CERTAINTY OF VICTORY.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 2 October 1917, Page 3

CERTAINTY OF VICTORY.

GENERAL SMUTS GONPIDENT. BRITISH TACTICS EXPLAINED. LONDON, September 19. An interview regarding Germany's position has been given by General J. C. Smuts, a member of the War Cabinet, to the London representative of the Paris newspaper Le Journal, “She has little or no improvement to hope for,” said General Smuts. “Can anyone doubt, on the other hand, the growing feeling of terror -which possess her as she sees the nations range themselves side by side her? Her food problem is becoming daily more and more acute, her economic future hopelessly compromised, and her name more and more detested..ln short, she is faced with the prospect of being strangled to death unless the Entente reopens the doors of the world to her. What does the future offer her, even on the impossible hypothesis of a reversal of the military situation? “There is nothing that Germany longs for more ardently than peace. All her people feel that their position is desperate, but before thinking of peace ■we must be certain of having finished with military imperialism, “Before accepting any peace those who were charged with the destinies of the nations should give serious reflection to the terms, for on the peace that we would sign would depend the peace and future of the whole world. The stake was the largest for which the human race had ever played. Patience and confidence were all that we now needed in order to be certain of gaining it.

“This war was a war of machinery. Instructed by experience Britain had adopted tactics which might not be very showy, but the results of which ■were mathematically certain. These tactics consisted of progressing by advances strictly limited on ground rendered impossible to hold by the superiority of our artillery. These' tactics cost a minimum to us and inflicted a maximum loss of the enemy. The pub. lie understood these methods and their success, and there was no more question regaring winning. To-day ' the allies had won, and the Germans knew it. “The final result of the persistent pressure of our army,” concluded General Smuts, “is very well anticipated in Germany, daspite the reassuring communiques. Germany's military victories in the east cannot outweigh her defeat in a world sense. Hence Germany's desire for peace. But despite the horrors of the carnage, we must continue till the lesson is graven deep in the heart of the German people.' ’