THE WAITING GAME.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 41, 18 February 1916, Page 4

THE WAITING GAME.

In a lengthy 'article on the war the "New York Nation" gives a graphic review of what it mentally sees on the Western front. It says: "We call

up a picture of 400 miles of ditchwork, from the North Sea to the Swiss borders, 2,000,000 Germans facing 2,500,000 Frenchmen, and we ask ourselves whether it is in.the Germ'an burrows

ct in the French rabbit warrens that the greater weariness of war prevails. Berlin asserts that it is the enemy who is weakening. The German troops are dug in on the enemy's soil; they can play the waiting game host. B'ut from what we know of the natt^yßgjMMaayflfifiiyßiayß

working the other way. The French soldier is planted in his own soil; he

is guarding his home. He may be weary, but he can have no doubts as to the bitter need of it all. To the German invader, the need is more remote. Fighting on the enemy's soil is a stimulus when the battle moves forward swiftly, when victory is in sight. But to be stuck in a ditch on foreign soil with no end in sight? It does not need men of special susceptibilities to feel the demoralisation of doubt under such conditions. To the simplest mind, after more than a year of deadlock, the question must occur, What am I doing here? For the invaded nations there is the spur of necessity. For the invader there is the natural-human revolt against a tedium of slaughter and suffering without the solace of victory."