PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 145, 8 March 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

The "high military authority" whose interesting weekly comments on the Western front furnish a xund of official perspective' of the situation, states to-day that the Germans are now sixteen divisions ahead of the. Allies, but that this superiority is only superficial, as the Allies' divisions are larger. We are still suporior, he says, but our superiority is diminishing. This, of course, refers to the constant accession of forces which the Germans are receiving from their Eastern front and from Austria,-and Turkey. The enemy's preparations, says ithe writer, are complete, and ho may be expected to attack as soon as ho has perfected his local preparations. These local preparations, he adds, are more difficult to discover than the enemy's preparations for larger operations, because camouflage—the art of concealment and deception in war—has been brought to a high degree of skill and efficiency. This difficulty, it should not be forgotten, cuts both ways. That which is difficult for us to find out about the enemy is difficult for the enemy to find out about us, probably a good deal more so. Camouflage is essentially a task for fertile imagination, an'attribute more readily associated with tho quick-witted Frenchman and the alert Briton than with the stolid Teuton.

There is a revival of peace talk in the German Press, with, a fairly obvious purpose. The Serbian Legation has found it necessary to give official denial to a German report that peace negotiations with Serbia and Montenegro are _ impending. The Vossische Zeitung spreads beforo tho pacifist element in France an alluring feast of "great political and financial concessions, greater oven than the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine," adding that it only remains for England to surrender the war thefts of German colonies and Turkish territories and Gormany will evacuate Belgium. To the British sense of humour thie extraordinary manifesto on tho part of Berlin's most serious and conservative newspaper , comes as a huge joke, but it may bo as well, when we have had >our laugh, to look for tho originating cause of this tempting offer. _ The motive is purely psychological. Of all tho belligerents in the present war none has recognised so much as tho Germans the value of psychological principles as an aid to warfare. Their Press propaganda, their policy of frightfulness, are pimply the application of two different principles of psychology—the first to persuade people by the plausible effect of tho printed word that such is so when it is not so; the 6econd to paralyse by sheer terror a nation's powers of resistance. It has not always happened that their estimate of the efficacy of a particular psychological principle has beon sound one—Belgium, heroic and determined, is still in the field —but quite frequently there has been eomo return for the effort. Tho Germans were able to forc& the surrender of Northern Russia through the latter's chaotic internal condition following the revolution, and thus eliminated, for the time being at least, the Itussian factor from the general war situation. A message from Bucharest announces that the Eumanians have signed the preliminary 'peace proposals with the Central Empires, at tho same time signing away part of their terri'tory. The point is that Germany has eliminated another belligerent from the general war situation. She now hopes by this process of elimination to narrow the issue as far as possible to a final conflict with Britain and America—hence tho bait to the French pacifists; hence also the attempt to create in the public mind the idea that the Serbians are looking for peaco; hence again tho attempt to eliminate Italy last year; and hence finally Von Hindenbueq's boast of a German entry into Paris by April I—about three weeks from now. At first sight this declaration seemed to be intended for internal consumption, to stimulate the flagging hopes of his countrymen. There is equally strong reason for supposing that tho threat was made for the purpose of frightening the French mind into a condition for receiving a promise of a totally different and much more agreeable kind—tho bait which_ has just been dangled by tho Vnmschr, Zcitung. But Germany will never eliminate France in this.way. *** % * Apparently the annulment by the Bolshevik Government of its loans from other natione covered indebtedness incurred before the war, for one of the terms of the Gorman peace demands insists on the cancellation of tho annulment _so far as it refers to Germany, It is another twist of the screw, another embarrassment for the Bolshevik financiers. Lenin's acceptance of the peace terms is stated to have caused serious dissension among the Soviets. Tho prospect of paying off a "dead horse' to Germany will not tend to promote harmony amongst the discordant elements.

A further instalment of nows concerning tho tenna of the Bolshe-

vik-Gcrman peace treaty discloses the enemy's, econoniic designs in Persia and Afghanistan. _ Tho strict neutrality and impartiality of these two countries arc vital to British interests in India.. The loyalty of. Afghanistan to Britain is unquestioned, it is the result of years of diplomatic effort to create and maintain with the Ainir of this buffer State on the Indian frontier a perfect understanding based on the lriendliest relations, Enough is known of tho Germans' capacity for intrigue to comprehend what the arrival of spying, scheming Teutons in Afghanistan would mean. It would mark the beginning of a furtive war of intrigue designed to undermine Afghan'confidence in Britain. British interests in Persia, by reason of that country's proximity to India, arc.no less important, and the advent of that shady factor in German world politics, German commercial enterprise, is an event to be regarded with equal disfavour. The final defeat of the Germans will, of course, put an end to the enemy's machinations in Persia and Afghanistan.