PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 148, 12 March 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

According to tho reports from the Western front to-day the German attacks recorded in yesterday's dispatches were very unprofitable and disheartening ventures. The vigilance of the defenders robbed the enemy of the clement of surprise with which ho hoped to score an initial advantage, and the promptitude of the British artillery took him at a serious disadvantage. The German losses were very heavy, with a resultant depreciation in morale. Tho British troops on the other,hand have again proved their mettle, and their spirits are high. With the recollection of last year's horrors in the West still vivid in their rninds, it is certain that the Germans havo been keyed up for the coming struggle by all the .arts of suggestion and encouragement that the .German General Staff could think of. Their greatest comfort this year—and one well dninimcd into their cars—is their belief in the invincibility of numbers. It has been demonstrated to them in other theatres that the impact and subsequent momentum of a heavy thrust has sufficed to depreciate their enemy's powers of resistance and break his offensive spirit. Their cold-footed philosophy in war is, in substance, an adaptation of the phrase, "the more the merrier." To find opposite them an alert and dashing enemy who declines to succumb to their "shock" tactics, who not only defeats their object but pursues them 300 yards further than they advanced, must indeed have been a depressing and discouraging experience. There will be many— very many—more such experiences, and the enemy morale will be tested, to its utmost.

Details of tho attacks_ by the French in the Vosges and in Alsace have not yet come to hand, and it is therefore not yet possible to estimate the importance of operations to which the Germans devoted a separate communique. There is dence of a coherent plan in the activities of the French on the smithem portion of the Western line. Whatever may be the- German , plans for a blow at Paris or Calais, or both, these harrying attacks on their left wing and extreme _ flanks will provide uneasy distractions for the German General Staff, for there is always the possibility that they may develop into something more alarming- .......

l'ou some considerable time past —ever since, in fact, the Allies established beyond question their supremacy in the air—the official dispatches, with almost daily regularity, have reported bombing activities by our airmen behind the enemy's lines. Told in the cold official brevity of the Headquarters dispatch writer the real significance of these bombing raids is lost on tho casual reader, but their importance, nevertheless, should not be overlooked in the public's absorption in more spectacular incidents. To-day's British communique, for example, mentions that during their operations on the date under review our airmen dropped 600 bombs behind the enemy's lines. The targets for these bombs included ammunition dumps —an ammunition clump is a big "head" of shells acciiraiilateckat a point behind_ the line convenient to the guns—railway sidings, stations, trains, aerodromes, concentrations of troops, billets, and so on. To hit an ammunition dump is to blow up the entire stock at that particular point; the bombing of railway sidings, stations, and so on means serious embarrassment and delay to tho enemy. The cumulative effect of a series of successful bombing expeditions might conceivably upset the enemy's pjiins for a big attack, but the most important result—although the material achievements aro in themselves of vital moment—is the moral effect on tho enemy. With every appearance of comparative immunity the enemy's lines are raided daily. Reprisals, in the face of the Allies' superiority in the air, are well nigh hopeless. Nothing contributes so much to a sense of in-

security than a feeling of impotency, and this feeling must be a very real thing at German Headquarters by this time.

In a dispatch from The Times correspondent at Peking to-day, it is stated that Glnekal Samenofi , , the leader of the iinti-Bolshevik movement in Siberia, is patrolling the. Siberian railway with loyal, welldisciplined troops. His opponents are German-officered but are discontented and badly disciplined. The situation in Siberia is in a measure dependent upon Samenoff's ability .to check the ramifications of German intrigue and the undisciplined vandalism of the Bolshevik hordes, and, in a nutshell, is largely a matter, of guns. It is here that Japan, if she be so disposed, may help materially to quell the forces of disorder. In the meantime the matter of Japanese intervention, it is stated, will be referred to the Supremo War Council at Versailles, where it is most fitting and desirable that it should be discussed.