WHAT WESTERN ATTACKS HAVE ACHIEVED.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 129, 7 January 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

WHAT WESTERN ATTACKS HAVE ACHIEVED.

DISLOCATING THE GERMAN WAR I MACHINE.

(By Philip Gibbs.)

British Headquarters, France,

There is, I think, a sence of perp'exity in the minds of people at home as to the exact meaning of what is happening of what is failing to happen out hero on the western iront since the great attack of September 2-5. Exaggerated hopes of an end to trench warfare and of a continuous advance over the German position led to inevitable disappointment and to a despondency which finds expression in the newspapers and speeches and the gossp of the clubs. Part of that disappointment i.s justified. If all the elements of luck had been with us, it every part of the plan of operations had been worked out precisely as intended, if we had been able to bring up more force against the enemy's lilies at the critical moment, there is no doubt that we should) have ('gained, moire ground and better ground than is now ours. To play with the word "if is interesting as a parlour game, but it is no use trying to break heads with it. It is better to study the actual situation as it exists now and the eqect of our attack and what success was gained by it upon the enemy and ourselves. This at least may be said : Whatever hopes we had of doing more, the enemy has been rudely shocked and seriously disturbed in all his plans by our success. It is no mere journalistic phrase to.say that a sense of panic was created in the German command when, on the morning of September 25, the news came to it tht Loos had fallen, that our men were sweeping upto Hill 70, that we were forcing our way forward to Hulluch and Haisnes, and that the French were storming the heights of Vimy. They were already heavily engaged by the great French offensive in Champagne, and the success of the British at the same time upon their right put an enormous strain upon their defensive organisation.

THE MIX-UP OF GERMAN TROOPS

What hurt them most was that the initiative had fallen into our hands, thereby upsetting all their own plans. Certain of the regiments, including reserves of the Prussian Guards, had just arrived in Belgium from the Russian front. It was intended to let thorn rest and recuperate after their eastern campaign! at the Belgian base, but the news of Loos came as a thunderclap, and they were hastily entrained and directed to the fighting line.

So difficult was it for the enemy to bring up the necessary reserves at the moment that we broke their line that, so runs the story, empty railway trains were passed backwards and forwards behind the lines in order to deceive our aerial scouts into the belief that a groat reinforcement was taking place. In a general way troop.s far back in reserve and intended to carry out the German plan of campaign, whatever that might have been, were moved th's way and that in ordlT to meet the menace of our plan of campaign.

To the non-military mud such facts may not convey much meaning, but the student of war will know that behind the German lines organisation of divisions and corps was suddenly swept away by the urgent necessities of the situation. That situation still exists-, and it will not be an easy thing for the German Headquarters Staff to restore the order of their organisation. We have weakened them, therefore, not only in men and guns, not only by those lines of dead who lie beyond our trenches, and all those prisoners who filled a great field when 1 saw them, but, what is more hurtful to their own plans of operations here and in other theatres of the war. we have weakened every bolt and link in their great war machine. That Is an achievement which is some payment for all the sacrifices o'.' our men.

WAITING TO BE TAKEN PRISONER.

he-- important, but-not negligible, ithe effect of our success upon the morale of the German soldiers. The courage L'l' •.[.£ tl°rman infantry is on the

whole very fine. The manner in which they advance shoulder to shoulder in the field of our machine gun lire is heroic in its tragic self-sacrifice. But from many extracts in German letters which 1 have had an opportunity of examining, and also from the words of prisoners, it is clear that the pride of these men and their self-confidence have been much shaken of late. One German soldier—the incident is amusing enough to be told without deducing general lines from it —was so anxious to escape from his own fighting lines that he crawled across the dead ground between the trenches to a fortified village (in which 1 had some -trangc experiences yesterday) and reached our parapet. As it happened, this section of the trench was so iighV-.v held ,at/ the time that his arrival was unnoticed for a while, and this German soldier was found at last sitting on the lire-tcp. waiting in a wi-tl'ul wuv to be tak.-n prisoner. As 1 hav, -aid. ii i- foolish to exaggerate the sign iicam •■ ■>! '- act; ■.! eases. The German -■oldiei.s m- . -a \ pluck;, and tho\ arc in. gong !■■ -ur rondo 1 in hi ap- un'o-s v.. force tin m to. !' . - 1.'..* ■ iiave imnic them .cu-,. U. hoc- ol cei n- ever-! and h.-- -•:■ lid!;. cumin.,..( . 1 their o-<n :->ecurit\ ■■<■ iu'id tb,. •• i: '., i wi! o What of our men after tne great attack? And our own position? Tinmen who stormed through Loos —tho-e splendid Highlanders and Londoner- - have been heartened by their suc-eoss. •'They have their tails up," was the remark of a general of div -ion as they cent ~houting and singing back to their billet- when they had ken relieved—shouting and singing iu spite of heavy Throughout the army, in spite of the price we had to pay,an.l oi the knowledge that with greater luck we could have done bigger things, there is stow the absolute conviction that, given enough guns and ammunition ami rc-erves on the snot at the right time, the German line may be broken again, cud with the help oi the Fr nch. 'hni-t line!; on to imw line; of defence !• ■- -olid than tho-.-o thev now hold. \, : •! i- well that people at home .-hoid.l !■ •!-: a! ;: ! l the tacts without !l ncli :i ■ ~iid ri id -... liiiit even v. hen no great action - arc in - i i • - - drain if cur troo| : ges (,a uu. :i-:'igly. and that our verv -ace-- i . the -■., n e of a nest terrible toll in life. The ~,,-i. tion-- we have to maintain along tin ii.■ a. li,v- from Hill 70 av.<\ the Chalk V \ to tio- llolienzollein llet'oubf are under cont'nued shell-lire. The enemyV artillorv i- formidab'e and their supplies of every kind of ammunition apparently inexhaustible. The amount of shells expended in one day even without a counter-attack by the enemy, iequal to that in the heaviest action of any previous war. It i- the daily -tram upon our strength that calls to llio-,. in Fngiand to realise, the need oi our a-rmv for daily reinforcements in men and munitions. Ye-tenlav. in an entrenched village not more than 200 yards away from the German trenches, and in another village at the end of a road exposed to the full view of the enemy. I saw the courage of men who get no public cre-

dit for heroism, though day after day and every hour and every minute of that day they live with immediate death lurking about them. It is a quiet part of the line. It is never referred to in despatches. Nothing "happens" there. Nothing—except that every now and then the Germans "strafe" it w.th a sudden vomit of 200 shells or so, and that every day a few more village walls arc smashed and machine gun bullets patter down the village streets, and a few men are "caught" before they can fling themselves into a dug-out. ihat is the .actual situation along our lines —a never-ending battle, with its continual "wastage" in the lives and bodies of men, with a ceaseless stra n upon organisation from the base to the firing line, with incessant toil to strengthen the defences, with continual anxiety among high officers and subordinate officers, lest one weak spot should endanger the whole line, and le.st the reward of sublime sacrifice should bj lost by an hour of folly or slackness or of weakened morale.

There is nothing to "report," perhaps, but behind that "nothing" is the dany routine of Avar's ordeal —a great human machine working at full pitch and a vast sum of individual heroism, sacrifice, agony, self-surrender, and all the qualities of manhood under the spell or a high grim duty from which tnerc is no escape.