THE WAR SITUATION.

Taihape Daily Times, 14 September 1918, Page 4

THE WAR SITUATION.

THE POSITION REVIEWED. GERMAN LINE SHORTENED BY 70 MILES. WHERE A STAND WILL BE MADE. Received 8.4 sa.m. LONDON, Sept 13. The enemy shows no inclination to abandon the Passchendaele, Wytschaete, and Messines lines. The recent enemy withdrawal along the whole Western front has resulted in shortening his lines compared to those occupied on July 14th by over 70 miles, thus economising between thirty and forty divisions. The Germans now occupy a highly defensive one, and are unlikely to abandon it except as a result of heavy fighting. Although the enemy has carried out the retirement with great skill, it was only done by a heavy strain on his military machine. Our men are also tired, but in splendid spirits.

The whole Trans-Siberian railway from Vladivostock to Samara is now in our hands, and the process of dispersing the Red Guards in the neighbourhood of Chita is continuing satisfactorily. 'There has been considerable fighting in the neighbourhood of Ekaterinburg, where it is reported that Trotsky personally commands the Bolsheviks, assisted by German officers. The Czecho Slovaks, when they captured Kzan, secured a large amount of bullion transferred by the Bolsheviks from Petrograd and Moscow for greater security. Further south there is evidence of a conceS : tration of Germans under von Eichorn, the intention apparently being to capture Tsaritsin with the object of separation of the pro-Entente troops northward from those operating between the Volga and the Caucasus, and so obtain control of the western shores of the Caspian Sea.