PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 18, 16 October 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

At the moment of writing there are only unofficial reports dealing' with ; the. latest development of the Allied offensive on the West front— a resumption of the attack in Flanif these, reports are accurate the development is of very great importance. The news as it stands is that the Allies are attacking on a front of 28 miles, from the Ysor, north of. Dixmude, to the Franco-Belgian border, and that on the central and, southern portion of this front they have advanced to a depth of six miles or more! It is stated also that Ostend is being attacked from tho sea by a British naval force. At-their face value these reports mean that thc> Allies are in a fair way to cdmpel an enemy evacuation of the Belgian coast, and that Lille and tho area in which it stands aro dangerously threatened on the north-east.

#** » ■ In regard to the land operations it is stated that tho Allies ha™ not only captured Haulers, from which place they were distant a milo or two when the attack _ opened, but have advanced five miles along the railway running east-southeast from Roulers, and reached Iseghem. According to one report, on the front south of Iseghem the Allies , are within four miles of Courtrai, which stands on the Lille-Ghent railway, 16 miles north-east of Lille. If such an advance has in fact been made it is highly probable that the enemy is making the retirement from the Belgian coast which has been foreshadowed in some recent reports, and is falling back on the whole Flanders front. Such a retirement wo£s.d almost of necessity connote the evacuation of Lille. So long as ho holds Lille any. movement to the reaf the enemy makes in _ Flanders leaves him with a longer line to defend, and with the Lille salient more dangerously exposed to attack on its northern flank.

The events now roported in Flanders are understandable on the as-

sumption that the enemy has decided to fall back to a line extending south from Antwerp—a line on which he would abandon about a third of Belgium as well as nearly all the territory he still holds in France. Pending the arrival of official news, however, it cannot be overlooked that it is in ' Flanders more than in any other part; of the Western theatre' that the Allies are likely to be cheeked by winter conditions of ground and weather. It follows, of course, so far as the conditions of land warfare are concerned, that if the enemy is capable of offering organised resistance anywhere he should be capable of doing so in Flanders. His position is complicated, however, by the danger that his flank extending to the coast of Flanders' may bo turned from the sea, and it is by no means impossible that he finds his resources no longer equal to tho strain of maintaining his Flanders front in its present location, i *** ■ *

At tho moment no ' pronounced change is reported on the long fronts on which the French and British have lately advanced so notably. From the region of Lens to north-west of Le Cateau the British are faced by the problem of forcing a continuous canal line—the Haute Deule Canal north and west of Douai and the-Sensco Canal to the south and east. The French also are now at many points oDposed by water barriers. One of to-day's messages points out that on the long front Detwecn the Oise and the Aisno on which the French have advanced beyond Laon they have reached or closely approached the Serre and Souche rivers, behind which the Huncling line is located. This lino, however, is badly outflanked on the north, _ and its strength in any case awaits a test. The same message declares that the enemy has retreated •in pood order and that .there is no doubt that he

has got out" of an awkward corner very cleverly. There is no present indication, however, that the enemy has reached, or is likely to reach, a secure defensive line. The remark that any further development must be very unfavourable from his point of view seems to hold full force in regard alike to the area into which he has retreated from the Laon salient and to other sections of the front.