PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 287, 23 August 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Events in the Western theatre reported to-day distinctly confirm an impression that the enemy will not be allowed to carry out his projects of retirement without doing some desperately hard fighting. While the French are making good headway in the advance between the Oise and tho Aisnc which closely threatens Noyon and also the German line further cast, the British Third Army is attacking on part of tho front between Arras and Albert. In its opening stages the enterprise seems to hava prospered well, anil it may easily 'lead up to much greater results than arc yet recorded. Tho front on which the British are attacking extends north from the vicinity of Beaucourt-sur-Ancrc (five miles north of Albert) to a point near Moycnncville, which stands eight miles north-east of Beaucourt in a direct line. The northern flank of the attacking front is about six miles south of Arras. The only official report in hand at time of writing makes a bare announcement of satisfactory progress, but other messages show that in the .opening phase of the battle tho enemy front was rapidly penetrated to a depth of from two to three miles. Towards the south the attackers seem to have crossed tho Ancre, which was reached after an advance of nearly two miles, and also the Arras-Albert railway, which here runs a short distance east of tho river. Similar progress was made further north. The greater part of the battle area lies north of tho Ancre valley.

Continuing on its present line, the attack will drive a wedge into the area immediately north of the Thiepva), ridge, which the Germans defended tenaciously in the Battle of tho_ Somme in 1916. At Achiefc In Petit, which they have captured, the British troops arc just four miles west of Bapaurae, and twenty miles west of Cambrai. Developing on a, big scale the latest attack would rcnrescnt a stroke against the enemy's main communication—a stroke calculated, in conjunction with the French onslaught between the Oice and the Aisne, to endanger an extended section of the enemy's lino. On what scale the attack by tho Third Army is destined to develop has yet, however, to appear. It is, of course, much more likely that tho Allied offensive will- develop in a. series of surprise blows than that it follow any such defined course as that of a simultaneous pressure of attack north of the Aisne and towards Cambrai. It is not improbable that the Allied Generalissimo has' been largely intent thus far upon upsetting tho enemy's dispositions and compelling him to so mass his reserves in defence of threatened points ns to leave himself damagingly open to attack elsewhere.

If it, retains the place it held in the line a few days ago, the New Zealand Division is taking a full part, in the present battle. A dispatch from the. official correspondent, published to-day, in which he describes minor operations carried cut last week, shows that New Zealand troops were then occupying a front of several thousand yards on the southern flank of the present The New Zealanders were holding the front from tho vicinity of Puisieux (bwo and a half miles east of Hebuterne and seven miles north of Albert) to a thousand yards or more south of Sovre, that is to say, to a point about two miles south-west of Puisieux. If they attacked from this front, or part of it, our troops are sharing in tho advance which, as information stands, has reached and in places passed the An ere and the.railway east of that river.

One correspondent observes that tho British attack sprang a tactical though not a strategical, aurprisc upon tho enemy. Thai is to say, tho Germans expected to be attacked on the front between Albert and Arras, and had made such preparations for resistance as lay in their power, but failed to anticipate the actual moment of the attack, and were at a considerable disadvantage in the conditions in which it opened. These conditions were much intensified by tho weather. A fog provided hotter cover for the advancing tanks and infantry than any artificial smoke screen. Although the Germans were at many points overwhelmed, however, they offered in some places a stout resistance. This was notably tho case at the Bois do Logeast, a _ wood about three-quar-ters of a mile square which stands a mile and a, half east of BiiKiuoy, and at Miraumont, a town in tho Ancro valley a couple of miles north-east of Bcaucouvt Tho Bois de Logeast was captured after some hours of fighting, according to a correspondent, but as' news stands the Germans are still holding out at Miraumont.

Fuller reports now available of the latest French advance between the Aisne and the Oise show that the enemy has been driven back over a considerable extent of high ground. The French front south of Noyon now runs generally cast and west at a distance from that place of less than five miles. South-east of Noyon this cast aud west line turns south-east to the Aisne, north of So'ssons. The French have gained positions dominating roads and a railway east of Noyon, and though there is no confirmation at time of writing of a report that the advance has been extended to Scmpigny, less than two miles south of Noyon, the fall of tfio latter place seems to 1m in near prospect.

Though the Germans have sunk a number of Belgian relief ships, vessels which are nominally guaranteed immunity and arc conspicuously in_ order that no difficulty may arise in honouring the guarantee, their latest crime under this head touches a new depth of infamy. As will be seen from the report which appears to-day, the Dutch ship Gascondier was not sunk by a hastily-fired torpedo, but wa-s deliberately shelled without warning, And

when the relief ship had been sunk the submarine shelled tho crew in the lifeboats, with the result that twenty wero wounded, while five died in the water. Even Germans might have been expected to shrink from this savage atrocity. In its coldblooded deliberation tho deed seems to have been without precedent, although by sinking other relief ships the Germans had on previous occasions demonstrated their indifference as to whether the people of Belgium lived, or died of starvation. The affair should impress even the most fanatical pacifists.