WAR NOTES.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 63, 13 November 1914, Page 3

WAR NOTES.

The report# that the Germans have been vigorously preparing entrenchments well to the rear of their present front are probably correct. They may have to fall back, and if tha fighting goes against them tehy want to have a aeries of «trong position* ready for occupation. The ,r alue of this kind of precaution has been abundantly pro 'ed on the Aisne f and it is absolutely certain that if a line of entrenchments had not been prepared there it would have been impossible for the reserves to cover the retreat of the German right from the Marne and the stand would have been made, hot in France, but in Germany, The preparation of entrenchments in Belgium, therefore, does not ira ply that the Germans propose an immediate retreat. W T hat it does imply is that if the Germans have to retreat they will make a stubborn fight for every inch of ground they relinguigh. All the indications point to a long and severe w r ar. The Germans have penerated in France to a point 33J miles from their own frontier, and they hold virtually the wdiole of Belgium. They have to be driven out, and it is going to be no easy task to expel them The military considerations, therefore, lend no colour to the idea that the war will be soon over, and the evidence cn the economic problems is so contradictory that it must simply be disregarded. On the Russian side the Germans have fallen back to the Warta, in Western Poland, and apparently they occupy at most only a small strip of Russian territory. But they are now back on their proper line of defence from Poland — the Craeow-Posen-Thorn line. In East Prussia although the Germans have bene driven from Sulwalki, and Wirbal* len, they have still to retreat to the Vistula before they will be on their own true line of defence. Anticipations of the Russian advance, therefore, must wait until these formidable lines, supported by powerful fortresses, are at t*ek.#d. As it happens, a day or two ago the cable messages included a forecast by a French military authority regarding tin war. He anticipates that the present struggle in the west wall close in December with the retreat of the Grmans, and that another struggle will develop along the Meuse, partly where the early fighting occurred and partly in French territory. No definite date is indicated for the termination of the Meuse which would presumably be similar to the present one, and after that would come the struggle on the Rhine, This authority places the termination of the war in 1917, which, considering the purely military circumstances, it an optimistic forecast, which seems to involve a dangerous under-esti-mation of the German power of resistance. The economic factor, of course, is an unknown quantity. It is flignificant that although Lord Kitchener has now a million and a quarter of men in training he declares the recruits are still urgently needed. Officially, no doubt, it would be said that no definite inference can be based on a precaution of this but the wise reader will draw his own conclusions.