WESTERN ATTACK.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 May 1917, Page 5

WESTERN ATTACK.

FOUR ATTACKS ON BULLECOURT. J THE ENEMY DEFEATED. Received May 10, !) p.m. London, May IS. A French communique states: The artillery struggle was continued in the different sectors. The report is confirmed that the enemy sufita'iicd very heavy losses in yesterday's attacks. Received May 18, 9 p.m. London, May 10. Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig reports: Further details of the fighting this morning show that tie enemy deliberately attempted by four strong concerted attacks, powerfully supported by artillery, to drive us out of Bullecuuri, and the section of the Hindenburg line eastward of the village. The first artack gave them temporarily a fo&thohl in our trenches on the right flank position on the Hindenburg line. Our coun-ter-attack immediately ejected the enemy, who left 240 killed and wouwk-d. The artillery dispersed a simultaneous attack on the left flank, and repulsed a third attack in the north-eastern corner of Bullecourt. The fourth was delivered from the south and south-east and drove 'back our posts from the western portion of the village for a hundred yards. The enemy's losses were heavy. The hostile artillerying was heavy on the Scarpe.

FRENCH ARMY CHANGES. PETAIN REPLACES OTVELLE. Received May 10, 5.5 p.m. Paris, May 15. A sensation was caused when it was known that the Council of Ministers had appointed General .Petain as the new Commander-in-Chief of the northern and north-eastern armies, while General Foch is 'to be Chief of Staff. General Nivelle commands an army group. EXTENSIVE ENEMY ATTACK ; 'BROKEN. London,, May IS. A Trench communique says:—After a violent bombardment in the Chemin des Dames region and north-west of Braye-eu-'Laonnais, the Germans last night attacked on a wide front towards the Les Covettes-Chesupigny Ridge. Our barrage and machine-gun fire broke the attack, which did not reach our lines, except at one point, where an enemy fraction gained a footing in one of our advanced elements south-west of Filain.

BRITISH ARMIES. BEST MATERIAL IN EUROPE. •{By Frank H. Simonds in the New York Tribune). English Ports in France. A good deal of uninformed criticism has been heard in the world as to the relative slowness of the British in taking over French sectors. But the difficulties of such labor are almost incalculable, and chief among these are the problems of transport. Before the war the railroad systems - leading from jthe Channel pOrts to the interior of Northern France had their centre in Paris, and their chief mission the transport of people and goods, either from the Channel to Paris or from the same ports to the industrial district of Franco, which is now in German hands. While the British occupied only the front from Ypres to La Bassee they were well served by the railroads from Calais to Lille. But as their line moved southward they were faced by the necessity of depending on single track lines not designed to carry heavy traffic, lines . which ran at right angles to the msiin trunk railways leading southward towards Paris. This condition was entirely satisfactory to the French while they held the lines between La Bassee and Roye, because the French were supplied from the south and from Paris. But before the British can take over a sector tlioy have to reconstruct railroad lines and join them up with their bases, which are on the coast and not in Central France. The result has been an immense railway construction in France 'by the British. Whole British lines have been transported to the Continent, British railway men have taken over the task of refitting and rebuilding lines, and Sir Douglas Haig told me of one instance where, he asked the railroad men of England, who had visited him, for prompt assistance and they promised him eight hundred miles of line in an incredibly short time, when his request had been for three hundred. I presume no one is better informed than the German as to this great railroad transformation that is going on in France.

As for Boulogne, Calais and Havre, they are the busiest ports in Europe today. No one who has not visited them can imagine the activity that is going forward all the time, the huge numbers of troops that are arriving, the vast stores of supplies that are accumulating. And all this goes on despite the German attacks in the air—the aeroplane raids, which are of such frequent occurrence, almost never excite comment in the Press—and despite all the attempts of the submarines to cut the sea courses, which are, in fact, the life lines of British military power in France.

FRONT OF 125 MILES. As it stands, the British now occupy something like one hundred and twentyfive miles and the reorganised Belgian l\rmy some twenty-five miles out of a total of four hundred and fifty miles of the western front. But the portion held by the British has been the scene of almost all of the severe fighting, aside from the attack of the Germans at Verdun and the French in Champagne, during the last two years of trench warfare. It is, too, the most difficult ■stretch, long sections of -he French front, notably the Vosges districts, being total* ly unsuited for any operations. The question of a further extension of the British front remains open. iUy guess would be that some time thit year the British may take over as far south as the Oise. This would make a natural dividing point and would greatly simplify the question of transport, for the British would thus occupy all the sectors between the Channel and the gnat bend or elbow in the line at

Noyon.' This would mean but a slight increase in British lines, materially less than twenty miles. If the Germans should attack the French, as they did last year, it is probable that this extension would take place, promptly. , It temajj>»-now to discuss the condition of the British Array. 1 think there is a general agreement that its morale and its ellk'icuey have reached the point where it hks become one of the effective national armies. >.ll that I saw of it reminded me of tlio accounts' that J. have read and heard ( of Grant's army in 1804, when lie. started his great campaign 'from the Wilderness to Petersburg. THE BEST MATERIAL IN EUROPE. Physically, my guess is that the British Army to-day includes the best material in Europe. Watching the, thousands and thousands of troops along the roads, in the training eanips and back of the front, the impression is unmistakable of young, physically fit and wfell-trained soldiers. I itas in France during a poriod of zero weather, unprecedented In recent years. Nothing was mare striking than the impression of health and of vigor given by the men I saw along all the roads. They seemed well fed, well cared for and in striking contrast to the soldiers one saw in our own camps during the. Spanish War. Certainly the question of health has been settled with marvellous success by the British. As to the spirit ,of:the amy, it is hard to exaggerate th.-< confidence of officers and men. For two years the British Army held its ground in the face of an army superior in numbers, possessing every kind of implement of modern warfare that German pre. vision could supply. Tho British infantry was only in a ridiculously: slight degree helped by its artillery, because there were lacking both the guns and the high explosive munitions which had become the prime essentials of modern war. They also lacked machine-guns, having only a very few, perhaps one to twenty as compared with the Germans.

Through all this period, largely through the grit and determination of the private soldier, who made bombs out of meat tins, and who used all his ingenuity to provide weapons to meet his foe armed with all the Krupp resources, the British stuck to it. liey opposed flesh to machinery and cither died where they stood or were sacrified in hopeless attacks—attacks made hopeless toy the absence of artillery support. To-day the British are sending four shells to the Germans' one. British artillery outnumbers and outreaches the German. The supply of munitions far exceeds the German. At tho battle of the fiomrne the British aviators had complete control of the air, and German artillery "shot into tho blue." It was the Germans who were then handicapped by the failure of their artillery to support.them. ..

"TOP DOG" AT LAST. To-day, from one end of the British front to the other, .there is going forward an endless and ceaseless pounding, and under it the German strength is beginning to weaken. The British soldier sees day after day Gorman deserters coming in; he has the confidence which artillery support 'giveß; he has the confidence which a slow but sure progress forward gives; and he feels himself to be "top dog," Having held his ground through all the terrible months/when he was destitute alike of munitions and of implements of war, having held the German at the moment when the German organisation and morale, were at their highest point, the British soldier now feels that his superiority must give him' a victory wliera, while still inferior, he checked the most powerful German thrust. There is little foolish optimism in the mind of the man in the trench. He do.w not talk in terms of the capture of Berlin or the collapse of the German army. He does not talk much about "starving Germany out," or about internal revo< iutions in Germany. But so far as ne talks at all he talks of specific, definite evidences of Gorman weakening, largely visible through his periscope and disclosed to him when lie goes on raids. It would be impossible to exaggerate the confidence of this British army, but it is>not tho kind of confidence that is expressed frequently in British newspapers; it is the confidence of a man who, having been for a long time under disadvantages, feels that he now has more than an even chance, more than an equal amount of strength, superior resources, and knows that his own spirit is unshaken. One cannot visit the British armies in France without feeling that a sentiment for "peace without victory" ia non-existent, and that, while conscious of the greatness of tho task before him, the British soldier feels that the ultimate outcome, is now sure.

An American will find cause for gratification and cause for regret in visiting the British army. He feels that the British experience has demonstrated that >a democracy can and will defend itself, and can, if time be given, raise great armies, equip them with munitions and meet the severest tests; but he will also feel how great is ; the price # unpre-pare-dness, for which so many of the best and finest in the. British army have already beep sacrificed.