THE KNOCK-DOWN BLOW.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 199, 11 August 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE KNOCK-DOWN BLOW.

ALLIES PREPARING THEIR SUPREME Er FORT Commenting upon the continued activity of the Germans at Verdun, ami the defensive part played by the Allies, the Paris correspondent of the "London Daily Chronicle" says:—To whichever part of the European fronts we look, the most remarkable fact is still the refusal of the Allied commands to lie provoked into a premature offensive. Evidently the British have only to be unleashed on the West, and the Crown Prince's effort must b e arrested. So, too "the Austrians can be concentrated upon the Trentmo, because no special pressure is lieing put upon them in the East and the South-East. There can be onlv one rational interpretation of these facts; and in France tine army and the civilian public realise /-t so well that they bear the strain without a whisper of complaint. The Allies have now a definite ascendancy. At any moment they can reduce the enemy to the defensive on any and every side. The German command undertook the battle of Verdun because it could not contemplate a larger operation; and ;t is now so deeply involved that :t cannot draw out. The Allies, on the other hand, are so bent upon the vastly larger operation which they hope will bo decisive that they prefer to risk local and momentary losses rather than postpone the day when they will be ful.lv ready to deliver in common their knock-out blow. It would, therefore, be unfair to General JoffHe and the generals, officers, and men directly concerned to regard the struggle north ot Verdlun as a free trial of strength. Vast as are its proportions and the sacrifices involved, it is overshadowed by a coming event incomparably greater.