PROGRESS OF THE WAR.

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 14, 11 October 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR.

The tremendous _ attack in which British armies, with an American division co-operating, are driving eastward on_Le Catcau, is impressive in its immediate results, and of commanding importance as it bears upon the larger issues of the Western campaign. Sir Douglas Haig's latest available report and French communiques dealing with, fighting in the vicinity of St. Quentin show that the attack is developing not only on the front of twenty miles on which the battle- opened on Tuesday morning, but over considerable sectors north and south. On all parts of the attacking front rapid progress has been. made. The British troops havo not onty completed the conquest of Cambrai, but have advanced more than two miles further east. The arresting fear fcure of the battle, however, is an

extraordinarily rapid movement towards Le Catcau. As soon as the Allies closely approached Cambrai Le Catcau became the main centre of distribution serving a. lengthy, section of the German front. Owing to the place it occupies in the network o'f French railways still held bv the enemy, Le Cateau is vital to the stability and continued defence of the enemy lines ranging north towards Lille and south to the region of the Aisne. The capture of the junction or even its bombardment at close range would leave the enemy no option but to evacuate a great part of the diminished area he still occupies in France and Flanders. "When the present battle opened the nearest British troops were fourteen miles distant from Le Cateau. This distance has_now been shortened to about six mires. Sin Douglas Haig mentions as one of the points reached in the British advance the village of Bussigny, six miles south-west of Le Cateau. He adds that '''our advance continues."

In conjunction with late events on the Reims-Verdun front, the rapid development of the British thrust towards Le Cateau can only be taken to mean that the enemy is committed hopelessly to a general retreat. At its present stage the Allied eastward advance raises prospects of a further movement directed against the German main communications eastward of Lille, and it goes a long way also towards dislodging the enemy from his positions at Laon and on the St. Gobain massif- On this section of front the enemy had every prospect of defying frontal attack, _ but is now imminently threatened in flank and rear. Apart from larger possibilities, the events of the last few days, and not least the thrust towards Le Catcau, have very greatly brightened the prospect that the enemy will be compelled in the near future to evacuate most of the French territory he still occupies, and to greatly reduce his holding in Belgium.

The British armies have nobly earned the praise given them by their Commander-in-Chief .in a dispatch which appears to-day. Grateful hearts all over the Empire will echo his declaration that "by their heroic action in defence and attack our men from all parts of the Empire liAve proved themselves soldiers of the highest order." In March, and for many weeks afterwards, the British armies were tested to the limits of human endurance in a defensive campaign. All the odds save those of valour, fighting quality, and leadership wero heavily against them, but they emerged from the grim ordeal with a record of steadfast, fortitude that will never be forgotten. Passing swiftly from their mighty achievements in the'defensive campaign to an offensive which has developed in an unbroken chain of victories, and lias made the enemy's final and crushing defeat certain, the British armies'have established a double title to immortal fame.