The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE TUESDAY, JULY 23, 1918. FOCH'S OFFENSIVE EXTENDING.

Taihape Daily Times, 23 July 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

TUESDAY, JULY 23, 1918. FOCH'S OFFENSIVE EXTENDING.

("With which is Incorporated The /"aihapo Post and Walnml-jn News).

The last word from the seat of war received yesterday indicates that Foeh's brilliant counter-offensive is still moving strongly although the enemy is recklessly throwing every •available man in an effort to stay it. The greatest depth penetrated is ten miles, and guns and prisoners were still coming in; prisoners taken by the Germans were being released, and were once more taking their places in the ranks and joining in the Hun destruction. The news received-is of a very scrappy, disjointed character, but so long as we know that the offensive continues to progress we can well wait for clearer details of the fighting. If Foeh's cleverly planned thrust were to end now he will have achieved a brilliant' victory, as Germany's Chemin des Dames bullrush will have to be reversed and the rush made to from whence it started; but Foeh's thrust is not ended, and there 'seems to be no likelihood of it ending just yet. On the other hand, it is spreading and enlarging; those British forces that have held so tenaciously to the Eheims sector are now attacking the eastern side of the German wedge, and to such purpose that even the enemy reports admits that the whole of the Crown Prince's army is in dire peril. It is noteworthy that while all correspondents and military writers persist in labelling Foeh's enterprise as a side-line, it continues to grow; from yesterday's reports we gather that the first stroke was made on an eight mile front, astride the Aisne, north and south of Soissons; then the French attacked On a twenty-five mile front, reaching from, Soissons to Thierry, linking up with the Americans, who were already fighting, and driving the Huns back over the' Marne, from Chateau Thierry to Dormans, .another ten or fifteen miles. This brings the front att'acked to somewhere about fifty miles, and now the Franco-British forces have attacked the- eastern side of the wedge at least another twenty-five miles will be added to the total. From this length of front, even if it is not extended, it is apparent that Foch has planned something of a much more ambitious nature than correspondents, official and otherwise, seem disposed to give prime importance to. Since the British weight has only just been thrown in at Eheims German armies have not yet experienced the full weight of the surprise that Foch has organised for their delectation. New York and Paris are not beflagging and jubilating over what Foch has accomplished, but rather in anticipation of what is yet to come. The enemy has been struck in an exceedingly tender place, and the Allied Generalissimo is evidently desirous that the enemy should not know too early in the game what his full intentions are. The new Allied forces being drawn in is highly portentous, and the Germans have already realised that their armies between the two rivers, those south of a line drawn between Soissons and Eheims, which is the base of the wedge, may all be killed or taken prisoners. Foeh's enterprise is the most brilliant episode of the whole war yet recorded; and it is yet fraught with all possibilities of having a more farreaching effect than Germany's conquest of Eussia and Eoumania combined. On the western side of the wedge, where the attack was primarily launched, Foch seems desirous of spreading the notion that his force is very limited, and yet he planned to draw all the enemy's available reserves thereto before the FrancoBritish on the other side of the wedge were ordered to attack. The result of this was. without doubt, to keep the bulk of the Crown Prince's army to the southwestward of Eheims while he fatally damaged the other side, and he succeeded. Now the Franco-British have been set to work the destructions of the Crown Prince's men; from this 1

it seems certain that the offensive is much nearer its beginning than its

end, for latest developments show that Foeh fully realises that there is a chance, however, remote, to deal such a blow as may result in ignominious defeat of the Crown Prince and in working the destruction of very nearly the whole of his army, and it is only on some such hypothesis that the immense extension of the front attacked is understandable. Eeports of prisoners taken in the surprise offensive all corroborate the belief that the blow fell most unexpectedly, and reports from Allied airmen confirm the same view. The enemy is experiencing great trouble in getting out of the trap; all roads from Chateau Thierry to the A-isne, westwards of Eheims, are congested; the enemy is in a greater hurry to get away from the Marne than he was to get to it. In getting away he has to walk, for the Allies have taken the only railways there were at his disposal. Not only are roads the only medium of getting out, but they are the only means of bringing food and munitions in that will render rearguard fighting .possible while the retreat is in progress. This will add to the congestion reported by our airmen, and it is doubtful whether roads will prove equal to what will be required of them by the German commanders. The tallies of prisoners are confusing, necessarily so in the rush, hustle and hurry of the early stages of such a promisingly momentous undertaking. It should be noticed that separate reports have come from three separate, yet eo-or-dinfcxted thrusjts: tfroro. astride* the Aisne; from south of Soissons to Chateau Thierry, and from thence along the Marne eastward to where the Germans had crossed, and to these has now to be added the British attack southwest of Eheims, The thirty thousand prisoners reported on Saturday were made up of seventeen thousand taken in the first French thrust; ten thousand in the next by FrancoAmericans, and two thousand seven hundred by the Americans westward of Chateau Thierry. The number of heavy guns taken is abnormally lafrge; these captures clearly reflect the greatness of the disaster that has overtaken the enemy. Later reports of prisoners are more confusing; the Franco-American attack alone claiming twenty-thousand and four hundred guns. 'No details of what the British have done are yet to hand, but there are strong indications that Foch's ■first offensive may yet prove a decisive factor-in bringing peace before the year 1918 ebbs away.