PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 298, 5 September 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

To-day's reports describe a British victory which will probably rank as the greatest won by the Allies since the Battle of the lVlarno. _In tho area south of tho Scarpc, in which they broke through the DrocourtQueant switch line on Monday, incidentally capturing ten thousand prisoners,'the British troops, as reports stand, have reached positions between seven and eight miles east of those igaincd at-the..height of their offensive last year, and aro still advancing. Having capped this achievement by capturing the formidable Queant bastion,, they are now swinging forward' on a wide front further south, west and southwest of Oambrai. On the ArrasCambrai lload they aro now nearly five miles east-north-east of Queant and little more than seven miles distant from Oambrai it&lf. On the flapaunic-Cambrai lload they are six and a half miles east of Bapaumo. Lens is still in German hands, according to the latest British official report in hand, but the advance made further south has in all likelihood sealed the fate of Lens, besides paving the way for still greater results. The enemy's losses, when thev arc recorded in full, promise to show an enormous total. As to details, we have little more to go upon iyet than that ho lost 10,000 in prisoners on Monday, and that his losses in killed, and wounded have been throughout exceedingly severe, but reports as a whole make it plain that ho has suffered losses under all heads on the largest scale. * '* * »

The British achievement is arresting not, only in its sweeping success, but in view of the results to which it is likely to lead. As matters are shaping, it seenw by no means improvable that the enemy may now find himself constrained to. continue his retreat until ho has evacuated the greater part of tho territory ho still occupies in France, and Flanders. The essential British achievement thus far is the conquest of the Drocourt-Queant switch. As a result the enemy's main communications south of Lille are in a serious degree laid open. Not only tho front in their near vicinity, but tho whole German front as far south and east as Verdun is in a material degree dependent upon these railways as channels of supply. This dependence may have been modified to some extent by new railway construction carried out by tho enemy since ho invaded Belgium ancl France. But there if much in the existing state of affairs to suggest that the railways south of Lille hold to-day a hardly less ■ vital place in the enemy's organisation than in tho comparatively early stages of tho Western campaign.

The best evidence at present available on this point appears in tho nature of the British attack. The battle in which our troops broko through the strong defences of tho Drocourt-Queant lino is distinguished from nearly all earlier battles of the present Allied offensive by tljo fact that the attack was developed in an area in which tho enemy had made all possible preparations and was fully on the alert. His defensive positions were as strong as engineering skill and an unsparing use of labour and materials could mako them, and , Sir Dodglas Haio's reference to the fact that eight enemy divisions were massed 011 eight thousand yards of front fully bears out the statement of a correspondent that tho Germans expected and were waiting for tho British attack. _ In the event the German defensive organisation collapsed at some points—and that such a collapse occurred in a battlo where 110 surprise was sprung is in itself a highly significant fact—but cii the whole the resistance overcomo was exceedingly formidable. The achievement of tho British troops on this occasion has projbably. never been bettered in the war. It is not ■ to' be supposed that an attack was launched under the conditions that had to be faced with a view to local or limited gains. That such an attack was launched in the conditions that obtained is in fact the strongest possible evidence that tho enemy's whole defensive organisation still _ hinges .in a vital sense upon Lille and its . railways. That the attack .was' victoriously driven home means that farreaching prospects have been opened.

It is suggested that the enemy is retiring upon ; a. line which runs about seven miles west of Cambrai ancl passes within about three miles of- Douai—bending eastward between these junctions. It does, not seem unduly optimistic to believe that in the conditions that have been created the enemy will be able at inost to make only a temporary stand upon this line as an incident in an extended retreat. * * * 9 With their main communications now closely menaced, the Germans' arc not less open than they were to surprise attack on various parts of the front. Although by comparison with the great events that have taken shape east of Arras those reported elsewhere aro unsensational, they aro generally of good promise. The enemy is still rapidly yielding ground in the Lys salient, and General Mangin is pressing forward in his threatening advance between the Ailette and the Aisno. The outlook in the campaign has never been more promising,