CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 44, 26 May 1916, Page 5

CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

The fighting at Verdun continues with unabated vigor, and is appalling in its severity. The latest semi-official message states: On Wednesday fighting assumed such desperation as had not been reached since the struggle began. What this means is terrible to contemplate. Yet, the French are holding their enemies with great bravery, such bravery, it follows, as has not been surpassed since the struggle began, for great desperation on one side begets equal bravery on the other. After the Germans had succeeded in taking part of Hill 295, the higher part of Mort Homme,, west of the Meuse, and the French had made a marked recovery on the east side, sweeping the enemy back and getting a footing at Douaumont, the Bavarians made one more determined assault, and at the end of the day had succeeded in reestablishing themselves in the fort It is significant that this semi-official message mentions that the result oi the struggle is expected to be decisive. There : is this grain of comfort, however: The longer the enemy are prevented from gaining a decisive victory such as they now appear to have set to work .for, 'the less chance will they have of ultimately putting France out of action, and bringing her to her knees, as is desired by the Huns. But before then, the British will have taken a hand in'tne game and pushed thenadvantage at Vimy, which is about eight miles north of Arras and looks down on the Douai plain. The point which the Lancashires mined and captured is north-east of Neuville St. Vaast.... La Folie farm, half-way between that village and Vimy, is an important point overlooking the lower ground towards Neuville St.- Vaast; and the still lower, ground towards Vimy. The purpose of the attack was to destroy the. point of vantage which the Germans held. Its value can be estimated from the fact that the British say that they, will, hold it, and also form : t the desperate counter-at: ack which the Germans made and which enabled themj to capture temporarily one of the series of craters.

The look of the struggle in the Trentino is not encouraging —in fact it is decidedly grave. The fortifying of the third line of the Italian defence, the abandonment of their advanced lines and other straws which show how the wind blows, such as the sitting of the War Council and tho nervous statement of the War Minister, stand out as supporting tho argument that the troops in that quarter are weak. There is no doubt the Austrians took them by surprise, but the Alpini are not built of the stuff of some of their Allies when it comes to facing cold steel or the hot breath of artillery. If the enemy should get through to Verona, that famous fortified city of Yenetia, some 70 miles west of Venice, a severe blow will have been struck at the prestige of Italy, but before then Trieste may be attacked by them as a set-off to the recent operations, and if our Allies can just hold them at the latter place, the Austrians' line on the Adige may have to be weakened to support their comrades on the east shores of the Adriatic.

The position that the Germans have been driven into in the Baltic, viz, the approaching eventuality of having to force the Kattegat ? that sound between Sweden and Denmark connecting the North Sea and the Baltic, of a length of 150 miles } discloses tinpinch of the Allied submarines. "Whatever the German object, it is plain that they recognise they are hemmed in and that if success is to be theirs at some old time then the quicker operations are commenced to clear a passage for their war vessels the better. Only the other day, it was stated that trade with Sweden was at a standstill owing to the work of the submarines, who had inculcated a wholesome fear in the hearts of captains in the Baltic. Crews of the vessels that have been sunk report

that a very large Russian submarine is at work; now, it is not improbable that one of the new German submarines which the British captured lately has been improved and presented to the Russian Government. Advice was .received some time ago that at leas! two of these captured submarines had been overhauled, improved, and scut to the Baltic. These machines in the hands of British or Russian sailors will act as a splendid deterrent to Germany in sending her Dreadnoughts to do battle near the Gulf of Riga, while submarines are also at work in the Kattegat also seriously affecting German trade with Sweden and Norway, and acting as guards in the case of a dash by the German naval units as suggested to-day.

Botha and Smuts are doing things all right in Africa, and shortly all danger from the enemy in the DarkContinent will be at an . end. Wo read to-day that General Smuts can see the end of the campaign against the Germans in East Africa. This ;s the last of the colonial campaigns, and the one in which the enemy has put up the hardest fight. It is jointed out that until the South African Union took over the business, the enemy had the best, of the fighting. Regarding the strength of the Germans, it is estimated that, before the war it consisted of about 260 officers and 2000 or 3000 natives, besides a native constabulary of another 2000 or so. The white population numbered no more than 6000 or 7000, though no doubt all these would be drilled men, but there were about 9,000,000 natives, so that it is a question of how many native troops could be trained and armed. According to a Renter, report, there were at the end of last year 4000 German officers and soldiers in the colony, and a s many as 30,000 native troops. They were in companies each 200 strong, and containing twenty white men. Of course. General Smuts' chief difficulty would be the nature of the country, the enemy would know it, while most of his men would not.

In connection with this campaign, several references have been made to the fact that the enemy was using a gun from the German cruiser Koemgsberg, which was destroyed by British monitors near the mouth of the Rufiji river in July of last year. Just how the gun got to the Kondoa-Irangi district is a matter of opinion. It may have been brought from the station of Tabora, on the main railway that divides the colony, as Tabora is reported to be extremely well fortified. Other guns are said to have been carried over to the colony's frontier between Lakes Tanganyika and Nyassa, where they were used, or their use threatened, against a Rhodesian fore. some time ago. In, at any rate, some cases the guns mentioned are described as "big guns." Yet the journey from the mouth of the Rufiji, either to Tabora or to the Rhodesian border, would cover all of 400 miles. Under the circumstances, one hardly knows which is the hardest question to answer:—How these guns were carried all that distance over that rough, uncivilised country, or how the British attacking force let them get away at all. What is absolutely certain, however is that they will soon be in the hands of the British forces, and may he any traveller from the Antipodes will shortly be able to view them at Capetown when on route to the Homeland.