The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1918 IS PEACE IN SIGHT?

Taihape Daily Times, 5 September 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1918 IS PEACE IN SIGHT?

(With which is Incorporated The f&ihape Post and Walummo News).

The blackest day in the whole war for the Allies, and particularly for the British, was, probably, that of twentythird of last March. The easy capture of Peronne by the same British forces a few days ago has brought the whole scene to memory, when, by the demoralisation of General Gough’s army a huge gap of some eight miles wide was driven through British lines, but which did not remain open long enough for Marwitz to push his men through. If Marwitz had been successful in forcing a way with his oveiy tired, hard-punished brigades the two British flanks would almost assuredly have been rolled up and he would have wrought the greatest disaster and destruction that the Allies have yet had experience of. The scene of this fearful peril is just to the eastward of Peronne, where Hun and Allied troops still swarm the grouno; but it is the Hun that is now in (lire peril and is likely to be subjected to a rolling-bp process from which he can never recover until peace is signed in Berlin. To say that General Horne and General Byng are taking revenge for the break in March falls far short of describing what is taking place; the front-shattering business has wholly, definitely, and irrevokably passed to the control of the Allies and the Huns are on the run towards the German frontier on every part of the Western front. When Marwitz made the famous break against General Gough, he had nothing but an armed mob left to hi'fn wherewith to take advantage, but Horne and Byng have disciplined, high-spirited Canadians and British troops, notably the Lancashires, who can exploit their advantages and conserve their life to a marvellous extreme., There is only occasional need for rushing and storming, and they just move inexorably on, keeping up that pressure that prevents the enemy from securing sufficient time to reorganise and stabilise a line anywhere. W T hat cost Germany a price in men far, far beyond the ability to pay is being recovered at a still higher cost to the Germans and at a very cheap rate indeed to the Allies. The boasted Hindenhurg line is crossed on a six miles front, and th» brave, fearless Canadians are capturing towns several miles on the other side; ten thousand prisoners trooped through with no other escort than that provided by British wounded, in so many thousands they came that nobody had time to count them; they were glad to get out of the hell that Byng had created; they flocked in like sheep. While Germans are flock ing, unarmed, to the British rear, out soldiers are entering the plains of Cambrai; not from the difficult angle chosen by Byng last year, hut by a nearer, less obstructed road. The Hindenhurg hills are passed, and recognising the positively irreparable disaster that faces them the German High Command is sending men from wherever they can be taken, a promiscuous rabble that is not likely to stem for long the British rush for the IoTS'ly plains of Cambrai. Germany’s first very pressing trouble will be to retire her lines quickly enough to prevent the destruction or capture of huge forces. Then, are the British strong enough to keep open the deadly gap they are now making If the Germans fail the war may he said to be over, for nothing short of retirement to the Rhine seems hopeful for the German armies. It will be remembered that in November of last year General Haig planned an attack that was intended to break through to the Cambrai plains, but circumstances compelled him to take an exceedingly difficult road. There were the strong fortresses of La Vacquerle, Havrincourt Wood, the terrible Bourlon

Wood, the hilly country around Mais coing and Mesnieres, but in the pre-

sent attack these fortifications are all left to the southward, and an easy route is made possible by the enemy’s inability to hold Lens which hitherto was the bar to the gateway between Douai and Cambrai, Our armies are entering the great plain, and we are quite safe in assuming that Haig has in readiness all the cavalry and other forces to exploit to the utmost extreme the opening his men are completing. If he succeeds the whole Cambrai, St. Quentin, Laon line is at once doomed, and the Allies are already swarming in the neighbourhood of the two latter places in anticipation of the unprecedented debacle that their comrades east of Douai and Cairrbrai are readying up for them to make the most of. Operations along the Vesle and north of Soissons have another significance when viewed with a probable break through between Douai and Cambrai, as it would plainly be Impossible for the Germans to concentrate any forces capable of stopping, say, the American Army of over half a million that is anxiously waiting to , be thrown into the opening, from rushing on and completely separating the German Army in Flanders from that in France. President Wilson has given us cause to hope that the war will end this year; he refuses to fix wheat at a price for 1919 crops because peace may intervene and cauß© a loss to r Government of five hundred million dollars. Where is the vision of peace 'that President Wilson sees if it is not the cutting in twain of the German armies and blocking the only roads hy ■which they could with any speed return to their own land. The army in Belgium stands in peril of being pushed up against the Dutch frontier, with the gateway to Germany at Liege closed; the army in France would find the road over the frontier so difficult that it would have to capitulate before a quarter of It had got through, as Mangin, Humbert, and the FranooBritish generals driving down the Somme are all waiting like dogs in the leash for the consummation of what Byng and Horne are striving after at Douai and Cambrai. The German High Command is rushing' up everything that is calculated to temporarily repair, the rupture; men of all sorts and conditions are arriving by road and rail; every kind of vehicle that will carry soldiers to the source of concern is pressed into service; nothing is a millionth part so important at the moment To the Germans as the burst through of the British on to the plains of Cambrai. Both north and south subpended flanks will be rolled up if Byng and Horne succeed, and the Germans know that is a notice to quit both Belgium and Franca that they dare not disobey.