CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 3, 6 April 1916, Page 5

CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

The news from the Western theatre is again of an encouraging nature. The recent attempt by the enemy to oust the French from the plateau at Douaumont met with disaster, which is now referred to as a flight. To-day the cables let in some light on the methods of the German attack,- and the utter disregard of. the authorities for the pieservation of human life. We aie told that inferior troops marched shoulder to shoulder in front of the second lino, which was composed of the better-qual-ity forces. But this availed them naught, for the French artillery mowed the masses down such as they never did before at any of the recent repulses at Avocourt, Douaumont and Yaux. The slight advances that the enemy has made from time to time must have cost him dearly, and yet he persists in the same tactics. Writer often mused on the reasons for the undisguised show of confidence by the French generals of late, but it is now evident th'at they have had a good deal up their sleeve in this game of war in the West. Daily the Hun submarine takes toll of the shipping of the several nations of the world without favor,- sinking everything that comes in his way. The effect is to he seen in the unrest in Holland, where the efforts of the Germans to stir up trouble appears to have had some effect. The United •States has relapsed into silence once more—or is it the calm before the storm of angry public opinion? The principal scenes of activity for the sea craft at present are in the North feea and in the Bay of Biscay on the coast of France. In the latter quaiter, there must be some base or bases close handy, and we may shortly hear of these being pnearthed on the northern coast of Spain.

In one way the new German submarine campaign differs from the old. Formerly when the Germans sank a neutral ship or murdered neutral passengers they attempted to explain it away and bring forward all manner of sophistical excuses to excuse or justifj, ' or at any rate to palliate their misdeeds. They now seem to have become quite reckless of neutral opinion, and have openly embarked on a policy oi sinking everything and everybody ai sight. It is . important to note thai the 'change, important as it is, is a change in theory alone. The practice remains what it has been from the beginning. Figures recently issued by the British Government showed that from the beginning of the submarine attack on British commerce neutral, as well as British, unarmed merchant ships had been ■sunk without warning, and their crews and passengers left, so far as the Germans were concerned, to drown without mercy. What the Germans are doing now as a matter of declared policy they have done from the beginning, trusting that the neutrals affected would be too much afraid of them to make any real fuss. The danger, both to neutral and British shipping, remains exactly what it was. Since the war began the only sccurit\ any neutral merchant vessel had has been duo to the vigilance of the British navy and of the French, who have done a good deal in the Mediterranean to hunt down the submarine pests.

Some light on the efficacy of reprisals against German outrages is _ Riven in a recent despatch of “The Times correspondent in Paris. He says that it is a weapon which the French have employed with marked success on more than one occasion. “From information,” he writes, “which has been placed at my disposal it appears that the French, as soon as their repo I-.-as to the dietary scale of French pri

soners in Germany were confirmed, reduced the diet of German prisoners in Fiance to the same scale. Two months later the German Government yielded, and gave sufficient food to its prisoners. Exactly the same tiling occurred with the prisoners’ correspondence. The French reduced the letter-writing privileges of enemy prisoners to the scale in force in Germany, and a lew weeks afterwards Germany again yielded. When the German Government formed reprisal camps in marsh districts, to which were sent cultured French prisoners on the pretext that German prisoners were badly treated in Africa, the French Government informed ' Germany that an egual number of Germans, chosen from among aristocratic prisoners, would be submitted to a similar regime. Very shortly afterwards Germany’s reprisal camps were abolished. These are but some of many ways in which reprisals have proved their worth. The only form of reprisals which is likely to meet with success is that of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The bombardment of some peaceful German town will ’alone make the enemy realise the double-edged weapon lie is employing.” '■>

Germany’s mental attitude in regard to the war, and particularly in regard to its more gratuitous horrors, such'-as the baby-killing raids, is so barbarous that a protest against them by a German newspaper comes as a real shock. True, the newspaper is a Socialist phe, the Vienna Arbeiter Zeitung, which might be translated “Labor News.” “Everybody,” it says, “must ask whether it would not be far better if this bomb-throwing were absolutely prohibited. The airmen are, of course, of the greatest importance, ancf one may even say that the, possibility of obtaining definite information in duo time about the enemy’s procedure makes the war in a certain sense more humane, because it remove? the element of cunning-and of surprise. But all military observers agree that the damage done by bombs, and the death produced from the air, cannot possibly be of serious account in view of the gigantic proportions of this war. And can one seriously think that these methods can spread the sort of panic which would lead to the shortening of the war? Experience does not support this belief. On the contrary, it shows that the passions of war are inflamed afresh by these raids. Looking at the matter from the purely sober view of the balance of advantages and disadvantages, one must say that it would be a good thing for all belligerents if all bomb-throwing from airships were to be condemned and made impossible. God knows that it would be sufficient for mankind to fight on the earth and on the water,' and for us to be spared death from the air.”