PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 170, 8 April 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

To-day's reports show that in the later stages of the battle in France the Germans have suffered very heavy losses and that where a considerable part of the front is concerned they have nothing appreci- . able to set against these losses. They 'are hampered, much more seriously than the Allies, in bringing up guns and munitions, and are paying the price that must be paid by armies attacking in these conditions and trusting largely to numerical superiority. Apart from events in the Somme valley and on a front of limited length to the south, the story of the battle in its latest days seems to be, from the enemy's standpoint, one of profitless sacrifices and almost unrelieved defeat. The exception, however, is important. Discomfited elsewhere, the Germans have made some further headway along the Somme valley towards Amiens, and have advanced their

ljnes also in the aroa to the south', between the Somme and tiro Avre. Nothing in available reports bears out the statement made by one correspondent that fighting is in progress within seven miles of Amiens, but official reports show that the British arc being heavily attacked at or near ■ Corbie, in the Somme valley, and Corbie is about eight miles from Amiens. Between the Somme and the Avre, according to a lieuler correspondent, the Germans in their latest attacks drove a salient seven thousand yards broad and two thousand yards deep. In this salient, as in the one they are occupying in the area south-west of Albert, the Germans are no doubt under a tremendous but the salient nevertheless definitely threatens the Allied positions on north and south.

General Fooh is credited to-day with the statement that the Germans have made practically no progress since March 29, but this obviously calls now for some modification. Presumably the enemy had not made his latest forward movement in and south of the Somme valley when the Generalissimo spoke. In any case the enemy is making appreciable, though slow, progress in this region. Corbie, for example, lies about a mile and a half north-west of Hamel, and the British were dislodged from the near neighbourhood of the latter village only a day or two ago. The enemy is directly threatening important roads and railways, including those which follow the most direct route from Amiens to Paris, but an extensive range of communications exceedingly important to the Allies and possibly vital to the continuity of their front is also menaced. Each step towards Amiens taken by the Germans accentuates the danger to these communications—the city is already well within range of the German heavy batteries, though perhaps not within range of really effective bombardment—and the disclosed position obviously gives some ground for uneasiness.

Such comments on the situation and outlook as are transmitted today tend in the main to optimism. Colonel Repington, for instance, assumes that there is now no risk of the enemy's being enabled to separate the British and French, "particularly in view of General Foch's guarantee of the security of Amiens." This guarantee is not otherwise mentioned, but in tho statement already mentioned General Foch takes a decidedly confident tone, and infers that a- sufficient obstacle is being opposed to the German _ drive _ and that the Allies are fighting with good prospects. The most obvious explanation meantime of this confidence is that the Allies are not concentrating by any means the whole of their resources upon directly opposing tho German drive, and are preparing counter-measures on a big scale. There is certainly a good deal in the existing situation to suggest that defensive, tactics, even though they involve the bravest and most stubborn resistance, will not in themselves suffice to hold the enemy and keep the Allied communications intact. If, however, adequate forces are being held, in reserve for a counter-offensive at the right moment, the present somewhat unpromising aspect of the battle may before long be radically changed.

Onb very important section of the battlefront is that which follows the Ancro in,the region immediately north of the Somrae. The Germans have been making desperate efforts to force- the passage of the Ancre because, as Mr, Philip Cibbs points out, their front to the south forms an awkward salient in which they arc exposed to a punishing bombardment from British guns posted on the high ground in the vicinity of Albert. Grossing the Ancre, particularly north- of Albert, represents to the Germans an important step towards widening the salient and so greatly improving their front. As information stands all their efforts to this end seem to have been defeated, though their latest official report speaks of a bridgehead having been won on the Ancre.