TOWARDS VICTORY.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 August 1916, Page 7

TOWARDS VICTORY.

'THE GREAT PUSH." AN AUSPICIOUS BEGINNING,. ■ London, July 4. For once in a way, at any rate, Dame Rumor was merely guilty of a more or less "intelligent anticipation of events before, their occurrence" when last Friday week she set afloat the tale to the effect that the German front had been broken in half a dozen places, and Huns galore (30,000 was her generous figure) taken captive somewhere about Lille. Whether the "great push" on the western front for which we have all been waiting these many weary months has really commenced in earnest, it is still too early to say, 'but it is to be feared that far too large a proportion of the population of these islands made up their mind that the present offensive Meant pushing the Germans out of Flanders and over the Rhine at a pace somewhere nearly equivalent to that set by the Huns when they were making hotfoot for Paris and Calais. For those who arc indulging in daydreams on these lines there will most surely be a rude awakening, for even if the present extreme "liveliness" upon parts of the British and French front is part of a great general offensive on the part of the Allies for which we have waited so long, it is folly to anticipate that it will produce territorial results such as Russia's lightning strokes against the Austrians have done, or that even the enemy will be pushed back as quickly as he advanced. The disposition to regard the very satisfactory news that came to hand last Saturday and Sunday as the prelude of a story of the dramatic crumpling up of the German line—a "smash through," a la Hindenburg—was so very general that almost every newspaper of standing in the Kingdom has deemed it necessary to utter warnings against cherishing such beliefs as were finding expression on all hands as a result of the very satisfactory news Sir Douglas Haig was able to transmit. On Saturday night there was most decidedly a tendency to supcrelation, and many people wore indulging in visions of the Huns flying before our troops like dust before the sweeper's broom. They had clean forgotten that .the smiling fields and open towns and villages through which the Germans swept on their first rush towards Paris have during the past twenty months been transformed by the enemy into a series of defensive positions of varying strength. There is no "clear run" for us as there was for-the Huns after they had battered Mamur and Liege into submission.

These facts, however, were goon thrust upon, their notice by the Press, and undue elation evaporated quickly, giving place in most quarters to what may be described as a healthy optimism, coupled with a frank recognition of the fact that for whatever successes we won we should have to pay a heavy price, and that checks of a more or less severe nature were bound to occur. To-day "Faith and Patience" seems to be the motto of 90 per cent, of the men you meet. Now and again you come across the pessimist who is quite sure that something will "go wr,ong with the works," as at Loos, and bring the "push" to an abrupt termination; or someone who is quite certain that only the "desperate plight" ol the French in the Verdun area has forced us to such unwonted activity in tin Somme-Ancre sector. Again, you may come across an in- I dividual who obstinately refuses to le ; his eyes dwell on the western front am' prefers to gaze in the direction of Ba£ I dad and Erzerum. He is quite positive that things have gone hopelessly awrj with both Russians and British in Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, because we are getting no news from these quarters at present. There are also men whose con versation depresses because they pcrsis in dwelling upon the human sacrifice en tailed by the advance, and who appar cntly interpret the word "casualties" as "corpses." In bulk, however, you find your fellow-man to be a pattern optl-; mist, full of confidence in the ultimate I issue of the Somme struggle, but pre-; pared to have the good news he antiei-1 pates sprinkled with something that will! not be palatable. The little stories of j the fight that we find mingled witli tlie i descriptive matter and comments of thei little band of journalists who are pcr-| mitted to exercise their calling not too| far from "the back of the front," have made is very clear to those of even mod-, est intelligence that there can be no spectacular onward,rush for us. 'They have given us glimpses of the terribly formidable obstacles our soldiers have to surmount even after their path has been ; I prepared by deluges of high explosives which have blotted out the enemy's trenches, smashed .his wire entangle ments to smithereens, and reduced hi visible defensive work to rubbish heap? Tlie whole countryside over which on soldiers and their gallant French com rades are called upon to operate is one vast labyrinth of trenches with defensive works of various kinds at every point of vantage. Moreover in many parts the Germans have during their occupation of

tins territory made for ■■themselves a scries of underground barracks, machin:gun shelters and storerooms so deep down in the bowels of ■mother earth that their occupants and contents have no need to fear anything save an earthquake, for their catacomb-like dug-outs are safe from the heaviest shells. In some place? these dug-outs ; are nearer fifty than thirty feet below the surface, and many of them have been so constructed as to constitute underground fortresses capable of holding scores of men who can only be ejected at great sacrifice if they choose to put up a fight. It is on record that more than one. British regiment has suffered very severe casualties through over-running these dug-outs. The occupants simply lay :uiet in their well-concealed shelters till '■ .lie khaki wave has passed over and then '.•nergc to play on the rear of the Bri'sh troops with machine-gun and rifle ire. Then again the Germans have contracted out of 'nouses and field works 'educed to rubbish heaps by our fire arttt) little machine-gun shelters. A comiftwy of a certain regiment was passing That had once been a cottage. It was a Hire tangle of splintered and charred iffikrs and pulverised brickwork, and ithe smoke was still rising from the ruins. ''t looked merely a forlorn tribute to British gun-fire, and not a living Gernan soldier could be seen in the vicinity. Jut as the company were passing witlin fifty yards of this smouldering rubiiish heap there came from it a strcajn of lead, which nearly wiped out the lot. Vhd survives promptly tackled the rubbish heap, and speedily unearthed a ma-chine-gun and its human servants. In another ease an old broken-wheeled hay waggon lying on its side commenced to spit death at an advancing British regiment and was found to conceal a couplo of machine-guns operated by four Ger'mans, who only ceased their efforts to kill when British bayonets let the life out of them. Our men pay ungrudging tribute t.n tin. German machine-gunners

who are not only adepts at concealing themselves and their weapons, but fight to the last. They are content to remain behind after their comrades have retired from untenable- trendies in order to make the enemy pay the price for his advance, and never throw up their hands. Many of our wounded who have already reached "Blighty" have reason to curse tlic resourcefulness and tenacity of these German machine-gun operators, but they speak of them with admiration. Said one officer who was badly wounded at Frieourt:—"They are wonderful men'and work their machines 'uitil they are bombed to death. In the trenches by Frieourt they stayed on when all the other men had either been killed or wounded, and would, neither surrender nor escape. It was the same at Loos, mid it would not be oporting of us if we did not say so, though they have knocked out so many of our best." Some of the machine-gun shelters constructed in the German trenches are described as veritable land Dreadnoughts in the matter of defensive strength. Our fire blotted out the trenches, but these shelters, roofed in with huge iron, girders, concrete, sandbags and earth, survived the ordeal, and when the British artillery ceased fire, and our infantry advanced, the machine-gun men brought their weapons forth, and wrought fearful mischief among our troops advancing to the assault. One of these armor-plated shelters contained something besides a machine-gun. Our men had settled accounts with the gunners and proceeded to throw bombs into his shelter by way i,of precaution when out streamed a score or so Huns with hands upraised in token of surrender. They were rounded up, disarmed and placed under a guard, and the main body of our troops went afterward. As they disappeared in the distance more of the enemy poured out of the sheltei and attacked the guard whose prisoners, seizing whatever weapons they could find, joined in an attack on the now greatly outnumbered Britishers. Happily this ruse de guerre failed in its objects for another British company appeared on the scene, and made short work of the Huns