The Dominion MONDAY, JUNE 3, 1918. THE GERMAN THRUST TOWARDS PARIS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 218, 3 June 1918, Page 4

The Dominion MONDAY, JUNE 3, 1918. THE GERMAN THRUST TOWARDS PARIS

The fact that the enemy has I reached a point on the Manic in his,thrust towards Paris is liable to give an erroneous impression of tho actual course of the battle in which he is desperately striving to force a decision. Using, according to tho latest available information, considerably more than half of tho German strategic reserves, the Crown Piunce has so far prevailed over Allied resistance as to drive a wedge to the Marne, ten or_ twelve miles south of tho line his advanced troops were shown to *have reached at tho end of last week, but it is quite clear that the crucial struggle is at present being waged not on the Marne, but on either flank of the enemy's advance, and particularly on his right. He has driven, a deep wedge, and is attacking in formidable strength,' but the salient he has created is menaced on cither side, and as reports stand tho French arc vigorously counterattacking on tho western wall of the salient—tho enemy's right flank— and have everywhere gained ground besides taking several hundred prisoners. The position on the other flank, in the vicinity of Pieims ># is not as clearly defined. In a review of operations which appears to-day, tho British "High Military Authority" observes that Reims is probably, now in the enemy's hands, but a French communique, presumably written later and based on full knowledge of the facts, states that the situation north-west of Ecims is

unchanged. The point to be emphasised meantime is that tho enemy's success in the centre, where he has reached the Marnc, is heavily discounted by his inability to shake off the Allied grip on his flanks. So long as he is prevented from widening out his attacking front on cast and west, he is occupying a salient in which he is exposed to counter-attack; and iri these conditions • a • further . advance southward, across the Marnc, would rather intensify the -dangers to which ho is exposed than give him prospects of reaching a strategic objective. In one, of tho latest messages in hand a correspondent at French Headquarters remarks that on the whole tho enemy gained nothing of importance in any part of the Dattlefield during the previous twelve hours. The statement is suggestivo of the extent to which the enemy is hampered by tho Allied pressure on. his flanks and his failure to overcome the resistance of Franco-British troops in areas where it _ must be overcome if the offensive is to develop successfully beyond its present stage. Chateau Thierry, the westernmost point at which the enemy- has reached tho Marnc, lies 45 miles east and slightly north of Paris. As news stands it is here that the enemy has made his closest approach to tho French capital. It will bo remembered that at tho height of their advance in J914, and immediately

before their defeat in the Battle of the Marnc, the Germans were within fifteen miles of Paris. Setting out the position on the map, Chateau Thierry is tho apex of a triangle based on a, line (a;! miles long) connecting Soissons and Reims. From base to apex of tho triangle is a distance of 23 miles. It is on the western face of the triangle, a front of more than twenty miles running almost due north from Chateau Thierry to a point south of Soissons, that the French have developed the successful coun-ter-attacks described to-day. Events on this front seem bound to heavily influence the course of the battle and that of the campaign. The enemy has the strongest possible incentives to concentrate upon an attempt to overwhelm the French divisions in his path and advance into the country west of the longitude of Soissons. That such an advance is essential if he is to widen his attacking salient and make it reasonably safe covers only part of the ground. Tho fact that even larger issues are at stake is well brought out by General Maurice in the observation that if the enemy is prevented from breaking westward towards Paris and rolling up the Allied line to the north, he cannot gain a decisive success in tho present battlefield. It is so much tho more- important that the French, counter-measures on this vital front have achieved pronounced success. According to the latest communique. in hand, enemy attacks of maximum power have been smashed, and between Soissons and the Ourcq tho French are in possession of villages which had several times changed hands iu a tempest of battle.

Although much depends upon the ability of the Allies to hold the enemy in the salient ho has created by his advance it would be premature to assume that matters aro bound to take a decisive turn one way or the other on the present battlefield. Action cither by the Allies or by the enemy which "Would shift tho Btorm-contre farther north

is still well within the bounds of possibility. But general prospects ire upon the whole brightened by indications that the enemy is very deeply committed in his present enterprise, and is likely henceforth to be under material handicaps and restrictions in shifting his point of attack. That the existing situation gives the Allies some ground for anxiety is obvious, but it seems distinctly possible that the German command has cause for misgivings. The present offensive is in no respect more striking than as an indication of the extent to which the enemy feels it necessary to supplement what he has'already accomplished on the northern front—on the approach to Amiens and in Flanders. In these areas he had to appearance approached dangerously close to his object of separating the Allied armies and reaching the French coast, but he would hardly have employed 45 divisions in an advance to the Marnc had he deemed it practicable to drive to his objective in the Sommc valley or in Flanders. He has been compelled to enormously enlarge and broaden his plan of attack, and against this we have to set the fact—a fact of capital importance—that right up to the latest stage of the battle the Allies have met and parried his thrusts with numerically inferior forces. No more important statement appears in-the news to-day than that of a correspondent at French Headquarters: "We arc still holding the enemy with inferior strength on the whole' front." Whether the Allies arc still, as they were in 1914, inferior in total strength to the enemy may be doubted. But now as in the events preceding the Battle of the Marnc they have elected to ponded his reserves and committed himself irrevocably to a denned course of action, he will lay himself open to a smashing return blow. As it bears upon the future, the success wi_th which the Allies have maintained their ground on either flank of the enemy's advance is not a little enhanced by the apparently wellestablished fact that they are carefully husbanding their reserves while the enemy is throwing new divisions into the battle as if he had an unlimited, instead of a strictly limited, reserve to; draw upon.