PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2882, 21 September 1916, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Much of tho news relating to the campaign in tho Southern Balkans is unofficial, but there does not seem to be any reason to doubt its general accuracy, and it promises well. The great turning movement described in which Serbian, Russian, and Frenoh forces are engaged threatens' ultimately the Vardar line, the chief military highway through Serbia. For the time being tho Allies are shown to bo striking north from North-Western Greece, in an effort to outflank the 1 Bulgarian army which has been fighting on and near the Serbo-Greek frontier. In its initial stages the movement appears to have achieved pronounced success. The Bulgars are said to be retreating, badly demoralised, before a close and determined pursuit, and according to one report the Allies are within six miles of Monastir. Unless the Bulgars contrive to stem tho advance, their defence of the Serbian frontier as a whole must collapse, and it is likely, of course, that the present developments will lead to speedy action by the Allies further cast, against the southern frontier of Bulgaria. On the northern frontier of Bulgaria the situation is still undefined. A German report avers that General von Mackensen has penetrated the Russo-Ruinanian position in-the Dobruja, but if the strong line upon which the.R'ussc-Rumanians lately retired had been penetrated it is tolerably certain that the enemy would have made much more of the fact. It is quito possible that the report mentioned is merely another and a somewhat belated reference to,the retirement the Allies have admittedly_ made. There is certainly no definite evidence that the enemy has achieved any material advantage in tho Dobruja, but on the other hand it seems highly probable that the converging attack to which Bul-garia-lies open is actually under way. If the Allied drive into Southwestern Serbia is the formidable affair it seems to be, it will no doubt be speedily supplemented and followed up, both in Greece and on thenorth. * * * # Official news from' the Russian front is scanty for the time being, beoauso a great battle is raging in Southern Galicia which has not yet reaohed a decisive result. Halicz, which is tho immediate Russian goal, is a place of great strategic importance. It is situated on tho Dniester, south-east of Lemberg, where the river is bridged, and crossed by one of the .< two main arterial roads available to tho enemy in a wide stretoh of Eastern Galicia, oast of Lemberg; If the Russians enter Halicz, tho enemy will have to rapidly evacuate positions further north in order to save the forces.holding them from envelopment. ■ The battle is being fought in the immediate vicinity of Halicz. The Nariuvka, mentioned in the cablegrams, is, a tributary of the Gnlta Lipa, and enters that river a few miles north of the point at which it in turn enters tho Dniester, opposite Halicz. The hattlc-line extends almost due north from the Dniester. Besides being thrown back upon tho immediate approaches'to Halicz _■ it-self, tho enemy further north, is defending tho last natural obstaeloto a Russian drive across the vitally important road which connects Halicz with Lemberg. Supplementing' Sir Douglas Haig's statement that since July 1 twenty-nine German divisions have been withdrawn, defeated and exhausted,, from tho British .offensive front north of the Somme, tho military correspondent of the Westminster Gazette gives an estimate of enemy losses which is not without interest, but seems in some respects open to criticism. The weak point in his calculation is that ho would seem to rate the strength of a German division too high. The twenty-nine divisions mentioned by Sin Douglas Haig, he says, would represent 550,000 fighting men. This works out at about 19,000 men to a division. In point of fact, _a division does-consist of approximately that number, but not all of them are available as combatants. A rough working rule is to reckon the infantry stiength of a division at about 10,000 men, something like half of its total strength. Other divisional units, artillery, engineers, anibulance and supply, are more or less exposed to reduction by casualties, but there must be at all times a considerable percentage of troops embodied in the division who arc nob exposed to the risks of battlo in anything like tho same degree as the infantry and some other divisional units. This is a factor for which the correspondent mentioned has apparently made insufficient allowance, and his compilation of enemy losses is therefore liable to err on tho side of liberality. It would be assuming a good deal to supposo that the twenty-nino divisions of which Sir Douglas Haig speaks averaged a loss of two-thirds of their total strength. That their combatant strength has been reduced in that proportion is quite likely, but this would not mean that twentynine divisions had lost between them 370,000 men. On the other haud the same correspondent's estimate that the French have- accounted for 150,000 Germans, dead, wounded and prisoners, iu the period of the Somme offensive, looks too low. Specific evidence on which this total could bo challenged is not available, but the French latterly have been fighting on a longer front than their Allies, they have, like the British, a definite superiority in artillery over tho enemy, and full weight must be given to tho fact that they havo taken more than half of the Gorman prisoners gathorcd in since _ tho Somme offensive opened. It is recognised, of course, that tho French Have been fighting in somewhat less difficult country than the British troops, and it is stated to-day .that they had been opposed up to September 8 by only twenty divisions as against'twentyeight opposing the British. On the whole it seems quite likely that tho 'German casualties on the Somme front since July I havo reached a total of something like half a mil-

lion, though the proportions in which the French and British Armies have, contributed to this achievement may not quito work out as the correspondent quoted suggests. * * -*' * To speculate about casualty totaja in the absence of concrete data is admittedly unsatisfactory, but even in its present state and- without elaboration Sir Douglas Haig's statement in regard to the withdrawal of German divisions is most illuminating as indicating tho telling effect of tho Allied offensive and tho significance of the announcement should on no account bo passed over. It is definitely established that Germany is no longer capable of creating new formations. On this and some closely related matters it is possible to cite as high an authority as General Alexeieff, the Russian Chief of Staff. He said, two months ago, that his confidence in the outlook was based on a twofold foundation. The first was that the Allies were advancing simultaneously, and that tho enemy was no longer able to attack them piecemeal as he was last year. The second- (added. General Alexeieff) is that the Germans have used up their reserves, and tho talk about n huge reserve army hidden in 'the interior has been proved to be mere bluff. They do not possess men or material to form newunits. . . . To illustrate the desperate shortage of the German armies I need only recall the well-established fact that four divisions were hurried here from Prance soon after June 4, when our offensive began. These were the 19th and 20th, forming the Tenth Active Corps, and the 11th Bavarian and 43rd Eeserve Divisions. Wo-were expecting the 44th. • Division, but it did rot appear. As usual, the Germans had under-rated. French powers of resistance. .Although 17 divisions ramain before Verdun, lie enemy found it impossible to move another man hither, and as soon as the British armies advanced all idea uf transferring troops had to be abandoned. The units confronting us represent the maximum effort of Germany. They are being moved about along the Russian front, chiefly to the southward in order to fill up the tremendous gap caused >by tho overthrow of tho Außtrians. Not a single fresh unit has been produced by the enemy. Two badly mauled divisions withdrawn from Verdun constitute the strategical reserve of the German Armv. * * * .* * Taking it that this was the enemy's position in' regard to reserves two months, ago, his situation on his present fronts is obviously desperate. How far Germany is still able, by drawing upon boys and elderly or physically inefficient men, to find drafts to fill the ranks of her shattered divisions wo do not know. We know, however, that even as regards reinforcing her existing formations her resources are at a low ebb. She has no strategic reserve, and this means thai when a shattered division is withdrawn from the fighting line it can only be replaced at, the' danger-point by a division taken from some other section of the front. Germany in a word must continually use up her best troops in attempting to hold' the breach the Allies are driving through her fortified lines, and in addition to tho local and visible effects of the Allied offensive it is of vital importance that she must be holding a steadily increasing proportion of her total front with formations hastly rebuilt from a diminishing store of inferior reserves. There is_ no possibility that tho twenty-nine divisions defeated and exhausted on.the British section of the Sommo front have been sent to the rear to recuperate and be reconstructed at leisure. Germany's only policy is to immediately fill tho oroken and defeated ranks of these divisions with such drafts as are available, in order to send them either back to the Somme or to some other section of the line.