THE ARRIVAL OF BRITAIN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1658, 6 January 1917, Page 2

THE ARRIVAL OF BRITAIN.

TEE progress of the war was recently reviewed in the New York Tribune by Mr Frank H. Simonds, He said the most significant thing about the year 191(1 is that it has seen the arrival of Britain, speaking/in the military sense. In the campaign of 1914 the British never had 150,000 in line at one time, and their losses must have been close on 75,000. In the campaign of 1915 the British may have had 500,000. All through the French operations in Artois the British were unable to render effective aid, and they lacked both guns and munitions all through this time. But in the campaign of 1910 the British have had upward of 1,500,000 in line, and they have approximately 3,000,000 trained reserves behind them. They have heavy artillery that surpasses both the French and the German, and their supply of munitions is rapidly mounting to the point which insures them permanent superiority over the Germans in their front. Moreover, the army which now faces the Germans is not at its highest point of ellicieucy, despite the fact that German generals have testified to its progress. Not before the campaign of 1917 shall we see the British army at its best. For two years the chief purpose of allied strategy has been to the German blows in the west until the British could prepare. This purpose has been realised. The British, are prepared, they have intervened effectively to take the burden off the French. France has not been destroyed, as Germany expected, before the British could get up, and we have had both at the Somme and before Verdun recent proof of the force that is still left in the French army.