The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 1917. THE WAR’S NEW ASPECT.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 10 March 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 1917. THE WAR’S NEW ASPECT.

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

There is'ample evidence to show that the war on the West Front has taken on a new phase. Far from being able to further invade France, Germany has realised that the territory now occupied cannot be held, and her armies are retreating, getting away as speedily and with as little loss of life as possible. Up to this point the facts are indisputable. How far Germany will go back before making further determined effort to hold a line must depend upon more than happens in France. Were it a onetheatre fight the respective strengths of parties could be estimated free from the complexities about what is to happen on other frotns, and what material effect fighting there will have on that in France. German armies are retreating, and it is tolerably certain that they will go till they have reached a line that hundreds of thousands of men, including prisoners taken on all fronts, have been toiling at for nearly a year past, latterly with the utmost speed, denoting extreme urgency. In the first days of open fighting Germany reached to within a day’s march of the gates of Paris, to Couloumiercs and Sezanne, the line running eastward encircling Verdun except on the southern side. They were compelled to retreat in open fighting a distance of thirty miles to trenches prepared by those in the rear. This took the German line well back from Paris and there the line still exists, coming down from the north to Roys, where it commences to curve to the south-east. It follows this direction to Noyon, and from thence gees direct east past Soissons, Rhehns, Suippes to north of Verdun. The country held forms an obtuse angle of forty-five degrees, and it is this angle that overtaxes Germany’s strength to hold. There is now no question about the Allies’ superiority, the retreat on the Somme is absolute, inconclusive proof) an( j from now on there is every prospect that the Western front will be prolific ‘of sensation-

il events in which Germany will suf- \ lev a series of disasters of more ,or I less severity. The line that prisoners have been making on which the retreaters may endeavour to make another stand, commences at Lille, on the Belgian frontier, follows that frontier eastward to Maubeuge, turns sharply south to Hirsonn, then curves eastward, still following the Belgian frontier, through Mezieres and Stenay, then south-eastward to Verdun. To reach this line without disaster of an extreme character will need the oxer- j cise of the highest military skill and | sufficient strength to keep the pace j of the attackers somewhat slow. The British, working in along the Somme, and the French army moving up the Oise from No-yon resembles taking out a quarter of a cheese that is about one hundred miles in diameter. It is easy to see what must happen to German forces that occupy the quarter that is being cut out. A very similar situation is created by the French armies foli lowing up the Aisne and moving along ' li ne that is to form the new German front, to Stenay. The commenced retreat leaves no doubt about what direction the Franco-British armies will take and are taking. It is apparent that Germany has accepted the mandate outlined in Franco-British action and is retiring as fast as possible to a line which means the re-conquest of very nearly the whole of French territory from Lille to Verdun. Franco British plans are now developing rapidly, commanders taking every precaution to make use of the earliest moment in the new spring season to hav e operations well forward when climatic conditions will be most favourable for the use of the full force at ! their disposal. The BVitish now have charge of the whole line from Nieuport on the North Sea, to south of Roye, where it takes the turn to the east, so that the French will -henceforth be fighting in a northerly direction while the British are forcing their way to the eastward, and it is not improbable they may meet eastward of St. Quentin, the nearest point to the Oise, along which the French are moving, to the Somme along which the British are forcing their way. It is undeniable that Germany has desperate work before her in holding back the French while she gets her men off the quarter of the cheese that seems certain to be cut off. By retiring to this new line Germany will hav e considerably shortened her line, but what will she have lost of her best men in reaching it? When her armies do arrive at the new line of defence there is another awkward movement ahead. It will become necessary to = still further straighten the line, if nothing else, by swinging back from Maubeuge to Antwerp, leaving the famous Mons and Brussels to the Bel-go-British. It is not altogether unlikely that Germany’s huge concenrrations on the Swiss frontier were not = Jin readiness to face an attack in great force from Belfort and Mulhausen for = the nearest; point of the Rhine. With utmost pressure being made everywhere by the Allies, the French may 'reach the Rhine and have some good fortune in moving northward towards Strasburg. It is looking a long way ahead, but it is not impossible. Carrying the war into Germany with success at this point would cause a collapse in. the Belgo-French territory conquered by Germany. All we know at present is that the Germans have commenced to retreat from France, and it is tolerably safe to say that the next line they will make major effort to defend is that we have drawn from Verdun to Lille. It seems very obvious that the pace is being made much more rapid, and the evacuation of fortified towns much more disastrous than German commanders anticipated, and no doubt every available man and gun will be brought up to endeavour to prevent highly sensaI tional losses.