PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2761, 3 May 1916, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

The transfer .of Russian troops to France is assuming increased importance. Less than a fortnight has elapsed since it was announced that a strong force of Russians had landed at Marseilles, ant! now the arrival of a third convoy is reported. This suggests that Russia is making a very large force available for service in the Western theatre, and the move is ..plainly one that portends offensive action by the Allies. There is its little reason as'ever to believe that the Western Allies need assistance in fighting a defensive campaign, and the most plausible explanation of the apparent rapidity with which the Russian reinforcement is being built up is that France and Britain are rounding off their preparations for a powerful attack on the enemy's western line. This, of course, is a. matter about which nothing can be taken for granted. There ,have been predictions from various quarters that the Allies will assume the offensivo on all fronts this month, but these predictions possibly rest upon no better foundation than the fact that improving weather now makes action on the lines indicated possible. Much moro definite evidence is afforded in the transfer of the Russian troops. The known facts regarding this development are decidedly significant as indicating that the Allies meditate the early adoption of an aggressive policy in the Western _ theatre, and at the stage reached in the war this would imply similar and related action by the Allies on other fronts.

Speculation as to the probable line of development of the Allied offensive would be quite futile in the pilesent state of information, but it is not in doubt that the hands of the Allied commanders are considerably strengthened by the' transfer o*f troops from Russia to France. If Germany still has a prospect of gaining such an advantage as would enable her to lengthen out the war it must rest upon the possibility of driving so hard against Russia as to disable that country for the time from participating effectively in a general offensive. Germany's failure to improve her position in tho Western theatre does not how seem to admit of doubt, but it is still conceivable that she might attack Russia so powerfully as to temporarily derange the Allied plans. Should she attempt this it is first of all essential that she should bo able to hold the AVcstcrn Allies firmly in check. Her prospects of doing this in the months that .lie immediately ahead were, perhaps, never good. They are certainly much reduced now that Russian soldiers are filling some of the gaps which twenty-one months of war have made" in the French reserves.

The opening of the Baltic once again makes the Germans free to use naval force in furtherance of their operations on the northern Russian front, hut on what has happened in the past their prospects of achieving advantage in this way are not bright. Outmatched as they are in surface ships, the Russians have a potent weapon in the submarine, and the Germans arc not likely to expose many, units of their miscalled High Seas .Fleet to the danger of submarine attack in the narrow waters of the Baltic. Whatever the Germans may attempt in the way of naval action it may be taken for grunted that the Russo-British submarines will presently resume tho campaign against German sea transport in which they were so successful last year.

A report that M. Venizelos has openly declared in favour of Greece permitting the passage of Serbian troops over her railways is very significant if it is founded on fact. Tlie views of M.> Venizelos are well known and he would hardly have troubled to announce them at the present juncture without having an object in view. The announcement is possibly the first shot in a political battle in which M. Venizelos will aim at upsetting the present policy of Greece and substituting Another more in accord with her obligations and interests. At time of writing no exceptional development is disclosed on any ot the battlefronts. .Some further German attacks have been made at Verdun, but the enemy has gained no groityd during tho last few days, and tluvPrench have gained a little west of the llcuse. In Armenia the. Turks arc reported to he concentrating powerfully against the Russians in the region of Trebizond and further south. A Petrograd communique states that the enemy is using motor transport from Angora, —that is to say over more than three hundred miles of mostly bad roads through hilly country. Under these conditions the campaign is likely to impose an exceedingly severe strain upon Turkish resources. AcconmN'G to tho Paris Journal, German submarines arc obtaining stores and fuel from depots on the

Spanish coast in the vicinity of Barcelona, and it is even asserted that the- Germans arc equipping wireless stations on the coast adjacent to that port If the Journal is right in its facts, a state of affairs has arisen which demands very firm and drastic action by the Allies. The coast near Barcelona would afford the submarines an admirably convenient huso for predatory operations on,the most' important sea routes of the Mediterranean. Barcelona is only about 600 miles from the .Straits of Gibraltar, and from the point of view of submarine warfare, it commands not one but a number of sea transport routes which are vital to the Allies. A voyage of less than 300 miles from the vicinity, of the Spanish port would bring the submarines into the track of the innumerable ships which are plying to and from the Near East, and with a base nearBarcelona the raiders would, of course, be even more conveniently placed to attack ship's bound to and from the southern ports of France. The story about wireless stations seems almost incredible as it stands, but while it cannot be believed that the Spanish Government would be guilty of such a flagrant breach of neutrality as to permit the Germans to erect wireless stations on Spanish soil, with the object of keeping in touch with their submarines, it is not impossible that wireless plants may have been erected by Spaniards ostensibly for their own purposes, buT actually in German interests. Tho charges made by.the Paris Journal must await confirmation, but what is known about internal conditions in Spain does not warrant their being dismissed as obvious canards. On the contrary, there is reason to that ruling conditions in Spasm afford some scope for action unfriendly to the Entente.

V.# * 6 A VVERY plain warning that Spanish neutrality must not be taken for granted was given by a Times correspondent at Madrid, in an article written a couple of months' ago. Anyone who travelled in Spain, he said, would find that her neutrality was rapt the fixed and irrevocable thing fee imagined, but rather the.resultant! of many conflicting forces which .are actively at work, to-day, and willl lose.nothing of their power as the •war goes on. In Spain the w.tr introduced sharp divisions in all grades eft" life, and from these divisions the i Court is not immune. Even Ki:tg Auxonso's private .sympathies afford sotne scope for speculation. He has giWen many tokens of friendly fcclingj towards England and France, his Consort is an English Prin&sts, but he is a Hapsburg on his mofcfier's side, and counts many near, kinsmen in the army of the EMPERob Francis Joseph, It is said that at)'the Court of Madrid the topic of thetyvar was taboo in the Royal circle fnim the early days of the conflict. Tlte masses of the people, as The Times\ correspondent describes the position, fire no less divided than the Court, butt while the majority of. King Alfonso's loyal subjects have been content to express their views with.moderation, the war has trans- : formed the anti-dynastic parties—the Carlist at one tend of the scale and the militant Republicans at,the other —into active ruirtisans. The Carlists, and generally the aristocracy of birth and wcalt(h, together with the Corps of Officeis), ranged themselves' oh the side of Germany, and the" views of these partisans are supported, with some reservations, the Church. On the|'. other hand, it is said that the aristocracy of intellect iundoubtedly favours the Allies, and i the militant-Republicans, naturally, set their hopes up*4n a French victory. ■ .' , t ♦ « i « ».- Spanish neutrality, it will be seen, does not rest upon.!' any very stable foundation, such as popular aloofness and detachment froin. the war would afford. General opi lion is sharply divided, and in somd r important sections and classes of i the population antagonisms, following the lines of demarcation in the war, are at fever heat. That the King* or Spain and his Government have honestly set i.hemsclves to maintain, a policy of neutrality has not hutherto been seriously questioned. . It is to be noted also that at the}', outbreak of war King Alfonso, by' >his personal assurance, hastened to' relieve the French of all anxiety . concerning their frontiers both in She Pyrenees and Morocco. It is said'jithat the assurance was worth . sewral army corps to the French at a critical moment. At the same time. King Alfonso reassured the British Government as to Spanish designs, on Portugal. In spite of these .rc; Serous acts it cannot be overlooked t faint Spain contains a large number ,of bitter factionarics who hate the?-. Entente Powers, and would gladly Ido them injury. The Carlists not long ago conducted an unscrupulous newspaper campaign against England and other pro-German gi'otrtps have engaged in similar activities; One thing which may be confidcnH'-Jy accepted is that there are powerfjnl factions in Spain which would ijtladly assist the Germans in the irtimier described by the Paris Journal.