PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 267, 31 July 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

o According to a message from London, which has not been amplified at time of writing, the Germans have opened a new battle in the Champagne, east of Reims. It is strange that official communiques, presumably of a considerably later time of origin, make no mention of an enemy attack in the region named._ In the circumstances it seems likely either that the message quoted was based on erroneous information or that it exaggerates the importance of the enemy's latest stroke.

So far as the battle in the Marno salient is concerned, fairly plain ■ evidence is afforded that the enemy is still contending with perious difficulties in his retreat. Villages eight miles behind his present line are in flames, but he is still offering a desperate resistance on the north bank of the Ourcq. The Allies, as might _be expected, are throwing the main weight of their i attack against the flanks of what remains of the salient. The French are vigorously assailing the western flank, and are now across the Sois-sons-Chateau Thierry highroad over the greater part of the distance be-' tween Soissons and Oulchy la Villc. The villages of Grand, Rozoyi and Clugny, mentioned in the communiques, all stand about a mile cast of this roai Buzancy, of which the French hold the western > outskirts, stands four miles, south and a little east of Soissons, and the other villages are farther south. On the other flank the British have gained some ground in heavy 'fighting south-west of Reims. As reports stand both flanks ofthc enemy line are being slowly driven in. With mattes in this state, and with the evidence of burning villages eight miles- behind the- battlefront to ; indicate that he does not intend to halt in his retreat Short of the Vesle (that is to say, on a straight front from Soissons to Reims), the enemy might bo expected to yield ground more readily on the central part of his front, on the north bank of the Ourcq. A rapid retirement from the north bank of the Ourcq would speedily reduce the dangers arising from theincrcasing Allied pressure- on his flanks. Tho only apparent explanation of the enemy's failure to seek relief, in this way is that his communications are still unequal to the strain they arc called upon : to bear.

A British attack in the vicinity of Morlancourfc reported to-day makes an addition to a long series of successes in which the Allies have very notably strengthened the dam which General i'Foch has constructed to cover Amiens. In these operations the Allies liava recovered positions which were gained by the enemy at very heavy cost after tho initial. impetus 'of his drive on Amiens had been lost. South of the Sommc also the Allies have recovered ground for which the enemy paid an enormous price. ' In a recent article in Land and Water, Mis Hilare Belloo pointed out that in the first nine days of his March offensive the enemy sained practically the whole of the ground contained in the big salient thrust towards Amiens, with the exception of a narrow belt westward of the Avre and north of tho Luce. For eight days afterwards he struggled for the possession of this strip ofterritory. "To make this small advance," Mr. Belloc continued, "he threw in—and thought it well worth while to, throw in—at least twenty divisions, first and last, including fresh material. He fought two actions of the utmost violence, the first putting him on the west bank of the Avre. but still leaving bim cast of Moreuil; the second . . giving him tho marshy low-lying land between the Avrc and tho Lucc, Moreuil and its v'cod, and the heights upon which that wood stands, and, as a furthest point, the ruins of Castel." Part of the ground in question, west of the Avre, was recently recaptured by the French in a local attack, which swiftly reached its objectives, and presumably involved no very heavy loss. This seems to be typical of the recent Allied operations, both north and south of tho Somme.