PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 2, 27 September 1917, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Serious results aro obviously threatened in Itussia if ifc is established that M. Kerensky and his colleagues Tver© parties to the enterprise in which General Kokniloff came to disaster. As yet, however, evidence that M. Kerensxy played the part now alleged scorns to bo far from clear. Tho Petrograd correspondent of tho Daily ■News states to-day that published documents show that M. Savinkoff (Assistant War Minister), "apparently in M. Kerensky's name," offered for Generic, Kornimff's. consideration three variants -on. : a. dic- , tatorship. This -is not' clear evidence that M. Kerensky conspired with General - Komuloff, and one fact which seems to warrant an attitude of doubt is that M. Kereneky and M. Savinkoff were notoriously on bad terms. It will be remembered that at the time of the Moscow Conference M. Kerenskx forced tho Assistant War Minister to resign, and was only induced under pressure to assent to his reinstatement. ,It seems on this account possible that Savinkoff may have acted behind Kerensky's back in concerting measures with General Korniloff. Available information, however, is far from clearing up this and other doubtful features of , the situation.

. Even before they successfully assumed the offensive in the Verdun front some weeks ago it was quite apparent that the French were taking a very important part in the joint effort of the Western Allies. l r et, according to. a Westminster Gazette correspondent, there has been a tendency, pronounced curiously enough in Franco than in Great Britain, to disregard the. valuable co-operative quality of the French fighting on the Aisno and Champagno fronts. "The tendency to minimise tho effects of tho Kronen efforts," he observes, "is a singular one. It shows an inclination to assume that the French offensive .in April did not fully succeed, yet it bases that assumption on the fact that tho Germans themselves have shown a bitter spirit of attack on that sector since April. That surely is proof of very definite ends attained. Obviously, it is because tho French won positions of first value that 'Germany is every nerve to win them back. That, indeed, is what she is doing. Her flank, her very safety is endangered by the French gains; she must fight with all her power to save horself. Herein lies the value of Frenoh cooperation. Germany's plans would have been better served by a passive defence before the French. ' The French, however, have forced the. Germans to fight desperately, and, what-is more, forced them to fight extravagantly. Extravaganco m fighting was the one thing Von Hindenbuiig 'did not desire. He shortened his lino in order to accumulate a reserve, showing by the action ho had no means of accumulating forces outside his fighting ranks. This reserve Hindenbuug wished to keep for an offensive, but with the first of the British assaults it became obvious he must utilise it in defence if he was to hold his front at all. Any fighting that drew

further upon the German stock of men, then, was bound to have the effect not only of weakening the German front hefore the British, but the whole defensive system into tho bargain."

The French threat to the German left flank, the- correspondent goes on to observe, lias had tho effect of very materially expediting tho exhaustion of the enemy reserves. In the offensive they launched on April 16, the French accounted for a large number of enemy divisions, which were taken out of the fight in a shattered condition, but the grip the French obtained of important ground on the Chemin des Dames and the Oraonuc Plateau has forced the enemy to expend even more divisions in tho hopo of retaking the lost positions. As long ago *"s June there were significant signs that the enemy's reserves were beginning to fail under tho unrelenting pressure of the Allies. In spite of increased pressure on his threatened flanks, his counter-attacks perceptibly declined in vigour, and this in tho main holds good of all the lighting that has since occurred. Tho Allied pressure has been heavily intensified. The conditidns whioh prompted the enemy in, the early summer to' pour out his strength in furious counter-attacks have been altered, from his point of view, materially, for the worse, but the vigour and effect of his counterattacks has coincidently declined. Later events in Flanders and on tho French front supply clear evidence of the enemy's increasing difficulties. Tho counter-attacks which Sib Douglas Haig reports to-day arc apparently only an effort to gain time, for it is also reported that tho enemy is moving', back his heavy artillery in the region of his recent defeat. Powerful but abortive attacks on tho French lines in ' the Verdun area have certainly not improved tho position from tho German point of view. The observation holds even greater force to-day than when it was made by the correspondent above quoted that the strain of being hammered and drained on two separate wings is proving too much for the- enemy, and that the French in tho south arc one with the British in the north in the steady and systematic battling that is wearing him clown to the point of defeat.