PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3150, 31 July 1917, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Immediate news of the llussi.in campaign is bad. Tho Russians admit ii further retirement in Galicia, and tho Germans claim that they have reached or passed tho AustroEussinn frontier at a point about forty milea south-east of Tarnapol. One correspondent reports, however, that the state of tho retreating •armies is rapidly impVoving .■uid that tho panic is beginning to subBide. This receives support ' from Another message which states that General Kokiuloff is freely using extreme powers in dealing with deserters. Some prospects are thus laised of an early termination of the retreat, and meantime tho Rumanians continue to develop their success on the Transylvanian irontier.

The political situation also woms to be improving. It is stated that there is every prospect of the satisfactory formation of a. National Government. The prediction is probably not unduly optimistic, for under the methods now ruling it should be possible to speedily dispose of the extremist minorities which have hitherto exercised such extraordinary powers and have done so much to facilitate the work of German conspirators. No largo organised body in Russia is likely to oppose the restoration of discipline and order. It is of interest in this connection that even the cxt.rcrao Socialists in Russia have._ shown some appreciation of essential factors in a national war policy. Thus the Jinbotmja Gazcta, tho organ of the- Minority Socialists, last month indignantly repudiated the idea of deserting the sraall anci oppressed nationalities. It wrote:

Our formula, "Peace without annexations and contribution," is being subjected to attacks in tho paircs of the bourgeois Press. "Peace without annexations"—this means, according to the bourgeois Press, that we are not touched by the fate of Belgium, Serbia, Armenia, Tuul Poland. This means that we support at any cost tho inviolability of the old territorial frontiers between States. Np! this is not true. Wo nre in no way supporters of the old _ frontiers between States, niitl wb consider that tho questions ot Belgium, Poland, Serbia, and Armenia' cannot bfc avoided, that efforts must bo made to solvo them.

• If they arc, as is claimed, based on definite information, the disclosures of Germany's pro-war plotting supplied to-day by a Times correspondent form an important addition to the body of evidence on which she stands condemned as TITe unscrupulous author of the war. There is already hmplc evidence that Germany planned and prepared for many years to plunge -..Europe- into war, and that Austria and some smaller nations have- long been her pliant instruments. Tho colossal intrigue which precipitated the war has not yet, however, been exposed iVi all its details. At their face value the, disclosures made by The Times correspondent mean that Germany not only shaped her plans generally for war, but determined in its details and well in advancethe aggression on Serbia from which the war took its rise. The vital importance of the disclosures hardly needs to bo emphasised. They not only convict tho rulers and statesmen of Germany of criminal and almost unbelievable hypocrisy, but finally dispose of tho theory that tho war arose almost spontaneously. Serbia obviously is acquitted of having played more than an involuntary part. Though some individual changes have been made, the coterie which developed this infamous plot against the peace of Europe still rules in Germany, and its members hayo done much* to popularise- tho idea that the German nation is fighting a defonsivo war. Tho latest exposure of their

infamy may not produce immediate results in llieir own country, but it should lull willi full effect in Allied countries, iind not least in llussia.

It must hn confessed Unit Amoriran .journalists strivo very liarcl to give an air of authority to their sometimes very obvious, if ingenious, speculations as to the why and wherefore of things. The " New York Times's Washington correspondent told iis yesterday "on the highest authority all about tho rate of manufacture and destruction of German submarines. Only one submarine a week was being destroyed by the Allies, according to this veracious chronicler of authoritative information; and this in spite of tho weekly list of engagements between armed merchantmen and attacking submarines, and in spite of all tho efforts of the Allied navies. To-day the - Now York World's Washington correspondent endeavours to go one better. He has Eecuved "authoritative and confidential information" as to the reason why the Allied navies have not attacked and smashed up the enemy's submarine, bases. The reason is, so tho story runs, that the base is not at Zeebrugge but at Bruges, on the canal, a score of miles inland, where the submarines live in dug-outs, and are safe from aerial raids. One wonders who it is that "discloses" all this "confidential" information for the edification of the readers of tho American Press. The American public is accustomed to, and looks for, this sensational method of treating big issues, and it is part of the daily routine to single out the big headlines which adorn tho star features of the different papers. Some of the sensations worked up arc plainly pure , speculation, but they serve a useful purpose in keeping attention focussed on the main issues of tho war, and also in stimulating public interest and in firing tho national spirit.