THE GREAT OFFENSIVE.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 November 1916, Page 8

THE GREAT OFFENSIVE.

JPROCESS OP ATTRITION, The London Daily Telegraph has received the following information from a trustworthy source: .. During the first pull of the tug-of-war that began in 1914 the whole of one team hauled on the rope at the same time. The members of the other team hauled 011 it by turns. As was natural, the former team were not dragged over line, though they were held. During the second pull, which is now going on, the Allies have hauled like one man, with the equally natural result thai the Germans are giving, east, west and south-east. On the Somme battlefront the worth of this joint pressure is proving itself tvery week. To say nothing of other tactical gains, it gives to the French and British Armies alike the advantages of ail attack on a front much wider than that of either army alcne, reducing the difficulty of dealing with strong enemy points on tie flank of the advance of each. With the French and the British assaulting Maurepas and Guillemont at once, neither place could hold out as long as Thiepval. This perfected co-operation has also a great moral value. No words are too strong to describe the friendly eagerness with which each of the Allied armie.s now fellows the fortunes of the other—the generous delight .of the French officer watching the fine charge by Wiltshire and Worcestershire men up the slopes of Thiepval, or the joy with which English soldiers count up, in the daily reports, every gun that the French army takes in its brilliant advances south of the Somme. The two armies are"proiul. and wish to be proud of each other. The otMr day a French gunner, now turned, much against his wiii, into a chauffeur by age and a couple of wounds, was waiting impatiently behind the English line to hear, from 'the French officer whom he drives, how an English attack had succeeded. "Is it welllie asked, eagerly, when the officer came back to the car. "All well." "Good, good. They went over the parapet well, the English?" "Splendidly." "Ah, the good boys! And not too many wounded!" "Not so bad." "That's great!" The man was gay all the way home. It is just the same with our men. A Frenjch success elates them like one of their own. A crew rows better together for being good friends, imd they are the better friends for rowing well together.

ICNEMY DIVISIONS CUT UP I What this united effort has meant for the Germans can now be made known. From July Ito September 8 fifty-three German divisions in all were engaged against the Allies on the Somme battle front. Out of these fourteen ■were still in the line on September , Twenty-eight had been withdrawn, quit? broken, to other areas. Eleven more had been withdrawn to rest. Under the Allies' 'artillery fire and infantry pressure, the average life or a German division, as a unit fit for present service, is about nineteen days. More than two new German divisions have had to be brought into the front line every week since the end of June to replace those which were shattered or exhausted. The figur« show—mucli more clearly than does the mere extent of ground won —how steadily and swiftly the Allies are moving towards the accomplishment of the chief immediate aim of strategy—the destruction, as a fighting force, of the enemy s armies in the field. _ Of the fifty-three German divisions enlaced on the Somme front from Jul,\ 1 V September S, it is found that twentv-eight were used wholly against the British Army, and twenty wholly afainst the French. Four others were used first against the French, and afterwords against the British; and one ■division was used first against the British and afterwards against the trench. On September 8 seven German divisions were facing each of the Allied armies. Tiie figures will be read with equally profound satisfaction in France and in England. They show what every English and every French soldier would wish to see—how evenly the two comrade armies are shaving' between thera the burdens and achievements of the stni«°le. At one time or another one of tlfe two may have more to show in the way of ground won. The other, in turn, may have more to show in the wav of enemy forces annihilated. But both are interdependent, the achievements of either is the achievement ot both. The men of neither army seek for themselves any. separate glory m the tremendous conflict which German ..■eiierals themselves, have announced to be the decisive battle of the war