The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1917. PROSPECTS OF PEACE.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 19 April 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1917. PROSPECTS OF PEACE.

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

Success is still urging the Francoii'ritish armies in Franco to further victories and captures. Every day brings accounts of new territory, prisoners, guns and war material taken. So pronounced is the triumph that we are led to reflect on what the sum total Gf force is that has to be suouuea rjetore final victory and peac e are in sight, first sight we get the idea that the Central Powers" alliance is .•'.n alliance in name only; and even though it may be an alliance all parties but one were exhausted if not beaten long ago. These nations peraaps realise that they were drawn into partnership with Germany much with the same ohject that a fly is attracted to the beautiful shining gossamer woven by the spider. Austria can be little more than a millstone arcund Germany's neck, for it is just uycn a year ago since the Austrian War Department made strong endeavours to get the Government to jonsent to call into the Military Ser.'ice ail men between the ages of fiftyix and sixty. Nothing could show aero eloquently the dire straits into ..-hicli the Austrian Army had fallen a /car ago, and never mere shall we see ill offensive movement initiated by Emperor Charles' troops. This then .Is a great victory; the second greatest power in the Central Alliance is beaten and "become a negligible quantity. In fact it is worse than negligible so far as Germany is concerned; its food is exhausted, and it requires

that which otherwise might go to keep life in the German people. The real and only enemy left is Germany, and no otuer section of the great aiiiance need be taken into account. Our armies have to boat those of Germany on the West front, tnen comes peace, io get some idea of when peace is vvjuun reach ic is only necessary to esumate how long Germany can withstand the sweeping offensive she is now being subjected to. it was the Teuton boast before July last year, that German armies were figHting within an iron band which enabled them to press forward while being impenetrable by the Allies. This iron band was something real which the Allied troops had been unable to bend or break, while those inside it were pressing it forward, notably at Verdun. It was certain that if this iron band could not be broken Germany would be victorious. The Allies went the whole "hog," dismissed their old General Staff and an entirely new one came into existence. Haig and Nivelle came to the front and in only a few months -they proved there was something more powerful than the muchvaunted iron band. On the first of July they attacked it, bent it, broke it, and finally shattered it. They have driven the Germans out of their fastnesses, pursued them for many miles, inflicting appalling losses. Since the ninth of this month, only a week, they have captured twentyfour thousand of the enemies' best men, largely Bavarians and Prussian Guard's, besides, great numbers ■<%£ guns in working condition, and countless war material. The Franco-Brit-ish are strong enough to smash the iron band as though it were earthenware, are they strong enough and mobile enough to follow the fleeing armies so as to prevent them taking up any other strongly organised defensive line that could be held for any great length of time? Appearances and all evidences distinctly favour the affirmative. If the Germans could not withstand the Franco-British accumulation of force while they had everything that science could senTJ to their help, how can they do better deprived of the aid of science, pushed into the open, their men demoralised and so many of them killed, wounded and taken as prisoners that it will tax all efforts to again bring them up to that numerical strength that could not hold back the enthusiastic and confident Allied soldiersT In a week G(*j:msjny's picked *rmy has been driven many miles from strongly fortified positons, and this drive is still continuing. The iron band has been broken and the Allies have advanced a third of the distance between it and the French frontier. If we can estimate from what has taken place during the last few days, the speed the conquering Allies can keep up, we may get some slight idea of when Germany will be finally defeated, and that peace which we are fighting for will be won. The average distance from 'the British and French foremost positions to the frontiers of Germany and Belgium is less than twenty-five miles. . Fifteen miles of fortified country has been captured, including the iron band, and the' twenty-five miles now to cover is not fortified, only so far as what can be accomplished hurriedly. The tide of battle is going 3tr.cn/ily with the Allies, and "unless something entirely unforeseeable hap-

pens it seems that the predicted peace in 1917 must eventuate.