PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 192, 3 May 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Following as it docs upon the heaviest defeat the enemy has suffered since he opened his offensive, the. lull reported to-day in the Western theatre is of good promise. The events of Monday's battle are so fully described bv correspondents as to call for little comment, but they are obviously of a nature to heavily influence the future course of events. There is no doubt that his previous- capture of Mont Kemrael gave the enemy important tactical advantages, but ho could not have failed more disastrously in the onslaught he launched on Monday had he been attacking in conditions completely favouring the Allies. Summing up the facts, Me. Percival Phillips observes that picked Gerj man divisions attacked throughout the day without gaining a foot of ground, and the day ended with the Allies' front improved instead! of, weakened. Taking account of'| the enemy's enormous losses and of the demoralising effect of such an, experience, it does not.seem unduly! optimistic to believe, as some com- j mentators evidently do, that this | grim conflict marks in a very real j sense the turning point of the strug-1 glo: It is assumed that the enemy ! will persevere in Ms attacks as lonir j as he has lives to squander, but he ■ will do so henceforth with visibly j diminished prospects. j

Unless it relates only to French, as distinct from Allied lossea, the statement of the Echo de Paris that "Our losses since tho beginning of fcli3 offensive are not one-tenth of the enemy's" is presumably coloured by optimism, but it is possible to accept much, moro confidently the Matin's pronouncement that tho greatest rush in history Ms been stopped, though General Foch keeps tho majority of his reserves unused. Little more than a week ago General Foch himself told an interviewer that he had amplo Allied reserves still intact, and was quite satisfied with tho course of .events. As to the state of tho Gorman reserves, we are informed to-day that the enemy is bringing forward boys of the 1920 class wRo have i had only eight weeks' training. The actual appearance of such troops in battlo would afford definite proof' that th.e enemy is already finding • it difficult to maintain his fighting i 'formations, and even the fact that | half-trained boys of the 1920' class j are being held in immediate readiness is decidedly suggestive.

It is ono of tho peculiarities of tho situation that although tho enemy is looking into a wiuo'area of open country from tho skirts of Mont Kcmmel to a point well to the northward of Ypros, be has apparently been unable to profit by this circumstance ; On tho map, Ypres and neighbouring areas look like a hopelessly exposed seeof tho British front, and one which it can hardly bo worth while to hold now that the ridges have passed to tho enemy, but it is stated to-day that there is a growing hope that Ypres will not be abandoned. Tho explanation of the existing state of affairs may be. that the low country west of Ypres lends itself to inundation. The Allied front is already covered by an inundation extending from tho near neighbourhood of the coast to south of Dixmude, and the circumstances suggest that the Germans are afraid to push forward in the Ypres region lest they should find themselves enclosed in a dangerous pocket, Hanked on the north by inundation and on the south by the high ground on which tho Allied line is now established near the Flanders border. Present expectations, at all events, seem to be that the. enemy will deliver his Doxl. thrust, not In Flanders, hut further south.

day both in Mesopotamia, and in Palestine, and if the present trend of events continues, substantial grounds will appear tov believing that Turkey is in serious danger of coJiajj.sc. It Jii'is k'en suggested that the Turks arc concentrating in the Caucasus with a view to stirring up tho Moslem races in the regions further east, but this will hardly account for the unbroken series of defeats they hiivo suffered in Mesopotamia and Palestine. Prevailing conditions are at least suggestive of the developing disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.