THE OFFENSIVE OF 1917

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 20 April 1917, Page 2

THE OFFENSIVE OF 1917

GREAT DRAMA VISUALISED.

GERMANY TO BE SWAMPED BY ARTILLERY.

“Let me picture the battles of 1917 as I see them in my mind’s eye, ” Avritcs Mr. James Douglas in a vivid article in the “Sunday Pictorial,” in which he visualises the terrific battle by Avhich the Allies will seek to enter the Promised and of Peace this spring. “The German army in France and Flanders will be subjected to a steady rain of steel, not for Avccks, but for months. The steel rain will rain every day from daAvn till dark. The German army will be forced to bear Avhat it bore on the Somme multiplied a hundredfold, and it will be slowly pounded to pieces by gunners avlio arc no longer amateurs, but veterans. Its last reserves will be sucked into the melting rampart. The cohesion and discipline of the great German military machine will be destroyed, and the greatest military catastrophe in history will be witnessed by the Avorld. OUR TREMENDOUS OFFENSIVE. “There are pessimists wdio predict a draw on the western front. They base their arguments upon the impregnable strength of modern defensive against the modern offensive. But they overlook the factor of 1917'—the superior power of the British in men and muui-

ions. The battle of the Somme was not

a true offensive, undertaken with the a true offensive. It was a defensive offensive, undertaken with the object of relieving the pressure at Verdun, on th e Russians and on the Italians. The 1917 offensive will be carried out by a British Army numbering not less than two millions in conjunction with the French Army. It will be a multiple offensive aimed, not at a short thirty-mile sector of the German lino, but at the whole German line, with the fixed determination to destroy the German masses where they stand. VERDUN METHOD TO BE UjSED “The new tactical method employed by General Nivclle at Verdun will be adopted. The losses sustained by the attacking troops will bo reduced to the lowest possible figure, for it will be a battle of big guns in which the British

itid French will possess a crushing superiority. The Germans will strain

every nerve to mass gun against gun, but they cannot overtake the load alrcadv established by the Allies. It is too great, and it is increasing too rapidly. They will b© out-gunned, outmunitioned, and out-manned. And they will bo pitted a half-beaten, old and war-weary German array against a fresh, young, and vigorous British army.

"Another factor which will tell heavily against the Germans in 1917 is our new railway organisation. The transport problem Avill be solved. While the Germans will bo pinned to their positions, our army will be free to strike where it pleases. Its reserves will be ample. The darned and patched German divisions will be used up, and there will be no mass of manoeuvre behind them. It is difficult to belive that the progresrivcly weakened German army will be able to stand the strain. THE GREATEST BATTE OF ALL. “Her fate, therefore, will be decided this spring and summer on the Western front. And the main factor in the decision will be the British Array. "There is an Eastern school in this country which would dissipate our military power by an offensive at Salonika. Happily, the Western front school will be too strong for it. Victory there means victory everywhere. Victory elsewhere means nothing, just as reverses elsewhere mean less than nothing

“The future of the Balkans will be moulded in France In 1917 by the greatest battle of nations the world will oven see. Into that battle we must put every gun and every man," concludes Mr. Douglas. ‘ ‘Everybody from the Commandcr-in-Chicf to the private knows that our unceasing artillery and superior moral make it impossible for the Boche to make use of the ruthlcssness he has been bragging about," says Lord Northcliffe.

‘‘Verdun was the end of a declining superiority upon the enemy’s side,” says Mr Belloc in “Land and Water.” “The Somme was the beginning of an increasing superiority upon that of the Western Allies.