CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 43, 25 May 1916, Page 5

CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

At the cost of tremendous losses, the Germans made only slight headway in the great battle of Verdun. They succeeded, after a fight in which three divisions took part, in penetrating the village of Cumieres, on the west bank of the river Meuse, near the famous Goose Hill. A semi-official report states that the contest is becoming bitter. Well one could have said that weeks, aye, months ago, if he liked, and he would not have been wide of the mark. Still, what the cable means, no doubt, is that the fighting is becoming more violent than ever, and that a spirit oi desperation has seized the Germans, who are now realising that they are fighting a forlorn hope. Despite the use of liquid fire and gas and other atrocious means of warfare, they are still battling against the real methods of civilised battle, such as is recognised in tho rules of international disputes. The truth is, states the cable, that' the German offensive is stopped, and tho reason for certain misstatements concerning the occupation ot Hill 301 by the Gormans, it is pointed out, is that this is being done to show the German public, no matter by what means, that their armies are progressing.

An interesting semi-official message to-day refers to the. Uistrian offensive in tho Trentino as boing pushed with the object of anticipating the Allies in their plans for a simultaneous advance on all theatres. The idea of the Central Powers is said to be to exhaust Franco and Italy during tho momentary respite from the Russian campaign, so that when the Russian Bear is ready to strike, France and Italy will be exhausted, and all the energy of tho enemy can be devoted to meeting him. By releasing Austria’s troops from this front, a very considerable number would, of course, be available for operations against Russia. Also, by keeping the Italians fully employed there would be no chance of any assistance being sent to the Allies on any ot the fronts where it might be needed. But there does not seem to be much fear of the latter idea, as Italy has always recognised that she has her hands full in keeping Austria at bay.

Regarding the prospect of Germany going to war with America, one writer asks, what difference would it make if she did P What exactly could America do that would hurt the Central Powers? For some time, she probably could not do anything at all; for her army, though good so far as it goes, is so small as to be negligible, and according to her own critics, any number of them, her navy is in a really lamentable state. It has been declared that it is short of men and very short of officers, that most of the ships it has are out of date, and that its gunners cannot shoot. And at the beginning of the war, when its Secretary of State, Air Daniels, in his anxiety to lie wholo-souledly neutral, prohibited his sailors from singing “Tipperary,” a leading American journal observed sadly that it was hard to see how, with a Minister like that over him, any American sailor would want to sing at all! Still, America has some line ships, and could, if she chose, add useful members to the Allied marine police that are keeping the seas. There are, however, other ways in w hich material help might be got from America. Not so much in the matter of munition supplies, for it is highly probable that, directly war was declared America would want all the ships and guns and munitions she could make, for herself. And in any case we are by no means so hard put to it as we were at the beginning of the war; French and British factories have so grown and multiplied that it lias been already announced that the large-scale orders given America are not going to bo repeated.

Except Russia, the Allies can now munition themselves, and Japan is attending to Russia as fast as she can. The American Government could also lake measures to prevent goods slopped to the remaining neutrals from reaching Germanyjims tightening still more the Allies blockade. But the best material help America could give the I Allies, would take the form of troops. She could, if she really wanted to, bud, arm and train at least a million good men’; and, what is more, she could carry them over to France in ships that arc- at present German, though tied up in American ports, and convoy the transports with her own •warships. Whether many volunteers for service in Europe would he forthcoming from America is another matter; it would

depend o nthe extent to which the American people “took up” the war. Perhaps if a number of American ships were sunk and their crews drowned, or if a few of the latest-type German submarines managed to cross the Atlantic and worry American ports, there might chance of a substantial force.

The German East African struggle lias produced a very interesting little bit of evidence of Germany’s hypocrisy. It will be remembered how indignant she was early in the war, at the use by France and Britain of colored troops. Yet Germany was actually the first to use colored troops, in South-west Africa, and that in a particularly shameful way. In the first place, even Germany could hardly deny that France, at any rate, used her colored troops for protection, not aggression. Yet in this colonial campaign Gomany used, such troops to invade white stttlements. And in second place, the colored troops pf botb' France and Britain are, as everyone knows, throughly wcU drilled, and .under perfect fliscipline ’and control |. while those of IMtaan-airc rwr.^ n ; 801116 of whom not even a German would lie stupid enough to call; sayages. Yet Germany,( the.indignant protester- used. in East Africa, natives hardly one degree removed from savagery, and it i ! s known that for a. good while before the wad brake out she had been intriguing with some of 'the most truculent tribes in British East Africa, in order to get their help in case of war. If it had not been for German miscalculations and prompt action by British officers, anything might have i happened.