PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2633, 2 December 1915, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

The brief statement credited today to • General Joffke is doubly 1 welcomc at a time when some detail features of the War afford ground for anxiety, though not for depression. Like most men of action, the French Commander-in-Chief is habitually silent and reserved, and no one would wish him to be otherwise, but' when, at infrequent intervals, he breaks, silence in some such terse summary of the position as is published to-day he supplies an element not to bo found in the ordinary run of tho Avar news and not-easily to be supplied—the clement of perspective. Inevitably General Joffre restricts himself on these occasions to generalisations, but they are the generalisations of a master-mind with a full and competent command of the multifarious and complex details upon which they are based. Coming from such a source the confident declaration that Germany, though strong, will be beaten, carries conviction, but General Joffre's observations arc chiefly of value as involving a claim, made with authority, that the Allies retain a firm and assured command upon the situation, not in this or that theatre only, but in the war as a whole. Some doubts have arisen of late as to the'prccisc bearing and importance of the Austro-German Balkan offensive in the general scheme of the war,_ and in its local effect the position in the Balkans is undoubtedly acute, but the statement of the French Commander-in-Chief gives expression to a very definite belief that, viewed in proper perspective, what the enemy has accomplished in the Balkans is of secondary importance. He sums it up as an extension of front which weakens Germany without relieving her of' the necessity of keeping two-thirds of her strength in Franco, where the war will end. The same idea is more elaborately expressed by the French War Minister .(General

Gallieni) in likening the plight of Germany to that of a beast at bay., making convulsive but vain efforts to escape from the bonds in which it is encompassed. Made by the highest authorities in France, these observations upon the war amount to an assurance that in spite of detail vicissitudes the. plans of the Allies arc working out satisfactorily towards their appointed end.

Gbxeral Joffke has naturally given no hint of'the probable turn of events on the Western front in tho near future, but it must be recognised that any big development of the Allied offensive during the months of bad weather is hardly to be expected. Late events give promise of.a marked departure from the tactics pursued last winter, when the Allies were heavily out-matched, numerically and in artillery strength, but there arc such excellent reasons for postponing the grand offensive until the return of better weather that it may be taken for granted they will prevail. The weightiest reason of all rests upon the now familiar fact that the strength of the Allies in men and in material js constantly increasing relatively to that of the enemy. Russia in particular is building up an enormous body of strength, which will make its weight felt in the campaign of 1916, and if the Western Allies attempted a decisive stroke before Russia is able to co-operate in full power they would be playing into the hands of the enemy. This is a fact which seems ,to supply an effective answer to the murmurings and fault-finding in a section of the British Press which followed upon tho relaxation of Allied efforts in the West after the great battles of September. •

The estimate of the position credited to General Joffke is consistent with the -view that it is the policy of the Western Allies to put forth only so much effort meantime as is necessary to compel the enemy to mass the greatest possible strength in France and Flanders in defence of his fortified line._ . While the excellent reasons mentioned exist for continuing this policy, there is no reason to be dubious about Allied prospects when the hour comes to strike for decisive victory. Out of the long months of deadlock incidental to the war of positions in' France and Flanders, ideas have arisen fibout the enormous strength of the defensive positions to which the Germans . reverted when their invasion was brought to a standstill—ideas which the enemy has carefully fostered, but which are in many oases extravagant and exaggerated. This is an aspect of the war interestingly reviewed by Me. John.Buchan, an English correspondent, who visited the Western front after the. September battles, in which the French and British, attacking on extended fronts, mastered the first, and in_ some placcs the second, of the triple defensive lines which the enemy has established. 1 "Some people,'' Me. Buchan remarks, "talk as if there were an endless series of these German positions, stretching right away to the Rhine. That, of course, is unbelievable. We do not know their number. But .we may be sure that it is strictly limited. Human mduranco is limited, and fortified positions bn the German scale arc not the work of a magician's wand, but of long and arduous labour. Again, after each position the resisting power of tho enemy is weaker. He is losing heavily in guns and men, and eve? though ne gets all the reinforcements lie asks for, lie is suffering the strain of the most harassing kind if war. _ . . . 'By and by a posi-

fcicm is forced in some sector, and retreat compelled to a line consider ably in the rear. The attacking form now flings its cavalry'in to harass the retirement, or cut the communication of the unbroken parts of his front. Then begins a withdrawal on a great scale, • and, under certain conditions, a rout."

It is to be admitted that a final test has yet to bo applied to the strength of the German defensive in France and Flanders, but tho force of Me. Buohan's observations is none the less apparent. The steel wall of the German defence once effectively breached and its communications cut it will be no more capable of defence than the entrenchments -.of a field army thrown.up in a day. Formidable as it is, tho German line is as strong only as ijs weakest part. In its total length of some five hundred miles, it must represent an outlay of no small proportion of the material resources of the German Empire, but its retention by (> the enemy depends absolutely upon his ability to repel the most powerful and concentrated assault of which the Allies are capable upon a comparatively limited section of front.

Another day's news throws no more promising light upon tho Balkan crisis. On th 9 contrary, the evacuation of Monastir and the latest reports regarding Greece seem to constitute the elements of a dark and troubled situation. The desirability of maintaining a barrier between Greece and the advancing AustroGerman and Bulgarian forces is patent, and does not need to be emphasised, and - the evacuation of Monastir cai only be taken to mean that the last vestiges of such a barrier have disappeared. The AngloFrench Army according to the latest news in hand, retains its positions astride the main railway in SouthEastern Serbia, but the Serbian retreat from' Monastir gives the enemy an open approach to the Greek frontier further west. Any doubts as to the seriousness of tho position thus created -would be dh pellcd by tho reported terms of the Greek rejoinder to the Allied Note. Resistance to the Allied demand for unimpeded use of . the port of Salonika and its railways can only be taken to mean that King Constantine and his party arc passing from insincere professions of benevolent neutrality to thinly-veiled hostility. » * »

It lias been rccognised all along that the stability of the Allied position in Greece depends upon ability to overawe the pro-German faction, and this is clcarly more difficult than it lias been now that the Greeks are, or presently will be, in direct contact with the Austro-Germans. So 'far the outlook is unpromising. Ono line of action for Greeccis suggested in venomous articles in the German Press, from which extracts'are published to-day. _ _ They,assert that if the Franco-British troops retreat intu'Grccco they will undoubtedly be interned, and itiis ad led tlicit thcic will be plenty of highly-placed personages in the army capable of being j used as hostages, and that, if the Allies bombarded her coasts,_ Greece could shoot so many British and French officers and cxocute a certain number of. soldiers, for every Greek ship sunk. AVhat \Vill those remaining ehampioha of German "kulfcur" have to say. to this latest iudi-

cation of the loathsomo depths _of villainy to which the German nation has sunk when its public Press can advocate the slaughter of interned prisoners? Bankrupt in honour as she is, Greece can scarcely contemplate a policy which would pile wholesale assassination on treachery, more especially as it is probably well | beyond her ability to adopt it. Whatever may be happening in Southern Serbia and on the Greek frontier it is impossible to believe that the Anglo-French Army is remaining passive in the jaws of a trap, waitj ing for it to closo.

It cannot for a. moment be supposed, that the whole of the essential faqts relating to the Balkan campaign are disclosed in available news. The Allies have had time to formulate a definite policy and to assemble necessary force. That in these circumstanccs they are allowing the enemy plans to work out to their appointed end without attempting to offer any effective opposition is simply unbelievable. The only alternative is to believe that there are features of the situation which arc undisclosed, and if they were disclosed would completely alter Us complexion. Little has happened in Serbia during the last few weeks that might not have been anticipated by tho man in the street, and no great exercise of faith is needed to support a belief that effective measures have been taken to guard the Allied army based on _ Salonika against the ( perils by which, at a surface view, it is now encompassed.

Very great interest, in the present state of information, attaches to an announcement by the Governor of Queensland that lie has received a cablegram from Mn. Bonar Law stating that Germany is not going to oontinue the war agaipst Serbia. This may possibly be an instance of a private expression of opinion being mistakenly given out as an official announcement of fact, but even so it is not lacking in interest. Much obviously depends at this stage upon whether Germany intends tc restrict her efforts in the Balkans henceforth to maintaining the communications she has opened with Turkey. The pressure to which she is subjected in other theatres makes the adoption of this course distinctly possible, but it must be confessed' that it is not easy to imagine how such a decision on\ Germany's part co.uld become, the subject of an official communication from the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

The Rome Tribuna gives publicity to a "remarkably unconfirmed statement" that Austria is attempting to conclude a separate peace. Why the statement should be deemed remarkable when it is unconfirmed does not appear, but the Kaiser's recent visit to Vienna, taken in conjunction with a report from Paris that important, changes have, been decided in the' Austrian Cabinet, certainly suggests possibilities. It is not unlikely that the Austrian Government may have betrayed signs of weakness, and that t)ie Kaisek went to Vienna to secure the installation of Ministers more to his liking. That probably is as far as Austrian inclinations towards a separate peace ar; to go for some time to come. To appearance Austria is so_ deeply in German toils that she is no more able to negotiate or conclude a separate peace than the Kingdom of Saxony.