THE WAR—A YEAR AGO AND TO-DAY.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 201, 18 August 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE WAR—A YEAR AGO AND TO-DAY.

By A. G. GARDINER in the "London Daily News." I am told on good authority that, a few days before the end which came upon him so swiftly and silently, Lord Kitchener said that he had revised Iks estimate of the duration of the war. He had calculated that it would last three years. He now thought that estimate excessive and looked for an earlier close. And the enormous impetus of events during the past few days gives force to the prediction. There is on all sides the feeling of tlu imminence of final things. A YEAR AGO. It will help us to understand the position to-day if we look at lit in the light of the position a year ago. In an article at the beg'nning of this year I said that the history of the war had been the history of two failures—the failure of Germany in ly]4 nod the failure of the Allies in 1915. A year ago Ave were in the midst of the second failure. It was for us the darkest hour of the struggle. The Germans were engaged in that stupendous movement aga'nst Russia for which they had prepared after the collapse of their original plan of campaign in the West. The armies of the Grand Duke were falling bark from the Carpathians to the heart of Russia before an avalanche of shell to wlr'ch they could make no reply, and day by day and week by week we awaited what seemed like an inevitable an! nal catastrophe to our Eastern Ally. The great enterprise in the Dardanelles had ended in disaster and disappointment. The fall of Yenizelos had created new perls for us in tho Balkans, and the clouds hung dark and menacing over South-eastern Europe. On the Western front the offensives at Souchez and Neuve Chapelle had failed disastrously and left us with the feeljng of impotence before the strength of tho German defences. Submarine frightfulness was at its height, and the Zeopelin raids were creating a sense of unknown possibilities. At home we were in the trough of internal disillusion anci conflict. The Government had fallen, the air was thick with recriminations and alarms, we were realising that this was a. war of big gi\ns and that the Germans had got the guns and the Allies had not.

TO-DAY. That was the position a year ago. It was the hour of Germany's high water mark in the war. Let us contrast that pos : t : on with the salient facts of today. Not one of those immense potentialities which seemed in the grasp of the enemy had been realised. The Russian armies were not .enveloped, the great drive through the Balkans that was to open the path to Egypt and India has ended in failure, the submarine has lost its terrors, and we have almost forgotten the Zeppelin. In the West the armies of Britain have grown to undreamed-of dimensions. Jn the East the Russian armies, equipped at last, have emerged from the Caucasus into the plains of Mesopotamia and are crashing through the Austria! Jines at Volhynia. The Allies need no longer fear the challenge of the big guns, and every day the mountain of munitions grows with overshadowing menace. And all the time the prossurj of Brtish s.eapower envelops Germany with the sense of doom.

ft is in the light of these things that we tan read the meaning of the swift march of events to-day. What is tlio key-note of those events? It is the urgency of Germany to get a decision before the hour for bargaining on equal terms lias gone by for ever. The Kaiser is no longer fighting for victory; he i.> fighting to escape defeat. He is fighting for an instant settlement that will sav.o his dynasty from the ruin tint threatens it. This is the secret of that astoir'slrng struggle before VJerdur.. which goes on after the original hop* that inspired it-has long iteen dead. It was to have been a blow, swift, final, shattering, that would smash the centre of the Allied line and end the war n the West. Whatever happens to Verdun—and : t is not unlikely that the French, having exacted their price, will decide ultimately to veld up tbe shell of the town—the blow has failed.

FEVERISH URGENCY. Why, then, does the sacrifice con tinue? Many explanations are ottered. but the only one that explains is that tbe Kaiser'has decided by the sheer destruction of the manhood of France to drive that nation out of the battl • line. He must break one of the Alius, and with it the Alliance, or he is lost. But he does not understand France t be believes that any sacrifices will ever brine her to her knees. The same feverish anxiety to force a I'm Kb, to burst through some door of his prison More it is too; late, ; s the reason for the adventure in the North Sea. It was apparent after the failure at Verdun that the only offensive stroke of capital value leit to Germainwas one at the British Navy—for the Austrian attack on Italy belongs to the secondary scale of tlrngs. The strobe, had been kept in reserve. In the Ka : ser's scheme of the war it was never more than a remote contingency, for the victory was to be won on land and it was on land that the British Navy was to be dealt with. Among the many illusions of Germany, there has never been any ; llusion about the supremacy of British sea-power, and .t was only .in the iast ditch, as it were, that a challenge to that power was contemplated. It has been made, and the opinion of those host able to judge, .t is not likely to be made aga:n—certainly not soon enough to influence the •present phase of the war.

PANIC SPEECH. And if the events of the war themselves indicate th's fehrile urgency, no loss do the political symptoms of Germany. What can lie more sigTrficnnt than the concealment of the losses in the battle of Jutland, the audacious denials, the public rejoicings, the frantic "lioch, hoch. hoch" speech of the Kaiser, the truth creeping out hit hy Iv't with shamefaced explanations ahont '•military reasons" ? All til's suggests a disquietude, a nervous tension, a tear

of consequences that is eloquent of much. Not less eloquent are the rather pitiable appeals of Heir von BethmannHolhyeg to the Allies to "look at the map." He apologises to his people lor u-'. He cannot understand our obsti nato refusal to "look at the map." Be raves and fumes at our failure to see that we are beaten. This i.s not the manner of those who know that thev liav.e victory in their hands. It is the manner of panic concealing itself behind a mask of bluff. Nor is there any mysterv as to the causes of this feverish anger. The storm is rising jn Germany itself. Tho Chancellor's reply to the "pamphlet literature" is an evidence of the gravity of this secret ciculation of anti-war literature not only among the people but also in the trenches. Meanwhile, from both sid.'s the Government is being openly assailed, by the Conservatives lor the failure of its foreign policv, and by critics like Harden for its general ineptitude, for the absurdity of describing Sir Edward Grey as "a firebrand" and of denying his dcs : re for peace, for suggesting that the ,war was forced on Germany a view which, as Harden says, "has found belief almost nowhere n tho world,'' and for the childishness of Bethinann-Hollweg's plea to "look at the war map." "MISERY INDESCRIBABLE." This defiance shows the temper if the nation. And if, drilled 1 and disciplined Germany is getting out of hand, still more i.s that the caso with Austria, and especially Hungary, where the latent dislike and the fear of Prussian aims are blazing out through the sense of the failure of Prussian amis and the run that has come upon the country. Take an illustration of the situation in Austria-Hungary the following sign : ficant passage which "Tho Times" of Thursday pubi'shes from an important member ot ai neutral Legation in Viep* l " •

" Here existence is no longer possible. We have no bread to cat, no nr'lk, no butter, no fat—nothing, absolutely nothing. The general nr.sery is indescribable. Everybody talks of an awful revolution if the war lasts much longer. The offensive against Italy has l>een undertaken in order to keep up public spirit and because it is hoped that success in that quaiter would end the war. Woe betide us if that hope also should fail." And that was written before the great tidings of the Russian advance. It \s the " hack door to Berlin" which s yielding. It is the Central confederation which is in peril while that of the Allies is more secure, more confident, and better administered than at any period since the war began. I wa* asked the other day whether there had ever been a war so mismanaged as th's has l>een by us. I answered that, seen as a whole, seen with reference to the overwhelming difficulties that had to bo overcome between Allies so diverse, so separated, so lacking in common in. terests, common forms of government, and common strategy, i doubted whether any war jii history had been toj well managed. THE ROOTS OF VICTORY.

But though, on a comparison of the position to-day with that of a year ago, we have profound reason for satisfaction, and may feel confident that the tide lias turned, it is not suggested that wc can slacken our efforts or assume that the danger is over. Th : s :.-• the moment when every ounce of strength that can be put into the struggle is priceless. It is when tin morale of the enemy is going that the material pressure tells most. And least of all ought we to let the feeling that the end may he nearer than we thought disarm our preparations for the future. We do not know what th,o psychology of the enemy under the sens 9 of defeat wiii be like. It may lead to collapse; it may lead to a stiffening of the purpose of a people fighting as they will l>e!icve, for their existence. We may hope for the best, but we must look to the weak places in our armour and adapt ourselves to meet the strain. There are many enseal points. .Most critical of all is finance. This is a war ultimately between German men and British money. It js our resources which have financed the struggle, and the demands on us in that respect inrccase every month. We can only meet them in one way, by British trade. Fortunately that trade is still strong. The Board of Trade returns recently shoved that our exports in May exceeded 'n value even those of May, 1914, by five millions sterling. This is largely represented by the great exports of coal and by the appreciated values of commodities, but, even so, it is satisfactory. There are, however, some disquieting; evidences of reaction, due to the disastrous effects of the break up of so many homes under the extended irflitary law. This reaction must be checked by every means in on hands, or the power or" financial endurance on which the certainty of victory [rests will be imperilled.

IX THE FIELDS. Not loss serous is the. question if food. The withdrawal of labour from the land is heing gravely felt. This week 1 went over many farms in the Swanley district of Kent, which is not unjustly called the Garden of England. Nowhere else perhaps is cultivation brought to a hrgher state of perfection than there. It is no uncommon thing for thfl land to produce, in fruit and vegetables, food values to the extent of £SO an acre. But I saw there orchards and gardens overgrown with weeds for lac/; of labour, and great areas of fruit trees stripped' of leaves and of tbe promise of fruit because there had been no men to "greaseband" thom in the aiftumn or spray them in the spring. The milk menace is especially serious here as elsewhere. Farmers, on the other hand, are tempted by the high price of meat to sell their stock, and on the other hand cannot find labour for the dairy, and between the two influences the outlook of the public in regard to this vital necessity, and its collaterals, butter and cheese, will lie gravely affected. Meanwhile many of the tribunals are act'ng with alarming folly—as in the east; of the shepherd in charge of 800 sheep who was refused exemption. A quarter of a million labourers have gone from the land and 130.000 more have to go. This means a seriously lowered production, more transport (and we have no ships to spare), more money being sent out of the country, and higher prices. Lord Selborne spoke the plain truth when he said that turnips were, as necessary as shells fcr wmn'ng tbe war. It was only a Tarant on Napoleon's "an army marchc nn its Ikjllv." . We can survey the war to-day wm verv (Afferent feelings from those of :i year ago, but the more cheerful prospect must serv.o as a stimulus and no". e.n anodyne. We have yet to win, and overv penny Ave save and every potati we grow is an .lid to victory.—' Dad.* News."