger at Hamburg, and tho Seydlitz and Moltkc at Cuxhaven.

It is easy to believe tha't the German authorities feel it absolutely necessary to conceal the actual facts of this engagement, for the facts as they are made known all go to show that in this ill-conceived raid, with its disastrous termination, the German Navy has suffered a blow calculated to severely shake its morale. Racing for port at a distance from their pursuers which in German theory has been regarded as beyond effective gunnery range, the German ships were battered and devastated almost without striking an effective blow in return, for the chance shot which crippled the Lion can hardly be reckoned in that category. It is an experience that would try the nerve of any navy. * * * *

The Germans deny the loss of the Kolberg in the North Sea fight. It will be remembered that the reported destruction of this light cruiser rested in the first instance on Hip statements of' prisoners. *.* * *

The report that the Emperor Francis Joseph contemplates abdication is not inherently improbable. It is stated that he is actuated by. a desire to leave his successor a free hand, but it is not unlikely that he is being subjected to German pressure. Persistent reports have credited him with wishing to obtain a separate peace for Austria, and if there is any truth in these reports, the Germans are not likely to be content with anything short of his abdication. Having done so much to bring Austria to heel, and make it entirely subservient, it would be quite consistent on their part to get rid of an inconvenient Emperor and replace him with one more amenable to their will. Charles Francis Joseph, the Austrian heirapparent, is not regarded as a prince of strong character or resolution, and the task of disciplining him according to German ideas has apparently already been taken in hand, for it was reported when he visited the Kaiser recently that he was very coldly received by that potentate.