“ONE OF OUR MEN IS MISSING.”

Hokitika Guardian, 22 December 1917, Page 1

“ONE OF OUR MEN IS MISSING.”

WHAT IT JItSiNS

Several times within the last few months the British communique has contained the- statement: “Last night a German raiding party attacked one of our small posts. One of our men is missing.” To the nosophisticated reader there is something puzzling, almost cryptic, about, he reference to “ one of our men Pie cannot understand how it comes that, in this war of millions, one man •should receive mention in the extremely brief resume of the events of the day’s warfare. A raid, however, although a comparatively small operation, is regarded by both sides as carrying a great significance. It is an operation which is in the nature of a “ test an “ indication ” —and, if successful, it is the outward and visible sign of a .ligher degree of efficiency, or a more -eneral superiority of one opponent over the ot her, in the particular part of the line where the raid is made. Generally speaking, the number of prisoners captured in a raid may be described as the “ coefficient of its _succes» ” ; hence, this number has an intrinsic importance of its own, and so it is customary to mention the actual number, however small, of prisoners taken or lost in raids, in the same way as figures are given to aeria l engagements.

Local attacks and raids have, as their direct and material results, the harassing of the, enemy, the infliction of loss, and the ascertaining of information ; but thcq have an indirect function of vastly greater importance. It is frequently said by those in despair at the casualty lists that'the British, having established so pronounced a superiority in artillery, should carry on the war more exclusively by bombardment, and reduce the part played by the infantry. In a war of attrition such as this that view at first sight appears sound. With a superiority in shells of six or seven to one, as the British had on the Somme, the suggestion that we could win the war by bombardment alone, until the German Army was sufficiently reduced in man-power to give in, certainly arises in varying degrees.

The exploitation, to the fullest advantage, of strength in artillery 1 isj perhaps, the most difficult and delicate of all the problems the military expert has to face. The number of casualties caused by shells is not merely dependent upon the number of shells fired, but also upon the method and direction in which the artillery lire is so organised and applied. It is clear that the object of placing men in the front, line is not to stop shells biit men, and it is known that in quiet sectors of the front the trenches are only lightly manned.

The Germans frequently disclose their strength by lighting dug-out fires that smoke, the streams of smoke being visible at regular .intervals along their* front line, and also by firing Verey lights from fixed spots at night. Our Intelligence Department knows the strength of their posts and can ascertain from these observed facts their distribution. It 1 is also clear that the number of men they put in their front line depends solely upon the likelihood of attack, and infantry attack alone, and that if they are subjected to continual bombardment, but without attack, they would gradually reduce this number to a minimum, and a large proportion of our shells would be wasted. The main object of shells is to kill men. It probably costs more for the shell that destroys a dug-out than it did to make the dug-out in the first place ; aud the dug-out can always be repaired. But by constantly making raids and small assaults at different and unexpected places the enemy is kept continuously apprehensive of future attack, and is therefore compelled to place substantial numbers of men in his trenches to safeguard his positions, thus giving our shells their desired chance of killing a number of Germans sufficiently large to justify their expenditure, afid so ensure the exploitation of our gun superiority to its fullest extent. Even if the actual casualties sustained by ourselves in these, raids were greater than the immediate loss inflicted upon the enemy, yet this indirect result, of making the enemy man his trenches, still brings matters decidedly in our favour.