PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2419, 26 March 1915, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

A-verst encouraging view of future prospects is taken in the further instalment of the French official, review of the war which is published to-day. Germany, it is claimed, has reached her maximum power and her resources of officers and her offensive has been broken. The Allies, on the other hand, possess considerable powers of reinforcing their armies, and can break the. German defensive by patient, indefatigable preparation, Stated in an official document this estimate of the position naturally carries a good deal of weight, but it would bp easy to base upon it unduly optimistic anticipations for which it really affords no warrant. To say that the German defensive can be broken is not to say that it can be broken easily, and the preparation spoken of is _ neither more nor less than preparation for a series of battles as great if not greater than the world has ever witnessed. The statement that the German offensive has been broken is warranted by the fact that since their onset was stopped at the Marnc and tlicy were driven back to the Aisne, the Germans have failed to extend their invasion in the West aL a single point of importance. Nevertheless some recent messages, like that predicting another great battle ou the Yser, have indicated (lial, the Germans may not yet be content to abandon attack for defence. Like the Allies, they have doubtless been building up their strength during the, winter, and it might be a very serious, mistake to imagine that tlicv are incapable of Mnewifti their tofuiM ii'aulu cl>

forts to penetrate to the heart of F ranee.

In spite of all that the Germans can do, however, the Allies should ere long be in a position to press tho offensive they have recently adopted. As. to the line which the forward movement will take naturally nothing is said with official sanction, but the alternative seems to lie between an advance through Belgium and one upon a line striking through Lorraine towards the Rhine at Ma.nnheim, a great railway junction which lies east and a little north of the fortress of Metz. Some experts who have written on the subject consider that the lifie of advance through Lorraine offers advantages which arc likely to lend to its selection by the Allies. Advancing through Belgium they would bavo to carry line after line of strong entrenchments, and the Germans, when they were forced back to the fortified line of the Meuse, would profit by a considerable shortening of the long front which must now impose a, terrible strain upon their .resources to maintain. If the Allies elect to strike through Lorraine towards Mannheim, they will still of course have tremendous obstacles to overcome. Metz and Strassburg, two fortresses of the'first magnitude, lying respectively north and south of the line of advance, would have to be subdued or masked, and the River Saar, fifty miles west of the Rhine, affords the Germans a defensive line of enormous strength. In addition the Allies would be under the necessity of securing a firm hold upon Alsace in order to protect their right flank, and would nave to undertake a second subsidiary oampaign to obtain command of the passages over the Moselle, to the north of Metz.

» * » * A writer in the Fortnightly Review points out that an allied army concentrated in the Upper Moselle Valley (opposite Metz and Strassburg) would start from_ a secure base which has been dailjj growing stronger since the opening of the war. This_ line of operations' has another initial advantage over the Belgian line in that the Rhine, which is the main line of German resistance, is only a short distance, varying from thirty miles in Upper Alsace t-o ninety in Lorraine, from the French base behind the Vosges Mountains, while the line of communications through Belgium would be lengthened out to from 150 to 180 miles. In view of the enormously important - part that transport generally, and especially the transportation of heavy artillery, plays in modern war this last consideration is of the utmost importance.

In any. case, whether the Allies elect to invade Germany through Belgium in the north or Lorraine in the south, it is clear that the operations involved will be of a magnitude which will_ impart new standards even to this terrible war. Nothing that has yet happened "in the Western theatre affords a basis upon which to estimate the nature and magnitude of the battles now in prospect. ♦ * * * A very gallant and successful enterprise stands to the credit of a small party of British aviators who set out from Dunkirk to bombard a German submarine building-yard at Hoboken, which is situated on the Scheldt, a couple of miles south of Antwerp. Misty weather compelled two members of- the party to abandon their enterprise, and another had to descend in Holland, but two who remained reached their goal, and seriously damaged two submarines under construction, besides setting the works on fire. They were apparently unscathcd by the heavy fire of German guns, to which they were subjected. Apart from their immediate value, purposeful raids of this character stand in honourable contrast to the somewhat futilo activities of the German airships and aeroplanes which have uniformly failed to strike a damaging blow at any point of military importance. British and French aviators on the other hand have repeatedly penetrated to the heart of the enemy's fortified positions and upset his preparations in a fashion which he' must find disconcerting. From the fact that no fewer than five submarines were observed under construction at Hoboken, it would appear that the depot is one of considerable ance. Presumably it was established by tho Germans after depots on the Belgian coast, more convenient but more exposed, had been rendered untenable by previous aerial attacks. Aerial assaults upon the German depots on the coast were continued and repeated in spite of all that defending artillery could do to ward them off, and no doubt the depot at Hoboken will be the object of renewed attacks in the immediate future. •'#*** Although the Austrians have recently laid claim to some minor successes in Southern Galicia,_ along the Carpathians,' reports available today make it' pretty clear \ that the Russians are prosperously pursuing their campaign in that region. The record of prisoners captured is in itself striking. Exclusive of the large forcc captured at Przemysl (the exact number is uncertain), the Russians are stated to have captured in Galicia 110,000 men, thirty guns, and 320 machine guns, since January 21. Further fighting along a sixty-mile stretch of the Carpathians, from the Uszok Pass (south of Przemysl) to the Dukla Pass, is reported to-day, in which the Russians have again been victorious, capturing another 4000 prisoners.

At the moment the area of greateat activity in the Eastern theatre appears to be the section of Poland lying opposite the south-eastern frontire of East Prussia. , Isolated encounters in this region have developed into a general engagement of some magnitude, and the Russians claim that although the enemy has been strongly reinforced, and is offering a stubborn resistance, they are si.iwl.v working forward and capturing trenches and heights. However, progress towards the German frontier in this locality seems to have been all but 'arrested for the time being, and the area of battle is still adjacent to the Russian fortress line. German attacks ou Ossowiec, which is the nearest fortress to the Prussian frontier, are stated to have been abortive, and it added that the enemy had to abandon two 16-inch howitzers The fact that guns of this size were employed suggests that the attack on the fortress must have been made in considerable strength. CoN'TiNUKn silence regarding the position in Central and Southern Poland and Western Galicia suggests that operations in these areas are meantime at a standstill. The position is more or less analogous to that which obtaine in the Western theatre. XJio Hus&i&ufr nave factually. halted

the German offensive against Warsaw, ancl in Western Galicia have made some progress towards Cracow, but having reduced their enemy to the defensive, they are faced, like the Allies in the West, by the necessity of forcing strongly fortified entrenchments. It may be expected that a counter-offensive against the Germans in Central and Southern Poland will be undertaken by the Russians simultaneously with <a. similar effort by the Allies in the Western theatre.