The War Outlook.

Taihape Daily Times, 20 March 1918, Page 6

The War Outlook.

LONDON, Feb 20.

The winter lull affords a favourable opportunity for a survey of the war outlook. Predictions, even when they are based on the best information available, are always liable to be falsified; but it least it is more congenial to peer into the future than to look back on the disappointments of the past. For in retrospect it is always the failures rather than the successes which stand out most prominently, partly because we hear little or nothing about some of our greatest military achievements. The enemy may have spent' months of preparation and millions of treasure over some great offensive that was projected. Not infrequently such enterprises have been anticipated by the Allies, and all the enemy’s preparations have been brought to nought. Of events of this kind the'general public is told very little, and very ofen they do not possess the necessary information to draw conclusions for themselves. We are watching something of this Sind at the present moment. It is known that the Germans have planned a great offensive for the recovery of Bagdad.

No less a person than the redoubtable Falkenhayn was sent out to the East to take charge of the operations. But Bagdad still remains in British occupation,. and there is no indication whatever of any serious effort being made to drive back the British on to the Persian Gulf and to re-Open the German corridor to the East. Why? Not because there was any lack of enthusiasm for the project in Germany itself. Apart from the desirability of doing something to encourage the depressed Turks, the recovery of Bagdad probably represents the dearest ambition of the Pan-Germans, from whom Yen Hindenburg derives most of his strength and support. The reason why there has been no desperate fighting on tfie Tigris during the last few weeks is to be sought elsewhere.

THE PALESTINE OPERATIONS. General Allenby, in short, has done something very much more substantial than capturing Jerusalem as the result of his operations in Palestine. Primarily designed as a defensive measure for the better protection of Egypt and the Suez Canal, this incursion into the Holy Land had reacted to a very marked extent on the course • f events in Mesopotamia. It was said e-’ite truly that the .main interest, of the fall of Jerusalem was political

■‘Vr than military. But the Turks had no guarantee that General Aliening would be content to sit down at Jerusalem and rest on his laurels. Unless something wc*re 'done bo check Ms progress the great military base of Damascus might be menaced. The danger was pressing and urgent, and Turkey has had to draw off her forces from Bagdad lest worse things should befall her on the Palestine front. There is evidence that even the German divisions that were intended for Bagdad have had to be diverted, for in the latest operation north of Jerusalem General Allenby makes pointed reference to the capture of a numbere of German prisoners. These operations in the East are sometimes characterised as the “ side-shows of the war, but they represent an important part of the Allied plan of campaign. No idle reasons, we may be sure, have induced the British Higher Command to divert very considerable forces from the West for service in Palestine. Just as the advance in Palestine was necessary in order to relieve the pressure on Egypt, so our occupation of Bagdad may be said to have frustrated German efforts to stir up against us the frontier tribes in Northern India. It is well that the significance of the German failure to retrieve the situation at .oagdaci should be brought into prominence, for we are -very prone as a nation, to our own successes. And the silence that has fallen, over the field of operations in Mesopotamia really represents a very conceivable strategic victory for the British Higher Command,