PROGRESS OP THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2665, 10 January 1916, Page 4

PROGRESS OP THE WAR

Where military events are concerned the offensive opened by the Russians on their southern front still commands chief attention. News in hand shows the Russians to be stil! advancing victoriously, though at no great speed. Towards the northern end of their attacking front they have captured the town of Cha-r----torysk and a height a mile and a half further M'est? Chartorysk lies over 70 miles north qf. the "nearest point on the Galician frontier. It stands on the River Styr, which, like other rivers in this region, lias high, steep banks, and affords a good "defensive line. The passage of the Styr, the capture of Chartorysk, and the gain of ground to the west, represent achievements of very great importance, all thc_ more so as the enemy in this region has fairly good and convenient communications, as communications go in Russia. Fortyfive miles west of the present Lattlefronfc is the junction of Kovcl, and from this pjaco two lines branch east, one of thcin reaching tho battle-front ten miles north of Chartorysk, and another 30 miles to tho south. In the operations which have now been carried west of Chartorysk the Russians are thus attacking the enemy in an area, in which he is capable of rapidly assembling strength, and, in its cssence the Russian movement is an attack, tentative or otherwise, upon a vital line of communications. * * * * Another area in which the Russians are vigorously pressing their southern offensive lies more than 200 miles south of Chartorysk. Here, in northern Bukowina, west of the north-western corner of Rumania, they are fighting their way towards Czernowitz, if, indeed, they have not already entered that place. A London message, published on Saturday, took the fall of Czernowitz for granted, but the latest communique in hand from Petrograd speaks of an Austrian attack being defeated north-east of Czernowitz. If this news is up to date, the Russians have not yet entered Czernowitz, though they must have approached it very closely. While the matter remains in doubt, it is bssfc to rely upon official news, and disregard news from other sources.

At tho moment the Russians are shown to be most vigorously engaged at the extremities of _ tho two hun-drcd-milo front on which their offensive has opened, though the abscnco of news regarding intervening areas does not of necessity mean that they are in a state of calm. Apart from details of progress made, there are other references which point to the impressive scale upon which the offensive lias been organised, and emnhasiwi its importance. It is stud £W, i<» ' "1 to Czernowitz

the Russians concentrated 400 guns, and prepared the way for an infantry assault by a continuous rain of shells, maintained for fifty hours. Not so very long ago such a. concentration on a limited section of front would have been a sheer impossibility to the Russians. That it has been effected now affords definite evidence that they are beginning to reap the benefit of their strenuous exertions not only to increase their artillery equipment and supplies 'of munitions, bu'b to improve their organisation generally, and notably to make good past deficiencies in the matter of transport.

According to one message, the Tsar has established his headquarters in the Czernowitz region, and this may appear to lend colour to a suggestion advanced by a German writer, Count Reventlow, that the chief object the Russians have in view is to exercise a decisive influence upon events in the Balkans. Admitting that the Russian offensive has been well prepared, and is basked by great reserves of men and artillevy, Count Reventlov.* states (as lie is reported to-day) that if the offensucceeds Greece and Rumania the hnlcnte. Statements ot this kind, emanating from, such a source, are always to "be regarded with suspicion, and there are fairly obvious reasons for suspecting that Count Reventlow's ostensibly candid estimate of the position is not free from an element of guile. That a decisive success by the Russians at the southern extremity of their front would be likely to influence Rumania and Greece favourably to the Entente need not be doubted, but it does not follow that the Russians have this, object chiefly in view. The war has witnessed a number of attempts by the Allies to achieve a limited, end by employing limited means, and these attempts have in general not fared well enough to cncourago any additions to their number. There is a suggestion in Count Reventlow's comments that the Russian oftensivo is to be regarded as a limited enterprise, aiming at a rapid local success. It is more reasonable to regard it as a normal development of the Russian main campaign which may'bo slow to achieve decisive results in the Balkans or anywhere else. It is obviously in the interests of the Germans to popularise the idea that the Russians, are striking for rapid success. Their next'move, assuming no such success to be. gained within a limited period, will no doubt be to assert that the Russian offensive has failed, and to work upon this theme in the neutral countries they are anxious to influence.

The plain answer to such efforts to create fake standards is that the keynote of the Allied plans is coordination and co-operation. The Russians are doing good service to the common cause by compelling the enemy to concentrate in great strength on a front where he has no prospect of lighting with advantage. At the stage which has been reached in the' war it is probably a matter of much greater importance to control the disposition of enemy reserves, as the Russians are now doing, than to make any immediate effort to decisively sway events in the Balkans. That the enemy has been compelled to concentrate- heavily against the southern offensive is not in dispute, and as a consequence he is weakened in other fighting areas, the Balkans probably included. This is a, positive result as far as it goes, and there is no definite reason to suppose that the Russians aim at any more ambitious achievement, in the immediate future. It is strictly reasonable to assume that they will withhold anything in the nature of a culminating effort until their Allies are ready to act simultaneously in other theatres. The Allies are no longer under tho necessity of engaging in unsupported action, and the Russian offensive is best regarded not' as aiming at a merely local success, but as a detail in preparation for the general assault upon the enemy in all theatres towards which the plans of the Allies tend. It is not at all unlikely that it may influence, events in the Balkans, but it is chiefly of importanco as a positive indication that the enemy is definitely condemned to the war on two fronts, which it has been tho aim of his strategy to avoidthat he is as far as ever from securing the respite on the Eastern front which would enable him to concentrate his main strength against the Allies on tho West. * * * * Almost the only definite news from the Balkans at time of writing is of heavy fighting 011 the north-east-ern frontier of Montenegro, as a result of which the Austrians have gained some ground. This is bad news as far as it goes, but' the enemy is not shown either by his own or Allied ' reports to have as yet penor trated deeply enough into Montenegro to materially affect the general situation. There is no such explicit news of events in the south, but an Athens report states that, the Austrians, Germans, and Bulgarians have completed preparations for an immediate attack upon the Allies in the Salonika region.' This item has the merit of being open to an early test, but at the moment it lacks support. Tho continued progress of the Russian offensive and tho strength of tho Allies at Salonika seem equally to make it improbable that the enemy will risk an attack. A description of the Salonika lines, given by the Serbian-Minister of Finance, is consistent with other reports on the subject, and it indicates that the enemy would be more than likely to expend his strength in vain ancf invite a shattering counter-stroke if he attempted to drive the Allies, into the sea.

Except perhaps as regards Montenegro, where a critical situation is heightened by formidable transport problems, which make it difficult to aid the forces holding the inland frontiers, tho state of affairs in the Balkans seems to permit of the Allies biding their time. One incentive to early action is suggested in a message which declares that the Germans are already transporting great supplies of cotton from Asia Minor into Europe, and have made extensive preparations by the construction of transport routes and otherwise, to obtain further supplies of raw material from the same sourcc. All' such information, however, is more or less open to doubt, and there appears to be sound authority for the view that Germany' would have to keep her present communications with Turkey open for many months in order to obtain really important supplies of raw material. Some cotton she will undoubtedly obtain, but it is an open question, at least, whether she had not already obtained ample supplies of this material before the Allies succeeded in blocking its parage through neutral countries.

The hysterical outburst in the German newspapers over the Allied arrests of enemy consuls and other subjects in Greece is perhaps an indication that the enemy is at a loss for a remedy. At all events Greece is evidently not inclined to make trouble over the matter. The Frankfurter Zeitung says that General Sarrail has slapped Greece's face, and that it would be overjoyed if Greece retaliated, but tho pious hope thus implied seems doomed to disappointment. Sir Edward Grey's announcement at tho end of last week that he did not regard the diplomatic situation in Greece as other than satisfactory is conclusive for the time being. The Allies have released some of the arrested consuls but this need not be interpreted as evidence of weakness. It oiay mean only that necessary ends have been served and that the released prison crs arc no longer in a position to do any harm now that their plots havo been penetrated and checkmated.

A brief dispatch from Mr. Phillip Gibbs, which tells its own story, throws more real light upon conditions on the Western front than, tho usual run of official reports. The point emphasised is that the Allies are making their artillery superiority tell with splendid eff<-.ct, and are drawing a relatively -feeble reply from the enemy. Official news to-day tells chiefly of tho destruction of enemy works by bombardment, and that the destruction is on an important scale may be gauged from the ftict that one of the details mentioncd is the demolition of a steel-cupola fort—one of a number of similar works with which the Germans have stiffened their line. * » » *. • . Only a properly constituted tribunal can be trusted to justly allocate responsibility and blame for the j failure of an elaborately-planned | and complicated military enterprise, and no useful end is therefore likely to be served by the public discussion in which the names of Sir lan Hamilton, Lieutenant-General ■ Stopford, and others are being bandied about in connection with the British failure at Suvla Bay. Sir lan Hamilton, in his dispatch, blamed the divisional commanders at Suvla Bay, and also Lieutenant-General Stopford, who was in chief command of that section of the operations. Critics have now arisen to suggest that Sir lan Hamilton is himself chiefly responsible, or that Sir lan Hamilton and General Stopford must divide the ultimate responsibility. On these lines the controversy might proceed indefinitely without ever reaching finality or a satisfactory conclusion. The visible evidence is obviously incomplete, and in addition the case is essentially one for expert investigation. The only fact which is really clearly established at present is that there is ample justification for such an inquiry as General Stopfoed has demanded ; but it should be an inquiry dealing not with his case only, but with that-of all the officers concorned.