The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 1918. FOCH'S FINAL BLOW EXPECTED.

Taihape Daily Times, 29 August 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 1918. FOCH'S FINAL BLOW EXPECTED.

(With which is Incorporated The Xaihape Post and Walnramo News).

It seems beyond question that General Foch, having launched a long and carefully planned offensive against the enemy in France, sees his way clear to exhaust the last of his strategic plans made in connection therewith right down to the last rifle shot. Correspondents tell*us that "Every hour brings success," and what a crushing success its totality represents. Once more our men are going over old battlefields between Arras and Cam : brai; they,have captured important towns" and strategic points in a few hours; they have literally romped over their enemies until they are again on the 'Hindenburg line which was to be the last word in military defence and strength, and beyond which the contemptible armies of Britain and France could not go. It is not the Hindenburg line that Foch is aiming at; the object of this offensive is not yet clear; there are so many projects within projects in course of being unravelled ready for peieing together that it cannot be seen when or where the great final blow will fall. The enemy knows it is going to fall, but whether on the North Sea, on the Swiss border, or at any point between those two extremes he cannot tell, neither can anyone else excepting Foch and his own staff. Events have-proved and are hourly proving that the great Frenchman had ample reserves for the prodigious work he has launched them upon, and now we are informed that ho has an immense army of manoeuvre waiting for the ; moment when the greatest blow of this year's fighting*is to be delivered. In military blows we .are fast losing all sense of proportion in the estimation of their • magnitude and strength; since middle July smashing blows have been of daily occurrence, and for a week at a time prisoners have been captured at the rate of over five thousands a day. First came Foch's great stroke against the base of the Marne pyramid, and down the "Whole military tLivjat against Paris promptly tumbled. Strategic strokes have gone on successfully driving in, creating salients in the enemy's line so that they may be bitten off, every one of which is worthy of being termed a great blow. Humberts thrust between Lassigny and Noyon looked like an impossibility till he accomplished it, such were the dimcutics in his way: his thrust east of Noyon, along the Oise, was no less a masterful stroke; wedge after wedge have been driven in splitting off thou: sands of men and guns, and broadcasting untold casualties. Then came Mangin 's menace to the Crown Prince's army at the Vesle, and it is yet uncertain whether flight can save it; in any case its rear is being threatened to such a degree that its flight must take it back to well behind the line from which it started, north of the Chemin des Dames. Now the electrifying news comes that General Haig has struck a bigger blow still; he has swept over country in a few days that formerly took many months to capture, against an enemy well-prepared, flushed with victory, from whom half the world was expecting an offensive blow that never materialised. In the face of such great, comprehensive achievements we may well wonder what magnitude Foch's fininshing stroke is going to be on, and how much more it is going to accomplish than the other offensives have done. That a crowning effort is near at hand is now fairly certain and the Germans rare fully aware of the fact. Their newspapers tell them that it is no longer ti question of annexations or indemnities; it is no longer such matters as Belgium, Alsace and Lorraine that they are fighting for; they arc fighting for tho very existence of Germany itself.

That newspaper representing German militarism the Cologne Gazette is calling upon the German people to face the crisis with manly courage; they are told that Ludendorff has lost a million and a half of Germany's best manhood since last March.and yet they are asked to be calm while facing the loss of another million or two; while the Allies are driving their armies out of France and working unprecedented, slaughter, and causing a loss of guns and material their factories cannot overtake. We arc told that the degree of, confusion behind retreating lines is incredible. Jn the rush on B'apaume British alono took over .twentythousand in less than a week, and yet this offensive and the other offensives now current are to be small affairs compared with the final blow of the season f©r which Foch has a large army of manoeuvre in readiness, which includes the new American ,army of over three hundred thousand strong. Haig has already reached the British farthest east line and is in the neighbourhood of Gavrelle and Croiselles; from the nature of his movements it seems that he has designs on Douai, .a large centre about eight miles from where his armies are, in the neighbourhood of Gavrelle, and there are some that his plans are more ambitious than any previously decided upon. His real objective may be found in the direction of Valenciennes, driving along the Sensee between Douai and Cambrai. Desired success in this quarter would render retreat of the whole German armies to the southward .very difficult indeed and nothing could save them from incalculable disaster. In the meantime the much vaunted Hindenburg line is certainly not going to provide a resting place for the Kaiser's men again, and so mighty and comprehensive are the tasks commenced by the various armies guided by Foch, and so deeply are their intent enshrouded in secrecy that it is impossible* 'lid Iform any (opinion of what the multiplicity of offensives have to accomplish before the great final blow is struck. It is not too much to expect that German newspaper fears will bo realised, and, that the Kaiser and what'- is •left o£ his: men will be hurled rightsteck into.. German territory along a; line: of .the - . Rhine. This may appear an optimistic forecast, but one feels inclined to shame when reading in journals, which pose as leaders of world-thought, the pessimistic prognostications about Foch's enterprise, even after it had forced the enemy back to the Vesle. Foch must have smiled at the degrading display of pessimism and ignorance of those journals, which have just come to hand, and w*hich'>one feels moved to throw behind the-fire in disgust. Foch was not just waiting for the Germans to knock him out; he was feverishly preparing to knock the Germans out, and he is accomplishing his task witli