PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3122, 28 June 1917, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

The announcement that the liner Mongolia was sunk as a result of striking a mine in the Indian Ocean shows that tho enemy has once again succeeded, though on what scale has yet to appear, in carrying his campaign against merchant shipping into an area well beyond the cruising rango of' his submarines. Presumably the mine which destroyed the Mongolia was laid by some ostensibly neutral ship. Similar things have happened before, but as a whole enemy activities of this : nature in tho outer seas have been kept within very narrow limits by the vigilance of the British and Allied navies.

It would ,bo interesting to know on what authority the Paris correspondent of the Daily Chronicle bases his statement that the net transfer of troops from, the Russian front to France ainco the revolution is only three divisions. Other estimates have credited the Germans with transferring as many as 600,000 men from East to West, but if the Germans have withdrawn troops on this-scale they are gambling desperately upon ; the prospect of continued stalemate in the Eastern theatre. One recent report declared that the Germans . had not greatly reduced their numerical strength on the East front, but had freely ■ withdrawn comparatively young soldiers, replacing, them with much older men. This policy, of course, involves a vory material reduction in effective' strength, and the Germans may havo effected a considerable transfer of effective strength from East •to West even if' it is true, as the' Chronicle correspondent declares, that tho net numerical transfer from tho Russian front to France since tho revolution is only three divisions. In view of the French War Minister's recent statement about the modification of French plans as a result of tho release of masses of enemy troops from • the. Russian theatre, it can hardly be doubted that the enemy has weakened his Eastern front to an extent which makes it extremely vulnerable to attack. Further suggestions that the Russians may presently work upon these conditions with advantage to themselves and their Allies appear to-day in an enemy report of. fighting activity in Southern Russia and Galicia. ,

Serious dangers of a deadlock appeared at first to bo involved in the request of the Russian Government for an Allied conference to discuss war aims, ; but there are some grounds for hoping that apprehensions of this nature were exaggerated. The Council of Workmen and Soldiers has notably changed its lone since the cry oi "no annexations and no indemnities" was first raised. In, a manifesto issued on May 15 it stated, amongst other things;

The workmen and peasants of Eussia long for peace, but it must be a general peace of all nations, the result ol their common agreement. A separate peace is an impossible thing, which must not be nllowed to interfere with, or embarrass, tho course of events in ..the world. It is evident that German imperialism, after having defeated our "Western Allies, would turn ugamst us the whole power of its arms,, seize our country,. and enslave the Russian people. The Council of Workmen and Soldiers' Delegates leads you towards peace in another way. By calling for a revolution of the workmen and peasants of Germany and .Aus-tria-Hungary we will lead you-to peace, after having obtained from our Government a renunciation of the policy of conquest, and after demanding a similar renunciation from the Allied Powers.

In its remaining passages the manifesto was an appeal to the soldiers at the front to cease fraternising with tho enemy and assume the offensive. When tho representatives of Russia meet those of the other. Allied countries in conference on war aims, even the extreme radicals will presumably be constrained to admit that hopes of popular revolution in Germany and Austria are illusory, and that the vigorons prosecution of the war is tho only practicable method of destroying German autocracy and militarism and establishing a durable peace on the basis of the right of nations to decide their own destiny.

The British are closing in on Lens in a fashion which promises to speedily set a period to the occupation of that town by the Germans. An official report to-day mentions an advance of a thousand yards on a front of two miles in the area immediately south-west pf Lens. The little village of La Coulotte, which has been captured, is a road junction about a mile and a half south' and slightly west of tho centre of Lens. The conditions under which the British are advancing are doscribed in a message from Mr. Philip Gibbs. The Germans are being blasted out of immensely formidable positions by an irrcsistiblo artillery attack. Conditions generally, not, only at Lens, but on other sections of the front, seem to be leading up to another big thrust against the enemy's defensive- front.