CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 67, 24 February 1916, Page 5

CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

The plain of the Yscv has he'.ouie once more a lake, across which Belgian and German guns pound at one another intermittently. Only this time the pounding is lieaV.O" and more violent. The first hooding, simple as it sounds, took a .leal of planning. When, at’General Foch’s suggestion, the Belgian military leaders reluctantly agreed to the sacrifice for to let the sea in on a land of market gardens is a very real sacrifice—there still remained the awkwa"d proh.c-m, how to flood the enemy out and not themselves. The problem was solved by a Belgian waterways official. The gist of his scheme was to make the Dixmude.-Nieuport railway embankment watertight by blocking up all the culverts, and' then to cut the hanks of the canals, finally opening certain of the sea sluices at high water. The Belgian engineers got coolly to work, of course under heavy fire from the German trendies.

The Western theatre is, practical!.'’, the only one of which we have any news of conflict, hut that there they are going at it hot and' strong is shown in a communique from Paris. Some trenches were recaptured, and other positions lost by the Allied forces. At Verdun, which the Germans are said to have set theTf minds ou capturing, an infantry engagement in the nightime^developed along a front of fifteen kilometres ('about ten miles). On the right bank of the Meuse there has been violent figliting, and the village of Herberois was evacuated, only the outskirts being held after desperate fighting, in which the enemy are said to have suffered verj severely. The inevitable counter attack which folk wed was all .en severe, and the prisoners taken state that certain units were annihilated. “A strong German attack” is the desorption of the assail't on Herberois, which indicates that the enemy is desirous of success, and for the purpose, also, of-impressing the world with his power.

The Germans did cot realise what was going to happen to them until too late. As the water began to invade their trenches, they set to work with their pumps, but when the. sea sluices were opened they were drowned by thousands, like rats. In a last despairing assault they almost got to the railway, which would ha/c saved them, but ’the Belgians managed to hold on until the water had done its work. So the plains of the Vser became a lake above which appeared only the banks of the canals and melancholy detached houses around locks, ferry crossings, and so on, which lor months were struggled for and converted by one side or the o* her into machine-gun fortresses. Now it > s the same state of affairs all over ao-ain. The Germans have been trying hard to get at the railway along a little strip of land between Lombaertsyde and the sea;, this accounts for the cable references a month or two ago to bombardments of/ Eombaertsyde. But with the help of the mins of the British monitors and old warships off the coast their , advance has been prevented.

It is significant, to say the least, that, consonant with the me-pt of the above news, comes a further cable that the Germans are exaggerating the importance of their recent operations round Ypres. The source of this information comes from Amsterdam, most times to be doubted, but pu this occasion the Telegragf may be accepted as publishing pretty near the truth. The paper states that this is being done with the idea of impressing the people of Germany. Are the poo pie, then, dissatisfied with the progress (or want of it.'') that is oeiug made by the army in this quarter? Is it that they are really sick of the sight of misery and suffering daily being placed before their eyes by the arrival of thousands of wounded? One might go on asking questions without a chance of them being answered, as the. country is a veritable closed book to us, so effective is their regulation of the wires with reference to events that are transpiring. What a contrast to the amazing amount of criticism that is allowed to go on in our Empire, and what is more remarkable, published broadcast over the world.

Russia and Erzerum loom large in the public eye at present, and the great victory which the Russian arms obtained has been naturally the cause of much rejoicing in the Empire of the Czar. It does one good to read ot the Duma’s joy at having their Monarch with them, and to picture m the mind’s eye the scenes of unparalleled enthusiasm which marked the opening. We read that the l iesl dent’s greeting to the Allied Ambassadors was drowned in an outburst of cheering, and that these representatives were accorded an ovation. 1(1 Minister of Foreign Affairs (M. Sazanoff) rightly ridiculed Germany's argument that the Allies desired the annihilation of the German people. What is wanted .is the crushing of Prussianism and judging from the same stateman’s intentions a 8 expressed in aft interview with the Daily Chronicle’s representative, the Russian Nation is going to sec that this is secured, lie whole tone of the interview breathes of the determination of the Entente, and M. Sazanoff’s acknowledgements of the great services of Sir Edward Grey and Mr Lloyd George wit be thoroughly appreciated hy every Britisher for the great compliment that it. is.

There has been no news for a long

while of the doings of the small Belgian army, but no one will imagine that it has been idle. As a matter of fact, it has been pretty busy of late. In December the bombardment of its section of the western, front became particularly fierce, and it was even thought necessary to once cut the dykes, as they were cut just after the Rush for the Sea, a little' more than a year ago. It might well have been imagined that the Belgian army must be getting pretty inconsiderable and inferior by this time. But as a matter of fact it is reported not only to be highly efficient,'but even to have increased in numbers. Its artillery has been raised to a very high standard with the help of the British and French, the former more particularly having supplied heavy guns, while in trench mortars and bomb-throwing apparatus, which are most useful in the flat, open country, it is as well supplied as any other part ol the Allies’ forces in the w'est.

The Belgian section ol the western front begins at Nieuport and the mouth of the Yser, and runs as far down as Dixmude. The floods extend practically all the way between these places, and in addition to the protection which these afford the now powerful Belgian guns have been smashing up the elaborate system of light radways which the Germans have la d out all over the flat country behind their front. For a time the Germans’ pressure was felt chiefly near l)ixmnde, which they wore again threatening to outflank on the north by working forward over the Yser 'bus, that had now become dry again. Hence the second flooding. In this district, as in the Dutch low country, the ground is full of water, and n%deed has only been fit for human occupation and cultivation for a few hundred years, though in this period it has 'been converted into a land ol market gardens. It is intersected by numberless canals and dykes, emitting in the Yser, which itself an unimportant shallow stream. n,i since' the plain is under sea level it has to be protected by, a couuueto system of locks, and the canals .bensolves run between bcinks.