PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 201, 14 May 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

No material change in the Western campaign is reported 10-day, though the tension of expectancy is naturally increasing day by day. It seems quite safe to assume that the enemy will attack before long with all possible vigour, since he is in a situation in which a continued offensive is the only alternative to retreat. But the present halt obviously does not improve his prospects. It cannot have formed part of his original plan to give the Allies au interval for comparatively leisurely reorganisation and preparation after his offensive had reached an advanced stage of development. 4* V * # The latest estimate of German strength is submitted by an American correspondent in France. His assumption that Germany has a total mobilised strength of 3,300,000 agrees closely with l the figures published last year by the French Staff, but the further estimate that there are now 3,654,000 Germans in the Western theatre seems rather extravagant, even if it is assumed that the numbers otherwise available have been increased'by the transfer of Austrian troops to Germany for garrison service and other duties in tho interior. It has commonly been computed that a mobilised,strength of about fivo and a half millions gave Germany fighting forces of from 3,250,000 to 3,500,000 men, but as matters stand she still has fairly considerable forces in Russia, a few divisions in tho Balkans, and possibly some in Italy, and she- has suffered very heavy losses, permanent and temporary, in the present offensive. In any case, tho figures given by the correspondent should not mean that tho Allies are outnumbered. Against Germany's mobilised strength of well over five millions there is to bo set a French mobilised strength of 4,725,000 men (this figure was given by M. Tardieu, French High Commissioner in America, in February last) and a British strength on tho Army rolls of 4,000,000 men—the figure given not long ago by Sir Auckland Geddes. At a reasonable estimate the French, British, and Belgians, excluding the Americans, should be able to set a greater effective strength in lino than the correspondent credits to Germany. It is, however, the essence of tho existing situation that the Allies aim at cutting down the enemy's strength while meeting his onslaughts with numerically inferior forces. • • • « One aspect o£ the peace conditions imposed on Rumania by tho Central Empires which was not clearly brought out in recent cablegrams on the subject is explained in a Paris message recently published in America. In demanding "frontier rectification" at the expense of Ilumauia, Austria has enforced terms which demonstrate how completely her present ruling authorities, as .distinct, from the masses who clamour for peace, arc possessed by German ideas of.conquest. According to the dispatch mentioned, which no dfbubt correctly outlines the conditions embodied in tho treaty, Austria demanded that Rumania should surrender all her territory west of a line oxtnnding from a point east of Red Tower Pass to a point on the Danube near Ghilramar. The llumanian territory involved amounts to approximately 3000 square miles, and takes in the mountain passes known as Vulcan, Oriental, and Iron Gate, which thus become Austrian. In the region of Predeal, at the mountain pass through which rims the railroad from Kronstadt tc> Bucharest, Austria exacts a. strip of country eighty miles long, and ten miles wide. From Ocna, in Moldavia, at the head of the remaining mountain pass through which a railroad runs, Austria has delineated for annexation a strip of territory running northward 140 miles, and twenty miles wide. Tho Austrian Foreign Minister, Count Czeenin, announced that the territory thus acquired would be made Crown lands, with Turn-Soverin as. capital, the dispatch continues. He proposed that Rumania bo compensated for her losses by granting territorial concessions in Bessarabia. The effect of these frontier changes, so long as they arc maintained, is to put Rumania at Austria's mercy. It may appear in the sequel that this unblushing application of the policy of conquest and annexation as a step to further aggression Tias had a good deal to do with creating the political ferment in the Dual Monarchy which is now commanding attention.