The Dominion. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1917. HAIG'S LATEST STROKE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 51, 23 November 1917, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1917. HAIG'S LATEST STROKE

The story of the latest British achievement in tho Western theatre is only partly told at tho moment of writing, but from tho details in hand it is evident that a mighty blow has been struck with splendid effect. From Flanders, where the enemy has suffered such defeats as would make his position desperate but for tho rains and mud oi winter, the storm-centre has ehifted without warning to tho area further south into which the Allies broke in wake of the enemy's retreat from tho battlefield _of the Somme—the area in which the enemy attempted to settle down on his maich-boomed Hindenburg line. The northern part of the. formid-ably-organised trench system to which the Germans applied this name, on and south of the Vimy Ridge, was captured by the Britisji armies in heavily-contested battles during the spring and summer. It is the gist of to-day's news that, a considerable part of the remaining length of the Hindenburg ! .ine has been conquered almost at a blow in a battle which took shape on a front of- nearly forty miles—extending from the River Scarpe, east of Arras, to St. Quentin. A German report, which is otherwise of doubtful value, is no doubt accurate, in naming Cambrai as the main British objective. The centre of an cxtensivo network of roads, railways, and canals, Cambrai is only less important to the Germans -than Lille itself. A defeat depriving them of the free uso of Gambrai junction would fatally weaken their line, terribly weakened already, by the loss of their strongest positions between Verdun and tho North bea. If is has not done more, the attack now reported has seriously imperilled tho enemy's hold on Oambrai. When the battle opened the British were nowhere within eight miles of this great junction. They are now separated from it by less than half that distance, and the ground gained includes important canal cross; ings almost due south of Cambrai at a distance of three and a half miles. Obviously the enemy s vital communications at this point are now exposed to a far more damaging bombardment than was possible before the battle opened. Apart from the central achievement of driving a broad wedgo into the enemy lino west and south of Cambrai important headway has been made on a long front north and south. This brilliantly successtul surprise attack undoubtedly takes a big place in tho developing Allied offensive, and on soveral grounds it

appears to mark the opening of a new era.

It is a fact of excellent promise that the Allies in entering each new stage of tho war have been able to enormously expand their own past efforts and achieve corresponding results, whereas the enemy has no such record where the major operations of the war on the Franco-British front are concerned. In fighting on the biggest scale, tho Germans have added failure to failure. Instead of setting new standards, their maximum effort this year—the attempt to recover the heights of the Aisnc —failed as disastrously as the Verdun offensivo failed last year. The Allies, on tho other hand, have set and attained new standards with each development of their offensive, and this is emphatically truo of the latest British onslaught. Its full results have yet to be disclosed, but that it involved , a brilliant departure from precedent and from what had come to bo regarded as settled conditions of warfare is' already self-evident. By the very audacity of their tactics tho British commanders secured all the advantages of surprise. Instead of being preceded by the tempest of bombardment which had come to be regarded as absolutely essential preliminary to attack on fortified lines, tho assault was launched after a night.marked by as near an approach to calm as is possible on the battlefront. Under these unwonted conditions miles of. country defended by, the strongest field fortifications known to military art were conquered at amazingly light cost in lives and material. It is probably safe to say that in this battle the British armies have not only achieved results of the first importance as they bear on the future of the Western campaign, but have revolutionised tho standards of the war.

The British victory is a most impressive addition to evidence already supplied that the Allies are vigorously shaping , the policy which the war in its present aspect demands. '•' It is plain enough that the Russian collapse and the serious turn of events in Italy, have made calls upon the Allies which are the harder to meet since they were not anticipated. Possessing as they do enormously superior resources the Allies are assured of victory if they turn these resources to the best account, but late events have supplied a plain warning that they cannot afford to take success for granted. Fairly definite proof is now available that the force of this warning has not been lost. Instead of being disheartened and weakened by the result of the Austro-German offensive against Italy, the Allies have been drawn together in closer unity, and roused to the redoubled efforts which will repair their past' failures and destroy the enemy's hopes. In its moral effect and as an indication of Allied policy, _ as well as in its highly important immediate results, the British offensive reported to-day does much to open and brighten the outlook. This splendid stroke of battle driven homo at an apparently unfavourable moment and 'in conditions which might have been deemed hopeless conveys an assurance that the Allies are determined to let no obstacle stand in the way of that unrelenting and ever-increasing pressure of attack upon the enemy whioh need only be maintained to ensure his ultimate defeat. It is undoubtedly by a policy of wholohearted enterprise that the- Allies, will at once overcome what.is difficult in their own situation and hasten the enemy's defeat, and it seems already safe to say that the war has witnessed no finer example of onterpriso than the mighty thrust which has carried tho British so near to Cambrai.