The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 1918. GRAVE ISSUES NOW PENDING.

Taihape Daily Times, 16 March 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 1918. GRAVE ISSUES NOW PENDING.

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

During the current week there have been war happenings so far out of the ordinary as to arrest attention. After all the boast about an offensive the ■ leading German newspaper now says there is to be no offensive; that Gera.auy ?s t course is one of waiting, while Allies get blown to pieces in their at.ta,cks,, then the Kaiser’s forces can '.QOnie 'in .with the knock-out blow. Such a “statement can be taken cum grano •sails, Germany no longer possesses, •thev troops with the necessary stamina to deal a knock-out blow anywhere, but where there is no resistance, Germany finds it more safe and profitable to garotte and rob the peoples who cannot protect" themselves, having no stomach for the fight that only can bring victory and peace. Extraordinary ominous, significant, or deceptive utterances have not been the sole privilege of the corrupted Hun in the last few days. Startling words have been spoken by a high authority in Britain, words which ..have no understanding until they arc brought into consideration with other quite unusual happenings. It was said by a British Member of Parliament, friend of the British Premier, to the same gathering 1 that was addressed by Mr. .Lloyd George, that/'‘‘Decisions of the utmost gravity affecting the whole future life of the Empire might be taken next week, even within the next few days. The decision between the Entente and the enemy was hanging in the balance, and the solution might come more rapidly than they thought.” What is this decision that is now hanging in the balance that is on the very verge of solution? But there arc other singular happenings, one is that the Secretary for War of United States has arrived in France) There is no Allied Conference or War Council meeting to attend, what is he there for? It is no minor matter that has brought him with a convoy of American soldiers to the zone of final decision. Amongst ordinary intelligence there came the news that Stuttgart had been air-raided by the Allies. The highly armoured city of Stuttgart, one of the largest munition centres in Germany, a place Germany depends upon more for arming her western armies than any other town in the realm; it is destroyed by an airraid. Stuttgart is still burning, and the accumulations of light and heavy munitions are still rending the air with the explosions that signal their destruction. The town is a •wreck which no man is allowed to enter or go near. What kind of aeroplane have the Allies evolved that can in a single visit destroy one of Germany’s greatest munition centres? If the machines employed at Stuttgart arc not a new type why ha.ve all previous raids on German towns been mere picnics compared with this one? The German high command is growing super-sen-sitive; for saving that if the w r ar is not won before the summer Germany vill be lost, the ‘‘Berliner Tagcblatt” has been suspended. In any endeavour to synchronise the extraordinary events mentioned there arc found conflicting difficulties, but they arc capable of being read together so as to give some degree of reasonable understanding. Sir Compton Ricketts ’

grave issues that are to happen in the next few days arc. he says, not oi immediaitc or catastrophic' danger. There has been nothing of a polemic character during the last few days excepting Bulgaria’s ridiculous move for a separate peace, and the negotiations over Japanese intervention, neither of which seem to warrant the presence of America's Secretary for War in Paris just at this time. The decision that is hanging in the balance is not of immediate danger although it may take place in the next few days. It cannot .mean that peace with Germany is the subject of negotiation, for Mr, Lloyd George still affirms that (nothing short of the Allies ’ war aims will t be acceptable and Germany is not likely to concede them at this stage. If statements by German newspapers and the Stuttgart destruction have any bearing on the question it may be that an invincible aerial armada composed of the new American machines is to be launched within the next few days, and Mr. Baker is on the spot to watch results. The bombing ‘of Stuttgart is something different to anything of the kind previously experienced, and we arc therefore inclined to think it was an experimental trial of that arm of warfare which America is of opinion will furnish the deciding factor in the present struggle. Such an at--1 tack on German cities and war accumulations would not be of 'immediate or catastrophic danger to the Allies, however much it might be to Germany. America is staking a very great deal on air fighting and it may be that the time for the first great aerial army to prove itself has come, Japanese intervention would not be an immediate danger to the Allies, but neither would it be likelv to bring about the decision that hangs in the balance 'between 'the Entente and Germany, Every assurance is given that submarining cannot become a deciding factor. There is trouble betweon the Dutch and Germans; the Allies have taken over all Dutch shipping. Of course Germany is threatening Holland, and there are indications that the Dutchmen no longer fear Hun throats of invasion, but oven were Holland to declare against Germany it would not explain away Sir Compton Ricketts’ mysterious. utterances. The commencement of an offensive of decisive dimensions by the Allies would bo fraught with immediate and catastrophic danger. An attack with decisive intent by Germany would be dangerous and catastrophic; Japanese intervention would not solve in a few days the grave decisive issues, neither would the baring of Dutch teeth to Germany. After her glorious victories in Russia the Huns are not likely to suddenly concede the Allies’ war aims, still there is something the men of cultur greatly fear if their loading newspapers are not "playing possum.” The Stuttgart raid is one of the bitterest pills that has yet been administered, Germany knows that the air monsters that destroyed Stuttgart can destroy Berlin, Kiel, and other centres that render prosecution of the war possible. An aerial armada such as America believes in, with such aeroplanes as America is reported to have boon building—aeroplanes that can cross the Atlantic—would fit in with Sir Compton Ricketts’ statements, but we know nothing’ i Iso that would. Bo what the decision hanging in the balance may, it is not of immediate or catastrophic danger. There is an inference that it may prove of ultimate danger, but for the true solution of the enigmatic words, wo must await development?.