FOCH CONFUSES THE WORLD.

Taihape Daily Times, 18 September 1918, Page 4

FOCH CONFUSES THE WORLD.

What the American shelling of Metz portends is yet matter for considerable doubt. General Foch has all the world guessing, friend and enemy, belligerent and neutral, combatant and non-combatant, all are in darkest ignorance of what Foch intends to do. The Allies have driven the enemy into their strongholds, like rats into their holes, but there are ample evidences that they will either 1 be ferreted out, dug out, or starved out. The Hun rats are squealing from their holes that they want peace; they hate war and do not desire it; but the squeal is familiar; it.is an old dodge, practiced by the wily Hun on som* former occasions when the Nemises dog was nosing his fur. He is vacating Douai, and is reported to be flitting cautiously from Lille, and whatever happens at Cambrai, St. Quentin and Laon it will end by those places being occupied by the Allies very shortly. French and British armies are daily capturing positions that renders those strongholds increasingly insecure and more vulnerable, and there is nothing at present visible that may be regarded as a fly in Allied ointment. What is of the utmost concern now, is the huge American army, which has just performed its first successful, valorous feat of arms against a powerful enemy. In only hours the Americans captured a strongly-fortified salient, over fifteen hundred prisoners, two hundred guns, and almost incalculable war. material, besides liberating hundreds of square miles of French territory. What is most Significant and ominous is, that when the battle is over we find American Army, or a quarter of a million of if, on German territory, facing Metz from whence a large proportion of the German armies in France is supplied, perhaps the strongest of all Germany’s fortified towns; and the question naturally arises, has General Pershing the forces at his command that will assure a successful invasion of German territory? Expert and official Americans in Washington and New York believe that Metz is Pershing’s objective. It is true that Pershing is bombarding Metz, and that Metz is bombarding Pershing. Whether this is camouflage or the real "Simon Pure” no one ventures to predict. Foch has friend and enemy confused I and almost afraid to guess. What is supremely gratifying is the knowledge that the Americans have an army that can operate entirely apart from the British and French, and at the same time lend men where they are needed. We cannot believe that Pershing has crossed the. German frontier, with no well-formed project in view. Our uncertainty will, however, be short-lived, as the time for vigorous prosecution of military operations will be brought to a close by winter conditions prevailing. We cannot help thinking the American army of a million and a half intends to close the . year with something more to its credit than the St. Mihiel salient; what that something is, we frankly admit, we have no conception.