PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 213, 28 May 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

In one of lb-day's messages a cori respondent has something to say about the measures adopted by the enemy with a view to masking TtTs preparations for attack and deceiving the Allies in regard to the sector on which his blow is intended to fall. The extent to which the enemy has departed from his former practice in matters of this kind has lately given rise to a great deal of discussion. An American military expert, writing in mid-April, observed that there was being witnessed what for nearly three years had been regarded a.s impossible in tho case : of two armies equally matched—the comparative ease of a break through on a. considerable front. "Heavy though tho masses thrown by the Germans against the British have been," he continned, "they are not perhaps much more solid than in former attempts by the Germans at Verdun or by the Allies in Champagne in 1915 and on tho.Sommc the following year. Yet the Germans seem to havo mastered the secret of a piercing operation which eluded them on the Western front up till now, and which the Allies have not yet learned. Various explanations have beea advanced. We are told of a new artillery method which not only shatters the enemy's front lines, but which covers his routes of reinforcement. We hear of a new method developed by von Hutier at Riga last year, consisting, in the mobilisation of a mass of attack far in the rear of the battle-line, its approach by night marches, and its launching into attack after a bombardment short enough to avoid the warning 'which the former three days' bombardment gave the" enemy. We read of waves of solid infantry sweeping on regardless of cost in lives. Finally we read of a highly developed mobility which enabled the German troops used in Picardy to be rushed north for the attack on the Lys. But whatever may be the innovations in tactics developed by the Germans, there is, after .all, about these various explanations we have enumerated nothing that is startlingly Ambitious offensives have been delivered before this after a brief artillery preparation. Nivelle last April tried the method and failed tragically. Surprise was practised by Byng last October. Attack in solid formation was practised'by tho Germans]

around Verdun, _ High mobility is surely no innovation."

Upon the whole it seems unlikely that such developments in enemy tactics as have been touched -upon compare in importance, as accounting for the results achieved by the Germans in the first phase of their offensive, with the fact that the Allies were at an intermediate stage in the evolution of the supreme command and with the enemy's willingness to recklessly squander lives. At all events, the suggestion advanced to-day, by the correspondent who has been mentioned, that the enemy is still in a position to conceal 'formidablp preparations for attack is somewhat' open to doubt. It is, in fact, hardly_ credible in view of the overwhelming aerial supremacy established by the Allies which gives them, amongst other advantages, the opportunity of freely observing the enemy's dispositions while ho is, by comparison, blinded. There is no close analogy between the tactics pursued by von Hutjer in the Riga region and the tactics of surprise which are practicable in the Western . theatre. Generally speaking, the Germans held mastery of the air on the East front, and, in any case, it was possible to compass results on that front by the rapid movement of mobile troops which are impossible under the conditions relating generally to the defensive- and particularly" to artillery concentration, which are normal in the. Western theatre. In order to develop their offensive from its present point by a surprise attack, the Germans must secretly mass not only men, but artillery and vast supplies of munitions and material. It seems hardly likely that they will accomplish such a' concentration undetected with Allied aeroplanes ranging freely over their lines and the country in rear.