WAR NEWS DELAYED.

Taihape Daily Times, 17 October 1918, Page 4

WAR NEWS DELAYED.

Advice by cable yesterday stated that war news was being delayed ana that no news was available. It did not state whether the delay was caused by cable derangement; whether It was the result of overwork in the news-censor’s department ,or whether news correspondents at the front were having a day or two off. The people who are furnishing the fighting men and material are only a cypher when it news of what is happening, and a Tuafl'er of a few days, or even a few months to the New Zealand official correspondent, seems to be nobody's concern, we are briefly given the bare fact that news is delayed and we have to be content if we can. Newspapers are 'paying huge sums for re-hashed-up repetitions of stories about peace; one incident Is reported from three or four sources, creating confusion so that even a regular reader of war news becomes too perplexed to know what is really hap-

penlng. Cable alienee does not, however, extend to Belgium and to as far south as Lo Cateau. Since Tuesday morning Belgian troops have -driven in past Roulers and captured territory running seven miles deep into the German lines and have bagged ten thousand prisoners, several complete batteries of guns besides other guns, machine guns and war material, in their little enterprising excursion. They have delivered a rather peremptory notification that the Belgian coast must be evacuated so as to uncover Antwerp, and they have made it very plain to German commanders that taking of men to 'defend and cover their retreat east of Cambrai and Lid Cateau may result in worse disaster. It was recently ambiguously reported that the Cerrnans were in retreat from the Scarpa to the Meuse; that report is now becoming intelligible" for- it" seems obvious that Foch is dividing up the German armies almost as he pleases. Forces in the St. Quentin sector have been split up, some are uniting with the Crown Prince’s army that is cornered in the most southern ■sector, north-east of Verdun. Those going north arc in extreme danger of meeting a British wedge that is already nearing the River Meuse at its ■most western point, from whence it takes a straight run past Charleroi tu .Liege, and now an ugly pair of Belgian pincers have commenced nipping soff huge slices of territory, which ir disregarecl by the enemy too long can only result in thte destruction of German armies in the northernmost battlefields. Some form is now decipherable in Foch’s plans; the armies struggling to get away from the Aisno and in the Ardennes appear to be doomed; it is difficult to understand how they can be extricated, and upon this confusion follows in Belgium. The situation is fraught with almost certain disaster of the most extreme chraacter to the enemy, and when the cause of the stoppage of news channels is discovered and removed, the present re-hashing and repetition or cables may be replaced by more intelligible and satisfying reports or what is actually happening.