TWO YEARS OF ATTRITION.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 15 December 1916, Page 6

TWO YEARS OF ATTRITION.

Colonel F. N. Maude, C. 8., writes in the Contemporary Review on "Two Years of Attrition; what we have gained thereby:—

The chief cause for the prolonged period of pessimism that even now remains more or les s dominant,i he says, is to be found in the general ignorance which prevails as to the true objectives in the siege warfare to which we have been committed sine e the final failure of the German strategic offensive before Ypres in December, 1914. Once the line lias been broken our enormous ' numerical superiority will find full play. The mobility will be ours as well as the numbers, because the excessive accumulation of siege material and the sheer weight of their accessories cannot be retired from their present positions without the complete freedom and efficiency of their railway system, which will then be lost to them. With the establishment of one or more breaches of adequate width, our aircraft will concentrate specifically upon all German communications, rendering it impossible for them to withdraw their impedimenta; and, since tlieir troops can no longer stand up against ours under normal field conditions, i.e, without the support of big guns, they will be held immobile around them, and we shall gradually round up each sector, of their line, precisely as the fast-moving Boers used to round us up in South Africa sixteen years ago. Then will come the end in a series of'Sedans all round the perimeter of several enemy countries. . _ " ~™ "