PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 219, 5 June 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

To-day's news of the battle in France is the 'best that has come through since the Germans opened 'their offensive. On the great triangular battlefield between the Aisne and the Maine the enemy is still concentrating upon an attempt to drive westward through the Allied front north of the latter river, and according to the latest reports in hand ho lias been brought practically to a standstill. At all events his progress in the latest fighting has been extremely slow, and where he has gained ground his gains have been small. His immediate objective is tho great forest of Villers Cot;terets, which covers a distance of more than ten miles north from the Ourcq, which runs about 14 miles south of Soissohs. The enemy is attacking the forest from the front and also by movements. on either flank. In these last movements he docs not seem to have made any rccent progress, and a dispatch from a Renter correspondent at French Headquarters shows that in coping with the frontal attack tho French are stubbornly defending a line of villages which' stand closc to the eastern face of the forest.

Two of' the villages mark the points at which the forest is entered by railways, from. Soissons on the horth-east and Fismes on the east, and it is evident that the enemy is making unsparing efforts to advance along these railways. The success with which the French are maintaining the'lino of villages fronting the forest is therefore highly significant as an indication of the extent to which they have . been reinforced on the front on which the cnomy must prevail if lie isl to develop his.projects of advancing on Paris and outflanking the Allied line to the north.

A German military writer was quoted yesterday as stating that the plan of battle which Ludendorff is developing in Franco follows tho theory of disintegration, "which is comparable with the method used in firing at an apparently impenetrable armour, plate. ( Many hits closc to each other gradually weaken the power of_ resistance until the plate tails to pieces." The really interesting feature about this exposition is that it is extraordinarily one-sided. Apparently it has not occurred to the German writer that if the sarao shell were fired repeatedly at an armour plate the shell would bo more rlikcly to disintegrate than tho plate. This, however, is a closer analogy tp the actual facts of the Western campaign than ' his fancy picture of the destructive bombardment of an armour plate. His picture is further at fault in crediting the Allies with a merely passive . part. Even in meeting: the enemy's massed attacks with much inferior forces their tactics are in fact anything but passive, and there is no Reason to doubt' that these tactics arc leading up by ordered stages ,to a full-powered counter-offensive. I # % The news that submarines are operating oft the coast of America comes somewhat unexpectedly, but really gives no great reason for surprise. Neither does it carry any suggestion that tho Germans have found means of dangerously extending their under-water campaign. The suggestion is rather that tho highly effective anti-submarine measures organised in the around Great Britain and on the approaches to France have compelled tho U-boats to hunt farther afield .and under the serious disadvantages that are necessarily entailed in operating at an extreme distance from their nearest base. It was long ago demonstrated that submarines are capable of voyaging from German bases to American coastal waters, but even when account is taken ol the use of submarine depot ships, it is a fairly safe conclusion that the U-boats will accomplish less in cruising at extreme range than in cruising nearer honie. In its opening stages the adventure has been fairly successful, but of the fifteen ships reported sunk it is probable that a number arc small coasters. Tho closing of the American eastern ports is no doubt a temporary measure, and in particular it is unlikely that-the prcscncc of U-boats will interfere to any serious extent with tho sailings of protected troop convoys.