WHEN WILL IT END?

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 173, 26 March 1915, Page 4

WHEN WILL IT END?

"Y7hen will the war end. is the question that seems to be uppermost in every nation of the civilised world. Lord Kitchener, at the outset, took a careful, calculating view, and he said it might last three years, but he has from time to time made utterances'that , carried the idea and encouraged the hope that it might terminate very much earlier. He promised that war would commence in the spring and judging from the preparations being made in England for sick and wounded, it is going to be a war of a kind that could not possibly last very long. Various Statesman, members of the British House of Commons, distinguished Neutral experts have predicted that hostilities will end j by September, others by July; j while others are of opinion that it will go on for a very long time. A day or two ago Sir John Simon, member of the British House of Commons, told a Manchester audience that there was no indication whatever when the war would end or that Germany was willing to consider any terms the Allies might offer. Later still we have two utterances by way of interveiw and report from Sir John French, who, above all others, ought to be able to give a correct forecast, First he guardedly said he did not believe in a protracted war, and when interviewed he frankly said he expected decisive victory in three months! The cost of the Neuve Chappelle position gives some idea of what war in the near future is going to mean to us in slaughter and disablement, but in all probability Sir John French is of the opinion that it will greatly economist?'-life if, now that the millions constitity the Allies New Army are in the field, a vigorous and crushing offensive is taken on all bai defields. Such an offensive we i lay certainly expect, and it will commence when eastern and wesl >rn movements can. be timed to completely dovetail. Fortunately, Russia, with the capitulation of Przemsyl, is able to choose the course that will strike the utmost fear into the heart of all Germans, and by threatening a march on Berlin by the only reasonable . road, via Cracow, Germany will not be able to draw upon her eastern dispositions to meet the avalanche of British, French, and Belgians in the west. Taken altogether, the difficult problem does now seem solvable, and the end is appreciably nearer.