A BRIGHTER OUTLOOK.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 3 August 1917, Page 1

A BRIGHTER OUTLOOK.

MR BLATCHFORD'S OPTIMISM. WE'RE WINNING" 77 HANDS DOWN." THE "HONOR". OP AN EMPRESS. This is one of Mr Robert Blatchford's chai - acteristic war articles in the London ' Chronicle ':— , . " I cannot set out to write upon the present position and future prospects of the Allies in' this terrible war without feeling a strong desire to delegate the task to one of those scornful critics who believe-that a journalist lolls in an easy chair and " scribbles" about the world tragedy with a light heart. Any writer who, with insufficient data, with the painful remembrance of past surprises, and with the embarrassment of a cloud of uncertainties and suspicions, could face the knotty problems of the hour without a sense of deep responsibility and keen anxiety would be a mere conceited fool. One has only to call to mind the early French reverses in Alsace, the tragedy of the Dardanelles, the black and ominous mystery of the great Russian retreat, the supersession of the Grand Duke Nicholas, the revelation of our shell shortage, and the Rumanian debacle, to realise the danger of basing bold conclusions upon erroneous premises. Still, while it behoves one to be modest in assertion and cautious in deduction, it does seem as. though we should be justified in treating ourselves and our readers to a more robust optimism than many of our graver counsellors seem willing to indulge. We have not won the war, and there- may be hard times and bitter fighting before us, but surely the news is better to-day than it has been during the past two years: surely our position is stronger and more hopeful than at any time since the fall of Liege. And al-

though it is bad forni and bad policy to shout before we are put of the wood, there is neither health nor dignity in belittling our own successes or oppressing our souls with imaginarv dangers to come. HINDENBURG'S RETREAT. I, for one. am not going to shake in my shoes for fear of the deep, strategical significance of Hindenburg's voluntary retreat. If Hindenburg has some sinister purpose in abandoning positions which he declared a few months ago to be impreg-nable,-'then we may at least hope thaj. General Nivelle and Sir Douglas Haig a\id the magnificent soldiers of France and Britain will be capable of beating the Bauis as they have beaten them so often. Hindenburg has a great reputation. Perhaps he deserves it. But he has certainly done nothing liner than Generals Nivelle and Joffre and Haig have done: His reputation, indeed, rests upon his Russian victories. And we have just learned that those victories were gained over troops without rifles or shells, or artillery ; that they were gained over troops whose plans had been betrayed to the enemy; that they were gained as the result of treason and treachery and corruption. . Hindenburg will not have the advantage of such devilish help in his campaign on the Western front, nor will he ever again be so foi'liiiiatt: in his moves against the Russians. Do not let us magnify HiudeSi r burg into a Napoleon; do not let us forget the brilliant achievements of our own and our Allies' armies in France. Hindenburg is old, and fat, and German. His predecessors. Moltke. Von Kluck, and the Crown Prince failed in France, and it will be time enough to believe that Hindenburg cannot, fail when he has begun to show signs of succeeding. 80 far he is running away. Hindenburg's " trap " is not the only newspaper bogey of the day. There are the " threat to Petrograd," and the '" threat to Italy," over which ' some of us are shaking our heads dubiously. What of those threats? Have we not heard German threats before? Have we not - seen German thrusts before ? EMPTY THREATS. Let us remember the 'threat to Paris, tlit' threat to Calais, the threat to Egypt, the threat of the Zeppelins, and the threat of the first submarine blockade. We know what came of these throats, and of the efforts to fulfil them. Have we not seen the Austriaus advancing triumphantly into Italy?. But they failed. Have we not seen the Germans 'and Austriaus inarching in irrestible power upon Petrograd and Moscow, and not getting there? Who stopped the Germans at Verdun? Tiie French. Who. stopped

them at the Marne? The French and the British. Who stopped them at iipres, when they had odds of five to one, and overwhelming preponderance of artillery? 1 The French and the British. Why did they not get to Petrograd, and Moscow, j and Rome,, and Cairo? Because the Allies t would not let them. Let them" threaten, j Who fears their threats? Do not let us ' be unfair to our own men nor to our j Allies. The Germans had every advan- ] tage in the attack on Paris and in the < attacks on Yfpres, and they were beaten j by the French and British. They ought ( to have walked over the disarmed, half- ,< starved, and betrayed armies of Russia, and they were stopped. Why' should we go out of our way and pretend against all the known facts that we or the French or the Russians have any reason to fear the Hun in attack or defence ? The Bri- < tish front at Ypres was only a series of 1 imperfect trenches. . The Germans had J more guns and shells a hundred times ' than we had. The Germans had s ; x 1 men to our one. And they failed to ' drive us back. The German front on the Somme was a labyrinth of formidable fortresses;. The Germans ' believed ; them impregnable. Hindenburg said ; they were impregnable, and" our men have : taken them. Let us recognise sheer facts. ; Let ns talk less of the German threats ' to Petrograd and Italy, and rather more of the French and British threats to \ Canibrai and St. Quentin. If the great ~ Hindenburg means to try another thrust . -at Russia, well, so much the better for - •us and our Allies in France. - PESSIMISTS CONFOUNDED. Since the first attack on the Somme, - last July, the. French and British armies ' have achieved many brilliant and won- ' derful victories. They are still adyanc- ' ing. still winning; the enemy are still re-, treating, still losing. Twelve months ago our pessimists were groaning over the state of "stalemate." and believed, as ■ Hindenburg professes still to believe, that '■ the German lines could not be 'forced in 30 years. We must not forget either General Maude's splendid / victories at Kut and Bagdad: nor the defeat of the Turks in Syria: nor the failure of the German conspirators' in Africa. India, Persia. Afghanistan, . Mexico, China. Russia, and America.. We must not forget that we defeated the first submarine < campaign, and that we seem to' have ois- . couraged the Zeppelins. If we add to all these causes for congratulation the i Chinese rebuff to Germany, the change in : American feeling, and the glorious Rus- : sian revolution, we shall certainly be justified in "casting off our nighted color" and facing the future with hope and courage. Certainly the situation is better than at any time during the war. But while we reckon up our blessings we cannot help feeling that the sjreatestcause for rejoicing is our almost miraculous escape from a tragic and cataclysmic disaster. All through this war, 'while we have been reiving, upon the might and valor of Russia, the eneTnr has been plotting and striving to ensnare - our Russian Allies in civil war, and so drive thei;- rulers to a shameful separate peace. Talk about a "threat to Petrograd/' What is anything the bullv Hindenburg can do in comparison with the disaster from which the revolution in Rus- ' sia has saved us? Let us look steadily at the appalling facts. The Emperor of Russia is obviously a weakling, a feeble, superstitious decadent: a weed. The F.mpress, a German jprincess (like the Queen of Greece), was a German- agent and a German spy—a traitor base and unscrupu- ; lous. Her tool was the debauched adi venturer Rasputin, and his tool was the ; isar! Around the two arch-conspirators - and their tool was a horde of German r agents, spies, and hirelings, and a mob of ' reactionary aristocrats, who valued their ■ power and titles above the honor of their ? country and the blood of the people. s THE WORK OF TRAITORS. i These pimps nncF' panderers. these barrators and traitors, tried every means their wicked brains could.devise to drive their , country into the civil war, and bring about , a dishonorable separate peace. ' Thev dee ceived the Emperor : they deceived tlie Al- . lies. They deprived tlie Russian armies 1 of artillery, and shells, and rifles. They e betrayed the military plans of their geii- - era Is to the enemy. Thev superseded . their ablest general. They purposely dis- ;- organised the railways and concealed supn phes so that the people might be starved g uito rebellion. They are suspected of surt rendering fortresses"by treachery, aud.of d betraying Rumania and Greece. They

sacrificed the' lives of hundreds of thousands of the bravest and most loyal sol- ■ diers. ■ They sought by the aid of secret agents to foment strikes and riots, which were to be crushed by ruthless slaughter. They starved the troops in their trenches, muzzled- 1 , the Press, and sought: to disband the Duma. TRUSTING TO A BROKEN REED. All this was going on while-the French were bearing the brunt of the war: while the British were pouring out blood and • gold in the common cause. All this was going on'whDe we were looting to the might "of Russia. And it is almost a certainty that the traitors who betrayed their ' own army and their own people gave tha Germans the benefit of every scrap of military intelligence with which they were trusted by the Allies. I say that, while we ought to ba thankful for our, undoubted successes, we have a greater reason to rejoice 'oyer.our escape from the disaster which has been impending above our unsuspecting heads from tha very beginning of the war. The brave and resolute patriots of Russia who overthrew ' that horrible plot deserve the gratitude of every one of the allied nations. Theyhava saved the liberties of Europe. But think what might ,have been had the plot succeeded i ' : I v '.'..' AX; KMPRESS'S;PERFIDY. ' As I said before, who could have poatuluted (ißasputin? Who could have imagined that the great cause of the Allies was in deadly peril from the machinations ot an ignorant and filthy libertine? 80 difficult is- it for the mind of a toady or a flunkey to recognise the most glaring crime committed by a Royal hand that more, than one British writer has spoken m extenuation of the murderous treachery of the German woman who was Empress' of Russia. One of them said: "The Empress, quite, honorably, favored; the causa of her native country." Quite honorably I "Poison in" jest!" Had this woman said, when war was declared .:*-\' lam a German princess. My heart is with my country's cause, I cannot serve Russia faithfully, and 1 must give-up. my crown and go, back to my own people," that would 'have been honorable. But to lie to the Tsar and to delude him ; to betray the army and the people who trusted her; to connive at the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of brave lives; to soil her hands with the filthy tool Rasputin: to betray her Allies, and break her vows—was that honorable? If the false wife of the Russian Emperor, the false Empress of Russia, the false ally of France and 'Britain, the ruthless, shameless spy and traitress be an honorable "woman, what is the meaning of the word infamy? Why, ilr flunkey, sir, and Mr Toady, sir, a criminal so vile deserves to be clothed in a convict's dress, and to be drummed barefoot across the German frontier to the tune of the rogues' march. How many (widows did she make in Russia, in France,"in Rumania, in Italy, this honorable princess? An ounce of civet, good apothecary, and be quick for the love of mercy.