The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 1918. PROGRESS OF THE WAR.

Taihape Daily Times, 22 June 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 1918. PROGRESS OF THE WAR.

(With which is Incorporated The Taihape Post and Walcwimo News).

The war situation seems to be developing more favourably for the Allies than anticipated. On the west front there are not wanting indications of the waning of German strength. The great offensive that was to bring the Kaiser to .Paris is indefinitely held up; his All-Highest's glorious troops being very little nearer his objective than they were tfefore the Crown Prince commenced the battle that was to result in such sickening butchery of his men. The British refusal to be driven out of Eheinis is hurting the prospective Kaiser's feelings and lowering his dignity, and 'he determined* upon an attempt to wipe the whole Rheims scene out of the way by turning on a few of his choicest divisions of storm'troops; but when they came within fighting distance of the "contemptible little army," what was left alive of them were very glad to get. away as soon as possible. The Crown Prince's effort to take Eheims was one of his most signal failures, for nowhere did he succeed and the toll in life exacted for his folly was of the heaviest., The incident is of value as being one in a chain of evidence in favour of the impression that the Allied strength on the west front is all it was thought to be, and more. It indicates that only German .concentrations on the most prodigious plane can hope to disturb the Allied line. The debacle at Eheims will not add to the morale of the Hun rank and file. It is said that Prince Bupprecht's divisions, which had been held in readiness to drive home and exploit the trip to Paris, are concentrating against the British, but it is yet uncertain whether the French will no have to stand the first fury of the "wild bull rush" that is promised. Neither by day or night are the Germans immune from bombing on a large scale by British and American aeroplanes. The enemy is particularly aeffive in s ifche 'Of Arras, but no great significance is attached to this by General Foch. Where Eupprecht will strike is only known to Foch and his staff if it is known to the Allies at all. No doubt Foch is aware, almost to certainty, but the enemy, owing to splendid rail service, can move from one point to another with amazing rapidity. It was reported that the Germans have been uncannily quiet and this is taken to be the calm before the storm, which is awaited with utmost confidence by the Allied Generalissimo. In Italy the great military pageant set moving by Austria seems doomed to end in bifurcating disaster the complete defeat of the Austrian armies engaged, and the break up of the empire by the spread of revolution. At only one point on the Italian front is fighting continuing on a major scale. Midway on the river Piave, between sea and mountains to the north, the Austrians have made desperate concentrated effort to reach the chain of foothills on the Italian side of the river. They suffered most appalling carnage while spanning the river with a number of pontoon bridges, the dominating Italian guns keeping up an utterly merciless fire. As the process of life, annihilation proceeded heavy rains fell and the river broadened with the water from the hills and became a colossal torrent, tearing down to the sea, bearing wrecked pontoons loaded with blood dripping corpses of the erstwhile flower of the Austrian army. Those . that have crossed the river, amounting to a few divisions, arc cut offi by the torrent which Italian guns will not permit to be bridged. These unfortunate divisions are isolated without food or other supplies; they are being subjected to a continuous hail of Italian shells, and it is hourly expected that they_will hoist the white flag and surrender. While this calmity to Austrian arms is current, something worse -is happening in the Austrian rear. Austrian soldiers have suffered so long from the most extreme privations that they arc becoming completely demoralised; they are mut-

inying and shooting their German officers; whole divisions of Czechs and Slovenes are destroying military stores and blowing up their munition dumps only just in Tear of the Austrian lines. Revolution is widespread throughout Austria and Germany has been appealed to for food to satisfy the rioters and for men to stem the tide of disaster that is overwhelming Austrian armies in Italy.. Will-Germany permit quiet to reign on the west front while a few divisions are dispafched to retrieve the Italian situation? The have said they can spare neither food nor men; their contract on the west will require all their resources to complete in time, and they are losing hope of being able to make a respectable showing before the Americans arrive in sufficient strength to drive them off the job. We do not believe they will take any risks in trying to snatch the Austrian chestnut from the Italian fire. The fact is .apparent that German strength will not permit of further division; the wonder is, can Falkenhayn spare a few men from Russia. Viewing it from all points it seems that the great offensive against Italy that was to have co-ordinated with the offensive by the Crown Prince in France, must miserably fizzle out. Austria is suffering from extreme national debility; to be in the last stages of collapse; fratricide is doing its deadly work amongst the soldiers, and demon, hunger amongst civilians. Austria may escape final defeat now, but she is in an extremely parlous state, from which nothing is in view to rescue her. Two surprising developments of the war are noteworthy, they are the almost unbelievable rapidity with which American troops are being landed in France, and the other is the downfall of Bolshevism in Russia. Even expremier Asquith now sees good cause to believe that Russia is not yet a negligible quantity in the war; that she is not yet "down and out" as so many pacifists and pessimists predicted. Russians throughout western Siberia are rising en masse and are holding Kieff and spreading armies over, the whole neighbouring territory. Germans, with Bolshevik assistance, are not able to secure food in anything like sufficient quantities to adequately feed German and Austrian armies. The conquest of Russia was Germany's great hope, but with Russian resistance and Japanese intervention in the air, that hope is assuming a distinctly forlorn character. The war situation shows signs of unmistakeablo improvement.