Manawatu Herald TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1917. FACTORS FOR VICTORY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1746, 30 October 1917, Page 2

Manawatu Herald TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1917. FACTORS FOR VICTORY.

ASKED for. his opinion upon the present stage of the war, Sir William Robertson, chief of the British General Staff, replied that the question was one which no soldier could answer. The Avar avus a struggle of nations, and from that standpoint no soldier could speak definitely. One had to do with the psychology of peoples. Behind the armies in the field avus the nerve of the nations they represented. Sir William Robertson added: “When people ask about the destruction of the German defensive in the field and hint that it could not be destroyed, they forget the difference betAveen 19li and 1917. Three years ago avc had our backs to them, and Avere retreating, French and British together, close to Paris, A\dth £cav guns and many casualties. To-day we are aAvay to the North, facing North. We are millions where before avc had been thousands, we have driven the enemy before us, Ave have taken positions Avhieh he regards as matters of life and death, and our guns are hammering him noAv as he has neA’er been hammered before. It is too early to say that the defensive ip modern Avarfare is impregnable. Let us Avait a feAV Aveeks, Someone has got to give Avay in this conflict. If the nations of the Allies are steadfast, if the civilian heart is sound, submission must come sooner or later from the Central PoAvers. Quality and character are going to win this Avar.” “You are confident of the end?” asked the correspondent. “Who could doubt it and live?” the general replied, but once more he affirmed thiff if AVgs the fibre, the grit, |he nerve of the civilian people that - would decide, not only this Avar but 'the future of the world. The Ger-

mans had discipline in their blood. Ail those millions had been forged into a sword for a King. Bnt there was a still more formidable discipline, the self-imposed discipline of a free people. What could be more magnificent than the spectacle which America presented to mankind, a vast free democracy imposing upon itself the restraints and vigours of discipline. This meant at the moment as much to the spirit of this struggle as later its effects would mean to the final grip.