"We Are Going to Win."

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 233, 8 December 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

"We Are Going to Win."

SAYS ROBERT BLATCHFORD. We were, of all the Allied Powers, the least prepared. We have awakened most slowly. But now there is a glimmer of the dawn. For we are going to win. In spite of all our handicaps and disadvantages, in spite of mistakes, our unreadiness, and our consequent disappointments, we are going to win. We nave suffered and endured, we and our Allies. Wc have paid the price, and the star of the Allies is rising. We are going to fight this war to a finish, and we are going to win. . . . When the trumpets sounued we were caught napping. We had a small army, and a plentiful lack of guns, of shells, and of rifles. We had no definite plan of action, and did not realise the magnitude of ihe tragedy before us. . . . But we had the national grit, the national stout heart, the national character, which, though slow to start, is dour to finish, AND WE SHALL ARRIVE.

We are going to win. In spite of all our handicaps and disadvantages, in spite of mistakes, our unreadiness, and our consequent disappointments, we are going to win. We have suffered and endured, we and our Allies. We have paid the price, and the star of the Allies is rising. We were of all the Allied Powers the least prepared. We have been the worst led. Wo have awakened most slowly. That is because we were most heavily druged; because Liberalism and pacificism and class and party schism had been more banefully effectual here than in any other European country. Also we are a slow-moving people; not prone to anger, fond of comfort, intolerant of change, and equipped but sparely with political imagination. Perhaps for us the shock of war came just in time. Twenty years hence the drums of Armageddon might have beat too late. Also we are much beholden to our Aliles.

tifnl lack of guns, of shells, of rifles, of officers. We had never had a big army. We had never fought a great war on land. We had no definite plan of action, and we did not realise the .-.tupendous magnitude of the tragedy before us. Worse than all, we had no capable leader. We had no Danton, no Pitt to rouse, and enlighten our people. But we had the national grit, the national stout heart, the national character, which, slow to start, is dour to finish, and we shall arrive.

THE HUNS - BEST CHANCE. For, look at the situation how we may, and giving Dismal Jimmy every chance, what can we make of it but that we are winning? If the Germans could not drive through to Paris when the French were surprised and shaken and ill-organised; if they could not drive through to Calais when our line was woefully thin and we had no supports behind us; if they could not break the Russian line and shatter the Russian armies when the Russian artillery was out of action and their own was overwhelming; if they could not beat us or our Allies on land when wo were all short of guns and shells; if they could not take Ypres or pass the Yser when our army was so small; if they could not win with the advantage of numbers, of machinery, and of surprise, how shall they beat us now?

WHAT LIES BEYOND OUR FOES. General Polivanoff, the Russian Minister of War, has just given us some information about the Russian trials of last summer. But first let me quote some brave words of his:

In a word, as the war continues, so the strength of the Allies is increasing and that of the Central Powers diminishing. It is a fact that there can be no contradicting. Unquestionably our enemies are still at the present moment energetic, and the Germans may perhaps invent some new device or some new engine of war, but it is vain for them to expect from such expedients any modification of their fatal destiny. Behind the l'cur Alies there are the natural resources of the whole world. Behind the armies of the Central Powers are exhaustion and instability. Behind the Allies are the natural resources of the whole world. Yes. But the Allies will win because of their own qualities; because they have a better cause, because they have a higher courage, because they have a tougher and more resilient tenacity. In the onset the Huns had one. great chance—the chance of 'he Allies' unreadiness. That chance has lapsed. The Allies have at Ibeir strongest the advantage in wealth and numbers. The Allies hive an intellectual and spiritual superiority over their enemies. The power of the Allies waxes stronger every day.

"ALLIES' STAR RISING." The Allies' star is rising. We are no longer short of guns, shells, or men. I invite the attention of our friend "D. James" to the desperate position of the Russians when, in face of the concentrated and terrific batteries of the Huns the Russian shells gave out. I ask our dismal friend to project his mind back to the critical struggle at Ypres, when our weary troops, with hardly a shell to cover them, were attacked by 600,000 Germans. I remind him of the rush to Paris and the sudden nasty jar on the Marne. If the Germans, in full force, confident, and with overwhelming artillery, could not win in the summer of 1914, what is likely to happen to them now? With numbers thinned and an extended line, with increasing enemies armed with increasing weapons, with their trade dead and the seas dosed to them, what shall avert Uieir final and overwhelming defeat 5 >ot even the timidities of our ladylike Government shall avail them'

BLUFF WILL NOT GO. But Egypt and the Persian Gulf, and Albamu? What of them? Does anybody believe that the Turks can take Lgypt? Could they take all Persia and over-run Albania as they did Serbia Will that lift the blockade or stop the advance of the Russians and the British and the French? I have never attached the least importance to the sensational stories about a starving Germany or a Germany clamouring for peace. No one who knows anything of human nature would build any hopes upon the neutral Powers. We and cur Allies have to win this war our-elves, and we are winning it. Had we and our Allies been as ready when Von Kluck was driven across the Maine the war would have been over a year ago. To-day the Hum have the aid of the Bulgarians and the Turks, and they will need all the Turks can do and more than they can do. The bond between the Turks "and the Germans is not as tie bond between the French and the British or between those and the Russians. The Bulgarians are as treacherous and nearly as cunning as their masters. If Egypt and Salonika are to be won they must be won by hard fighting and at ruinous co>t. Tiiev cannot be won by bluff.

A LAMP IX THE GLOOM. The statement of the Russian Minister of War to a representative of the Paris Journal lights up the gloom of the past year like a lamp. The great German victories and the great Russian defeats on tho eastern front are explained to iw iu a few words. The Russians were obliged to retreat, relinquishing the* fruits of their well-won success, because they had no .shells. For months the Russians fell back lighting with an amazing heroism and keeping their armies intact. And all that while "hey had virtually no artillery, and wero assailed with fury by armies equipped I with guns of all calibres a.s no armies ' ever were equipped before, field after I field, fortress after fortress had t.> he ' abandoned, since the heroic Russian soldiers had no shells with which to reply to the terrific and continuous bombardment of their Austrian and German enemies. The stubborn courage and the i unyielding loyalty of our Russian Allies ] under that terrible stress are beyond ■ praise—almost beyond compreheus-ion. i

AVAR-WORKED WONDER*. Yet the Russians kept their moral, kept their formation, and at last brought their arrogant and vainglorious pursuers to a stand. .Meanwhile the whole of Russia behind the lighting '.ins was h.ing rallied, transformed, and organised. The changes were radical, almost, violent. Hut the country was true. Xow. the Russian War Minister informs us, tho danger is past. Ru.-.-ia has renewed herself. She has shells in abundance and new levies to make up the gaps in her line. It is a wonderful story, and will emblazon Ihe arms o; Ru.si.ia with a glory that can never fade. The Trench were unready. They wot. 1 taken by surprise. In the bei'ine.ing they suffered disorganisation and defeat. But they were Frenchmen, an! they had at their head a master of the ;vt of war. They rallied and came back. Thev held the invader while thev for«e.l new weapons and new anno;;'. To-day we have to wonder at a France ell 'ij ■ and steel, a whole nati'in like a knighi in mail, a France worthv of it--, -twn renown. Indeed, we are much ln-hoMeM to our Allies.

'I.'LOYV AFTER VICTORY. And in this connection it is pleading ti hear that the Bulbars and the Austrian are wrangling a.s to which of them shall have Salonika, which belongs to the Greeks and will have to he taken at. the erst if sea.-; of b'ood. Perhajs, too, if the Hunnish and Bulgarian savages shout, loud enough as to the poses-ion of Salonika King Constanlir.c may hear and l.eed them. Developments in the Balkans in the immediate future may be interesting. \\ hen a man hears two scoundrels disputing as to which of them is to have his watch he is apt to become excited. Though it is frolish to he heedlessly optimistic, it is not wis. l to take the Huns t<x> seriously. They have certain radical military faults. Like mist ill-bred pecple, they canno' help bragging. If they imagine that a place is < pen to attack they hegiu tn b ast cf it* conquest. Thev have boasted so much of the conquest of Egypt that tli" British have made that eou(l'.ie t impos-ible. Thev have yawped si loudly about the Ha 1!-: a.as that they have endangered the succc-ses they gaiurd there largely by briberv and lyirg r.;:d corruption. They are (luin-y l> ul-. af:e •■ all, 111 R. 1 (Jernians. Kvt n an archvilliau like V< n I'apen g e- meandering among h\< enemies with his prckets full of incriminating documents. A clever si arper <!<n-s not show his hand.

Till: IKillT TO A ITXFSI!

On ear part wo have the delibcrat--. slow-moving, and eonservative Mrili-'i. wlio have been a veer anil a half ,il war and have not. vet onife ,-ha!:en off the habits <>f a loiter and cuervatia_' pence. We have a (Jovernment ef 'r. ■ orators, iniieli irivetl up to forms ,-. :■! precedents: we have a public «jiven lit!) • to think and less to act for them.- Iv -: we have a Press still more or lewarped bv personal or narly bias; v • have an internal Administiation vu.lv and out of joint, lint we have ee white feather in onr whit,' and no windy Bpi'.-oii at nnr heat f. We are going to fig-lit this war to a tinish, and we are going to win. When the trumpets sounded we were nautrhl napping. Th<> oonfo.-sion of tlie Thissian might be duplicated here. We had a very small army: we had a plen-