PROGRESS OF THE WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 233, 11 March 1915, Page 7

PROGRESS OF THE WAR.

DESTRUCTION OF PRUSSIAN PLANS. Mr Hilairo Reikis, in ''Land unci Water," sums up in the following term., the results of the great war as the facts presented themselves to him t« •ilith December:— 1. Upon the discovery of a great French reserve behind Paris, a discovery made on or about Sedan Day, the best and principal German army is ordered to attempt the impossible,.|uid to march across the front of. the British contingent and the French Fifth Army. It fails, and the whole of the German forces are thrown back to prepare a defensive position along "the Aiunc, though still highly superior in numbers to the enemy before them.

2. That enemy is next dealt with on the basis of these superior numbers by attempted German .movement:! to' out. flank by the west. These movements successively fail as the.y are tried one after the other. They proceed further and further north until the. sea is reached.

3. A pei'teetly evident change Jn the objective of the German commanders in the West takes place in early October, and it is determined, rightly or wrongly, to seize the French share of the straits of Dover, and, Paris having failed them, to consider London. But this attack does not take place m a concerted blow soiv.f "•'''••r»' *outii o; f.iUe. such as would uncover the whole sea. coast were it successful; it takes the political rather than tlit- military lorm of an advance along tlie coast towards Calais. Jt hopelessly fails. And that is the story of October.

i. The story of the first half of November in the West is the story oi an attack made upon the British contingent holding the salient round Ypres, an attack the full strategical value of which no one has defined, for with the utmost success (which it failed to obtain) it would have done no more apparently than straighten the line, it comes to no better end than thc attack along thc sea coast, and the two beiveen them account for" perhaps 120,000 men. iu. At much the same time, in ;the eastern theatre of war, the • earlier successes of the Russians against the Austrians at Lemberg are parried by an advance in force of Austriimg and Germans combined towards the Vistula, the key, of course, the capture of Warsaw, where the principal railways meet, and where is the principal bridge over the river. There is fought for the possesion of lliat city and point the first battle of Warsaw. The Germans; are compelled to re., treat, and their whole line Jails hack towards the frontier.

6. As thc Russian forces approach the frontier. the great mass of them are concentrated in the south, thrc-aten-ng Cracow and Silesia. It is absolutely essential to Germany to save this latter province from invasion. Many of the new formations of rapidly trained men are now ready (they prove excellent, in the field); armies are summoned from the west, where no more men are left than can just hold tlie line, and pcrhapu the best German general—Hindcnlmrg--relieves the pressure ini Cracow, while, a daring and successful surprise is effected by the great ma;;& of his forces behind the frontier) iigains.t tlie comparatively weak forces on the Russian north. The object of this movement is, of course, again to grasp Warsaw, and the second battle for Warssw begins, it has gone on tor u month during which period the Rusuifins have lost about twenty miles of ground, and are still covering Warsaw sw their reserves and .supplies slowly continue to arrive..

7. Meanwhile, in the south, in front of Cracow tlie Russians give ground also, because the passes in the Carpathians arc re-taken by the Austrians, who threaten them in But they arc only retaken by the Austrians at a certain expense, for:

3. The complete subjugation of Servia, and the final elimination of that factor in tlie war, the control of the Balkans, and thc issue to the Turkish ally and to tlie sea, is overwhelmingly and dramatically defeated in a week's violent action, which drives the enemy out of Servia altogether ,and he re-crosses tlie frontier Into Bosnia. There is a tabie of the main events of the war since the tide turned on 6th September. And does it. not, synopticuily arranged, prove up to the hilt the existence of a succession of separate and in somq measure self-contradictory plans? Ts it not a continuous process of "I try this: I fail. I try that: I fail.

[ try the 'other: I fail. I say I will hold fast here in order to press on there, but [ fail to hold fust here,"

One's conviction of this mental attitude towards the general position in the will of the German commanders is very much increased by a, consideration nf a number of subsidiary points:— 1. The official German communiques, formerly so accurate, begin to contain deliberately exaggerated and foolish statements: that 15,000, English liav& been drowned in the River Yscr: that there have been no losses of matei'ial or of men in front of the river Niemen; that progress between Ea, Basseo .and Nieuport is "slow but sure"; and lastly, that a vast decisive battle has been won in Poland. The said decisive battle be. mg the advance, in a month's fighting, over a belt of about twenty miles, with no development of tlie enemy, and with no maintained piercing of his lino. 2. .The German licet effects a couple of raids upon English watering places, with the object of killing a number of civilians. In the first, that upon Yarmouth, it misjudges its range. In thc second, it .murders somewhat over 100 civilians, including women and little children, to no military effect whatever. 3. The enemy first destroys certain monuments of art and certain treasures of antiquity, this is a so-called military policy; then, frightened, at the criticisms of neutrals, he apologises for thc action in several self-contradictory ollic. i.il accounts. He then refrains from perpetrating similar ations in similar piaees (the Germans could still perfectly well destroy llhcims Cathedral, if ' they thought American opinion, for instance, would warm towards, them), and yet idiotically begins the same game against Arras and against Ypres, destroying in those two towns thinga of irrepJacable l">auty, utterly insignificant- to his military success.

4. The enemy approaches {lie French Government with secret terms of peace, ridieuously iiisiill'icient (tliey include Metz ami part of Upper Alsace). His terms of peace are also rejected. Then, at the height of his occupation of Servia, lie approaches that Government for a second time, and his overtures are again rejected. . . o. He declares Swedish wood controband of war, the said wood being of insiiniiiieant advantage to England, which ' has all the markets qf the world at lier disposal, and of none to France, while wood is anions the staples of Sweden, and Sweden the only country in Europe where popular opinion is more or less in favor of (lermany. (I. Turkey is bought, under the imliressiou that this aetinn would lead to a !rreat Mahometan rising againat the Allied Towers, also with the hone of he'nr.' able to join hands wire TrnV«v across Servia. .Neither thing happens.

The list might be indefinitely exteS3- (.•<!. 1 have quoted only a lew heads to which any or my readers can add at pleasure, for the indications of the kind arc increasing numerous as time procee<:s.

\ow I maintain that a disorder of this hind means a corresponding diaoriirr ill the great general plan of the German higher command,, and that this disorder is due to the destruction of an original plan, which liaa failed after be. ing elaborated for years, and which cannot be replaced by any other great general plan during the haste of war. That conclusion has nothing to do with the excellence of particular designs. The march, along the sea coast towards Calais was patently bad. The I dispositions in Poland for the relief of Cracow are as patently good. Bui the conclusion I hero reach has nothing to do with the goodness or badness of particular portions. It has to do with the whole scheme of the war. And that scheme has, upon the side pf the German higher command, demonstrably fallen into disorder during the present piTase of the campaign. Whether later one co-ordinated plan can be recovered and pnrsued only the future will show.