PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 26, 25 October 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

To-day's reports from the Western that a very heavy battle 'is being fought on the line of the Scheldt, in Flanders and Northern France, and that big issues are at stake. The enemy is at present defending ' the Scheldt on a line of about thirty miles, extending through ■ Southern Flanders and through France to a point a few miles south of Valenciennes. . Further north the enemy is still contesting the area botween the Lys and the Scheldt, and to the south he is depending upon smaller rivers as a defensive barrier upon his front.. The attack on the Le Cateau-Sol-esmes'front, in which the British are reported to be making good progress, is a turning movement around the southern flank of the Scheldt line. Powerful attacks arc developing also north and south of Tournai, and through the big Ea-ismes Forest towards Condc, where the Scheldt Canal forms , an acute angle just south of the Franco-Belgian border.

The attacking troops arc heavily handicapped by vile conditions of ground and weather, but it is evident that in spite of those conditions the enemy is imminently threatened with another damaging defeat—a defeat which would bo Ijkely to again throw his retirement into serious confusion. Tho obstinacy with which the enemy is defendingfche Scheldt Canal affords fairly plain evidence that he is little confident of his ability to continue his retreat in orderly fasiiion in the immediate future. ■ # 9© * * At the moment the British seem to bo actually over the Scheldt Canal only at once point—in the vicinity of Pccq, half a dozen miles north of Tournai, where they have established a limited bridgehead. Valenciennes is east of the canal, but it now appears that the footing the British have gained in that important railway centre is in suburbs west of tho canal. The attacking troops, however, have reached or closely approached the canal along a considerable part of its length, and its possibilities as a defensiveline are very greatly reduced by the 'loss of essential outworks.

The French to-day report a considerable advance on the southern flank of the Oise-Sorre salient, and unofficial news makes an addition to the indications mentioned in one of yesterday's cablegrams that ffic- Germans are weakening and giving way under lhe_ continuous hammering of the Americans north of Verdun. There is no definite news as yet, however, of any considerable extension of the enemy retreat in either area.