GERMANY'S POSITION REVIEWED BY COL. REPINGTON

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 121, 23 May 1916, Page 5

GERMANY'S POSITION REVIEWED BY COL. REPINGTON

THE FRENCH HAVE FRUSTRATED ALL TIIEJR PLANS

HOPES OF VICTORY RECEDING WITH THE DAYS

THEIR STRONGEST EFFORTS ENTIRELY FUTILE

LONDON, May 21

Colonel Repington writes that the Germans attacked Verdun convinced that they could strike a decisive blow, sweep on to Paris, and then in turn overwhelm Russia. The dogged French valour, however, frustrated the plan. The French momentarily reeled, but speedily recovered and established their defence on a line which is likely to prove impregnable t.inst the Germans' full might and fury. The Germans cannot resign mselves to the fact that their supreme effort failed. They dare not face the consequences at home or abroad. Even confiding Austria, does not believe the clumsy fiction of progress according to a preconceived plan. Hungarian critics refuse to believe that the three months pause is part of the German staff's conception of the venture. They remark that the battle so far is a French victory and adding that it is impossible to pierce the Verdun region. If this opinion is censored by the Buda Pesth press, what is being thought in the Dual Monarchy of the Fatherland itself?

The "Times" correspondent at Paris says that each development of the Verdun battle further separates the Germans from their goal. When their first onslaught against Douaumont failed, they transferred their attentions to Pepper Hill, also without success, and then went further afield across th e Meuse, to Dead Man. The latter proved as firm a s Douaumont. Then they tried to turn Dead Man about Hill 304, but without success. Then they displaced the centre of attack to the Avocourt. region, where there lias been an uninterrupted struggle ever since, the French holding their own and inflicting heavy losses. The arrival of German reinforcements indicates the importance the enemy attaches to these operations, also the extent of his losses.

French airmen spotted great railway activity back of the front and bombarded many railway stations before the reinforcements arrived.