PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2466, 20 May 1915, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Nothing in the war news to-day will be of more interest to New Zealanders than Mr. Ashmead-Bart-lett's masterly description of a great battle at the Dardanelles in which New Zealanders and Australians played a gallant part. The battle opened on May 6, in the southern part of the Gallipoli Peninsula, where a section of the Australians and New Zealanders were recently transferred to reinforce the Imperial troops. The ultimate objective was Aclii Baba, a high interior hill, north of Krithia, which place is about five miles north-east of Cape Holies. The Allies advanced upon two long spurs extending from Achi Baba. on cither hand, one of them to the Dardanelles and the other to the Gulf of Saros. Krithia lay in the line of the British advance from the Gulf of Saros. Mr. Bartlett's vivid word-picture shows that the Fleet and the land artillery worked splendidly in unison in shelling the Turkish defences, but these were of great strength .and tenaciously defended. Favoured in the first instance by the broken and rugged nature_ of the country, the Turis had skilfully entrenched the whole position. Their trenches were difficult to locate or damage by artillery fire, and had to be taken in detail. The conditions as a whole imposed a maximum strain upon the attacking troops, and the progress achieved must ue accounted a splendid feat of arms, for which the credit is mainly due to the dogged valour of the soldiers engaged in the direct attack. Terrible as was the hail of shell poured upon the Turkish trenches, it frequently left them practically intact, and thc_ enemy had to be dislodged in infantry charges, and hand-to-hand fighting extending over days. Posted on the left of the line, towards thcjGulf of Saros. the Australians and New Zealandors were at first held in reserve, but they were presently moved up into the forefront of the battle, and one of the most stirring events of the whole battle was a headlong charge of the New Zealanders upon the Turkish position at Krithia. At the time of writing Mr. Bartlett's story is unfinished.

Lord Kitchener's latest speech in the House of Lords is timely, and in many respects illuminating, At a critical period in. the war it supplies an authoritative and interesting review of recent operations, based upon much fuller information than is available to the general public, and in the main this review is optimistic in tone and indicates that the Secretary for War is satisfied with the progress so far made. As a call to the nation for preparations upon an augmented scale, the speech should do" a great deal to steady public opinion, which has been more or less unsettled by the somewhat alarmist views lately expressed as to the extent to which Great Britain has fulfilled its obligations in the war and the necessity that exists for improving upon what has been so far achieved. As a whole, Lord Kitchener's speech does not point to any very serious shortcomings. His statement that he is confident that in thevery near future there will be a satisfactory position regarding the supply of ammunition is especially gratfying. Of late suggestions have been rife that Britain has failed badly in this essential feature of warlike preparation, and the charge may 'havo 6eemed to receive a measure of support "from the extreme difficulty experienced by the British in br'eaking the German line north of La Bassee. It was a natural enough inferenco from this fact that the British superiority in artillery was at anyrate by no means so pronounced as it was at Neuve Chapelle. This may have been the case, but it can scarcely be maintained, in face of Lord Kitchener's statement that the initial check encountered by the British assault was due to any serious shortage in artillery. His reading of the facts is that the Germans nad improved and strengthened their lately assaulted positions in the light of the experience gained at Neuve Chapelle. As to the future, where munitions were concerned, Lord Kitchener's remarks are capable of only one interpretation. To say that the position will be satisfactory in the very near future is to say that the British resources in the supply of munitions are expected to bear the strain and meet the demands of a rapidlyincreasing blaze of battle along tlio Western line.

As to the strength of the British armies, in training a»d on service, the Imperial authorities have habitually observed a policy of reserve, but Lord Kitciiekbu's call for another HOO,OOO men probably means an addition to forces already aggregating upwards of two million men, apart from the Expeditionary Forces of the Oversea Domiuions. Strong forces arc necessarily retained in Great Britain for home"defence, and a proportion of the available armies are engaged in subsidiary campaigns, but what is known of the scale of the British recruiling goes to support the estimate that the Germans arc, and will bo, outnumbered by at least a million in the Western theatre. The latest call for recruits in Great Britain no doubt represents the working out of ii pnliry which aims at tiof only maintaining the strength oi tie

Allied armies, but at building up their strength, while that of the Germans is rapidly diminishing—tho policy, in fact, which was enunciated by Loud Kitchener shortly after the war began. The manner in which the additional call for recruits Is met will have a most important bearing upon the future development of tho war.

The best available evidence goes to show that the time has arrived when the superior resources of tho Allies in men should make themselves increasingly felt. It has been computed by the author of the French official review of the war that Germany's permanent losses during the first five months of the war (in the two main theatres) amounted to 1,:J00,000 men, or 260,000 men per month, and that on this basis her remaining supplies of_ men will barely sufficc to maintain her armies at their present strength during ten months of war. Probably the rate of German wastage has sincc the computation was made considerably increased, augmented as it', is by bringing halftrained troops into the fighting line and by persistence in wasteful Dattle tactics. It may thus reasonably be assumed that Germany has reached her maximum whero numerical strength is concerned, and the Allies should be able to profit materially by drawing judiciously upon their still large resources of men. Franco alone is credited with a numerical superiority of half a million active troops over the ' whole German strength in tho Western theatre, and with being able to maintain, even if she does not increase, this superiority. Lack of information as to tho strength of the British Army makes the comparison incomplete, but a spirited response to the continued call for recruits in Great Britain and throughout the Empire will give effect to a policy which promises ultimately to bring crushing pressure to bear upon tho numerically stationary German armies.

The announcement of the Secretary for War that Britain and France will meet Germany's employment of poisonous gases by resorting to similar methods will unquestionably be approved by tho nation, oven while the necessity for adopting such a policy is deplored. It is absolutely certain that whatever the Allies do, Germany will resort to every devilry that may seem to promiso her advantage and to retort only with weapons hitherto considered legitimate would bo equivalent to compounding her felony, apart from the fact that it would impose a paralysing disability upon the Allied forccs on the field. Sinking to the level of a mad dog in her conduct of tho war, Germany has invited the treatment of a mad dog, and Lord announcement means that she ic likely to get it. Used by the Germans, poisonous gas seems to have proved only a temporarily effective weapon. It is not unlikely that the Allies, profiting by experience, may be able to use poisonous gas, or some similar agent, with much more dea'clly effect.

In his references to the Western campaign and to the subsidiary campaigns at the Dardanelles and in German South-West Africa, Lord Kitchener oonfined himself in the main to a recital of facts already known, but his observations upon the Russian operations in Galicia throw a great deal of light upon a situation which has been only dimly illumined in Austro-German and Russian dispatches. In his statement of tho facts, the Russian retirement assumes a very different character from that imputed to it in enemy dispatches. Admittedly the Russians were overwhelmed by the Aus-tro-German artillery, upon their originaHine across Western Galicia, forty miles east of Cracow, but the rapidity of the subsequent AustroGerman eastern advance loses much of its significance in view of Lord Kitchener's statement that the Russians fell back to previously-prepar-ed positions and now hold a strong line from the Eastern Carpathians to Przemysl, and thence north along the River San to the Vistula. This summary of the position is in keeping with the recent Russian statement that they retired to the San to shorten their line.

It is not yet clear that the Russians have lost any section of the line described by Lord Kitchener. A couple of days ago the enemy claimed that they had occupied Jaroslav, which is on the San, 15 miles north of Przcmysl, but to-day the Russians report engagements in the neighbourhood of Jaroslav, and further north, without admitting the loss of that place. South of Przcmysl the armies appear to be in touch meantime only through their mounted patrols. There seems thus to be a prospect that the Russians may be able to hold their present line, buttressed by Przcmysl near its centre. In its northern part the line is 85 miles east of the front from which the Russians were dislodged in Western Galicia, but south of Przemysl it probably sweeps considerably further to the east before connecting with the Carpathians in Eastern Galicia. Practically the whole of the positions menacing Hungary from the north have been lost, but so long as they resist attacks in their present line the Russians arc free to pursuein security their invasion of Bukowina. Further successes in this region are reported today. As things stand, the Russian claim that "the Austrian rout in Bukowina nullifies the enemy's success in West Galicia" seems to run ahead of the facts, but the comment is possibly based upon political as well as military considerations. If Italy should declare for war, as she now seems likely to do, Rumania would no doubt be strongly impelled to follow her example. And Rumania has an open road into Hungary from the east, with no difficult mountain barrier to cross. It is quite possible that the new Russian invasion of Bukowina may lead to no results of any great importance. On the other hand, it is not impossible that it may lead up to a junction with Rumania and a joint invasion of Eastern Hungary.

Australia has had bad fortune with her submarines. One of them, AEI, disappeared with all hands at An early period of the war} and the Admiralty now admit that Turkish reports alleging the destruction of the remaining Australian submarine, AJS2, are probably correct. The Turkish story is that the submarine wps sunk on April 30, while trying to enter the Sea of Marmora, and Ihe Admiralty have had 110 communication from the missing craft since April 2G. Turkish and Greek reports declare that of a total complement of three officers and 20 men three officers and 17 men were saved. Some of the later submarines are fitted with an air-lock, which gives thf crew a chance of escaping from their ship in diving helmets, if she shouid be sunk, and it is like!}; that

AE2 was so equipped. She would almost certainly be travelling awash, if not submerged, when she met her fate, and in these circumstances, failing special facilities for escape, the whole of the crew would necessarily have been drowne(l. The Australian submarines were fast and powerful boats, on a par with the best in tho Imperial Navy, except those which have been completed or constructed since the war began.

Reports regarding Italy uniformly indicate that the reinstatement of the Samxbka Cabinet—commonly accounted a war Ministry—has been received throughout the country with tremendous enthusiasm. An exodus of Austrians and Germans continues, and judging by the tone of the Berlin Press their Governments aro resigned to the prospect of war with Itaiy. The rising popular demand for war will be fanned in Italy by events in Trieste, whero Italian women taking part in a demonstration against Austrian rule havo been brutally shot down.

Little is added to-day to the story of the great battle in Northern Franco, Dut in so far as the position has changcd it has changea to the adva-ntago of the Allies. The French havo made some further progress in the region north of Arras. At some points the attack appears to have slowed down for the time, but along the whole front a tremendous artillery battle continues day and night. No new development is reported on the Flanders front.