The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 1917. THE BREWING STORM.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 1 August 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 1917. THE BREWING STORM.

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

War signs again' strongly denote that prodigious work is on hand. Earth, air and water shake with the indescribable volume of artillery fire, the sound whereof is heard, and the vibrations felt in England. Mammoth guns are sending huge shells twenty miles behind the contending armies’ front lines, sweeping the country, from extremity to extremity of fire, with a hail of shells over an area forty miles in width. It is scarcely conceivable that for a distance of forty miles nothing is really safe from that greatest of all artillery duels that is now pr«cee'ding. For forty miles

the country is being fire-swept, deluged with shells to destroy life and everything that would act as a protection to life. The vigour and determination of the Germans is no less than that displayed by the British, but they are not so strong or so wellequipped, for reliable cable news tells us that opr gunners are returning to the Germans two shells for every one they send. This makes the fight so uneven that the conclusion is''foregone. The side that can only fire one shot while its opponent fires two is foredoomed. This artillery battle is of such a magnitude as to leave no doubt about the British intention to make its next break into the German lines somewhere from Ypres to the Belgian coast. The disturbance is on a wide front and there are indica-

tions that the coming thrust will be on a grander and more pretentious scale than any that has yet gone before. Not content with covering the Germans to a depth of twenty miles with their guns, the British are effectively bombing from aeroplanes to an additional twenty miles. The infantry on both sides lie waiting under cover for the time when the artillery has sufficiently cleared the way for successful attack. Meanwhile, fierce and destructive raids are being made, mainly to discover whether destruction has been carried far enough for infantry to get through without too great an expenditure of life, and this will go on until one side feels that the time has come when the big guns may be used to provide barrages, or walls of falling shells behind which its infantry may march with comparative infinity into the others’ trenches, or info what is left of them. There seems no doubt that the greatest battle of the war is imminent, one in which the British navy will largely participate. Our aeroplanes are photographing the German positions to a depth of forty miles; they are spying out. everything whereby an accurate estimate' ‘or German strength can be made available for our commanders; they are locating, bombing and photographing German battery emplacements, .infantry dj°ncentrai tions and munition stores; they are also destroying railway communica-

tious as far as possible, making it difficult to rapidly bring up reserves, munitions and stores, and this terrifying conflagration ■will go on until destruction is so complete that infantry may be used with comparative safety. For the great clash we have not long to wait.