The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 1917. THE LAST ROUND.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 27 January 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 1917. THE LAST ROUND.

(With which is incorporated The Tai hape Post and Waimarino News).

A Berlin correspondent to the Dutch newspaper “Tyd,” who is credited with being exceedingly well-informed, outlines what Germany proposes to do in the last round of the great conflict. A new submarine campaign, assisted by the German fleet is going to cut off England’s vital resources, No mention iS made of the British navy, but it may be considered that full provision has been made against any interference from it with the German plans. There is the possibility, however, that another fatal mistake may be made, and the starving of England will not prove so easy a task as it may look on paper. Then ussia is to be muzzled and held down; there is to be no attempt at pushing her armies further eastward, and if Germany can get Russia to fall in with the idea it will no doubt make things easier in securing the majority of points in the final round. Austria is to scon settle with Italy; that is a small matter, and it sounds well from the German trumpeter, but, unfortunately for Austria, she has had some experience that will prevent her taking her turn in the programme with any great amount of confidence. She was a ghastly failure when last she essayed something of the kind. Germany seeks a decision on the West front, and she will undoubtedly find it, whether she seeks it or not. She knows it is coming ,and thinks it just as well to do a hit of that kind of boasting for which her people are noted, and which is so objectionable to the British fighter. This great offensive is to begin in about six weeks, and if Germany comes to lime the final round should be fought, the knockout blow administered, and the sponge in the air so that peace raav bo proclaimed within six months. In gathering from German reports what her war councils arc doing, we find that her contracts loom so large as to look incapable of completion. Only a few months ago uui mrsal conscription and mobilisation was ordered, can the men be made into efilcieut, tractable battalions in so short a period? Is the country capable of adequately feeding and equipping the new levies for taking the part assigned to them in securing final victory? German munition works have been taxed to the uttermost to keep armies supplied, can they stand the strain that the ■ needs of boasted new millions will put , upon them? Germany knows what . she is doing, but it must be apparent i that the strain is very great and that I the time at disposal is altogether too , short to secure anything but what is

a long way short of efficiency. We

arc quite safe in assuming that Germany is merely doing everything she possibly can to meet the blow she .sees about to fall. She has made a pitiable failure of her first effort to (stop British men and munitions landing in France, and that may be taken as an indication ot what will befall other boasted submarine and fleet efforts on similar errands. With the hugeness of Germany’s military and naval programme, the preparation of new troops and the desperate position of her food question, can she hope to pin down the enthusiastically confident, supremely equipped Russian armies on the seven hundred miles of Eastern front, withstand the persistence of successful Roumanian armies, hold Sarrail and his men bottled up in Macedonia, trust Austria to impose her will on Italians before whom she is already being forced back, quell the growing discontent of her starving millions, while she prepares herself for a final fight with the armies of Britain and France that are now bigger, more powerfully equipped than at any previous stage of the war? Germany will make a desperate effort, but her resources will not be equal to the occasion. Hurriedly made soldiers, the very sweepings up of the German nation, cannot hope to hold for long against the splendid armies of men that Britain is putting into the final fighting. The Berlin correspondent calls the coming clash “the last round.” He knows that Germany’s resources are nearing an end, that they have broken down under the weight poured upon them by Britain’s now military and naval millions. There is much in Germany that goes to convince the world that the war cannot be continued much longer. Every man capable of bearing arms has been called to the colours, and everything useful in war has been pressed into service, there is neither man or material left to call, while Franco-British armies can be replenished for a long time to come, and Britain’s output of war material is ever-increasing. Just where the blow is to fall with major force is not divinable. From Germany’s huge concentration off Switzerland it appears as though she is anticipating something prodigious in that quarter, While we know that the idea has been prevalent that the whole German line is to be pushed back out of Belgium, the whole operation pivoting as far distant as Belfort and (he occupied territory in Alsace. Without doubt the world is about to experience fighting on a scale that may never occur again.