PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3090, 22 May 1917, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

! A successful British attack which j is reported to-day has had the effect of widening the breach in the Hindenburg lino in the vicinity of Bullecourt. Advancing on a front of a mile between Bullecourt and Fontaino lez Croisilles, on the north, the attacking troops stormed a further section of tho enemy's defences and defeated all his efforts, which seem to have been particularly desperate, to recover the lost ground. It is evident that tho attack was driven homo with complete success,, according to plan, and the result is to materially weaken the enemy's position, not only in the 'immediate vicinity but- on the front which stretches north from Bullecourfc towards Lens. The continued penetration of the enemy's defences in an area where he .has made unsp'aring sacrifices in attempting to hold them secure bears unmistakable witness to the irresistible power of the British offensive. Account must bo taken not only of tho extent to which the loss of positions essential to its stability has weakened the onemy line, but of the wrecking and demoralising effect of constant bombardment by;the tremendous force of artillery, which the British are now bringing to bear. Matters are in such a state that it seems not at all improbable that the Germans, as a French report declares to-day, are rapidly completing preparations for a further retreat.

It is the more likely that the enemy is committed to this course since conditions from which he has hitherto derived considerable advantage on an important section of his front (between St. Quentin and the heights of the Aisne) will soon bo considerably modified. WJrAt these conditions are is explained today in an interesting dispatch from the Paris correspondent of the Daily Chronicle. From St. Quentin to the point at which the battlefront turns east along' tho Aisno plateau is a distance of about thirty miles. By flooding tho northern part of this sector, and taking their stand further south in the rugged and difficult country about La Fero and in the St. Gobain forest, tho Germans were enabled to reduce to a minimum the length of vulnerable front to be defended between St. Quentin and tho Aisne heights. It is in reporting the. flooding of tho valley of the Ojse, on the northern section of this front, that the Daily Chronicle correspondent throws ne\v light upon the situation. Tho flooding was facilitated by. tho fact that the Oise, in its approach to La Fe-ro from the north, runs through marshy country in several branches, ouo of them canalised. By copying tho. example, of tho Allies, who Hooded the , valley of tho Yscr at an earlier sta,go of the war, the Germans opposed a formidable obstacle to. the French advance, and postponed an invasion of tho open plain_ in which tho important railway junction of Laou is situated.

The position created on the thirty miles of front between St. Qucntin find the Aisno heights rniay bo summod up as' follows. Immediately south and east of St. Quontin the Germans had a- few miles of clear country to defend. Then came theinundated area, extending over ton or a dozen miles. From the southern extremity of the flooded territory the line runs practically all the way to the Aisno plateau through wooded hill country. Beforo La Fore, to quote a recent writer, deep ravines cleave the wooded hills which rise at a maximum to 580 feet. Of course, firstclass roads lie along the valleys, but they are dominated by these hills. In front of Laon, which is on 'a plain, the vast forest of St. Gobain covers heights which reach an altitude of 600 feet near thesma.ll town of St. Gobain, eleven miles west of Laon. On the north the French have reached the Oise, south-east of St. Qucntin, and in the south they have made some progress in an advance which threatens to turn tho flank of tho St. Gobain defences, but up to the present the flooded marshes of the Oise and the wooded St. Gobain heights have defied attack.

It is ; a> fact of material importance that the floods which have served the enemy in good stead during the last month or two are receding as the weather grows warmer. But there are other respects in which tho position has been altered very much to the disadvantage of the enemy. His defences along the valley of the Oiso and in the St. Gobain forest cover in flank an area which was defended in front by the heights of the Aisne, and these heights, along a groat ipart of their Jength, have succumbed to frontal attack. Laon is already threatened from the south and the threat will dovolop rapidly if the French master tho western section of the Ohemin des Dames ridge, 1 the only area, in which the (Germans still hold tho crest of the Aisno plateau. As the correspondent who has been quoted points out, a French success in this quarter would lay open the defensive system of the Oise and St. Gobain to attack in rear. _ The Germans have postponed this development only by persistent counter-attacks at the western end of tho Aisne front (in the vicinity of Laffaux) and further east, and in spite of the strength of their positions between St. Quentin and the heights of the Aisne the general outlook from their standpoint is decidedly unpromising - . i . . , .

. Available reports point to a continued improvement in the Russian situation. This applies to military as well as political developments. Further attacks by the enemy have been repelled, and it is obviously unlikely that tho Germans would attack, even on a small scale, if they had hopes of stalemate or of a cessation of hostilities on the Russian front.

* * ■ ■ » t " o War cablegrams which arrived at ;tho beginning of April told of a Gorman attack in Southern Russia, under which the Russians suffered rather heavily and were , driven across the Rivey Stochod. It was assumed' at tho timo that the position lost by the Russians was a railway bridgehead opposite Kovel junction, which is a vital link between the enemy armies in Southern Russia and in Galieia. In actual fact, as appears from news received by mail, the battle was fought on a section of the Stochod, about forty miles north-east of Kovel, and at a considerable distanco from the nearest railway. On cither side of the rivor in the region of the German attack there is a roadless wilderness of marsh and forest: The loss of ground by the Russians is much less serious than the loss of ono of the railway bridgeheads in which they are posted to imminently threaten Kovel would have- been.

The seizure of about 600,000 tons of onemy shipping, and th'e heavy programme of wooden ship construction now in hand, are not the only contributions America is making to the solution of the- shipping problem which confronts the Allies. The American shipbuilding industry was powerfully stimulated in the early days of the war, and it has since undergone a remarkable develop l raent. The United States mercantile marine is already the second largest in the world. According to Lloyd's Register, it consists of 3245 vessels of 6,148,861 tons, of which 2587, of 3,790,578 tons are sea-going vessels; 592, of 2,318,223 tons, are employed on the Northern Lakes; and 66 vessels, of 40,060 tons, are at the Philippine Islands. These figures include all vessels of 100 tons and upwards, and so do not indicate the tonnage available for ocean-going trade, but a return issued by the Bureau of Navigation, Washington, shows that at the end of December last 3242 American vessels, of 2,201,103 tons, were registered for foreign trade, while 23,166 vessels, of 6,384,161 tons, were enrolled and licensed for the coasting trade and fisheries. A num-, ber of ships hitherto employed in 'the American coasting trade and on the Great Lakes have crossed the Atlantic during the war, and a proportion of these vessels will be available for ocean traffic, throughout the summer. As to the development of shipbuilding, Lloyd's Register shows that the total output of the American shipyards in 1914 was only 95 vessels of 200,762 tons, whereas on January 1 last there were officially reported to be building 403 vessels of 1,495,601 tons. The tonnage of vessels under construction at the beginning of the year represented more than seven times the production for 1914. If? is with shipbuilding developed to the extent hero indicated that the United States has

undertaken the • additional enterprise of producing wooden ships aggregating about 3,000,000_ tons in twelve months, or, according to one report, eighteen months. The shipping correspondent of the London Times stated last month that largo orders for shipping had lately been placed in the United States on behalf of Great Britain, and th'at a very considerable quantity of new tonnage built in the United States is likely to be available in the next few months.

Major Kawdon Beere, of Wellington, writing from somewhere in France, says: —"The Maoris arc great boys over here, and are easily tho most cheerful people in Europe. Wherever there is a Maori thero is laughter." Soldiering is worso than the law iu its uover-ending changes. There is always cropping up some 'leading cusp' to allor one's former ideas of how this or that should be done, and a soldier must ever be on the alert to avoid soino act which would have been all right yestorday, but is all wrong today. The liao Us wonderfully interesting, and playing with 'Fritz/ is better than s-panis or hockey."