THE RETIREMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 June 1917, Page 9

THE RETIREMENT.

| THK GER'MAX ACCOUNT. German accounts of the great witliniawal from the old line In March make hwh-Ji more interesting reading than might have been judged from the colorless brief messages cabled at the time, but tliey throw very little light on the actual operations. They all give the same general explanation, that the (lerman retreat was designed simply to throw the machinery for the Allied offensive out of gear. Tbcv claimed that the big British attack'had' been imstrated for at least three months, lor that time would be occupied in reading and bridging the country over which the lot-rent was made. '"The country behind the Allied trenches/ says one correspondent. "had been covered: with a great network of railways and roads for heavy mortars which Would enable him to move divisions and army corps with lightning speed, and so concentrate unexpectedly 011 any weak spot of the (Jerman line he might discover while shamming 'a general attack along the wliole front. For many weeks German fliers watched these vast preparations for what was to be the crowning effort of the whole war, involving an expense in treasure and troops, in blood and, powder, astounding even in this greatest of all wars, which has seen such gigantic waste of life and money. J)ay after day German fliers watched the mountains of ammunition and provisions pile up at the British base, to which well-metalled white roads reached out from the trenches like tentacles of some ghastly monster to suck in the whole world for slaughter and destruction. Millions of pounds' worth of material, iron, wood and cement, and the labor of a vast ariny was sunk in this ground between the British trenches and the base."

The enemy was bound to know of these preparations, of course, because precisely the same sort of thing hail been going on behind his own lines. This correspondent lias nothing to say about the tremendous destruction .that had to be undertaken by the Germans before the retreat, or of their inability to get all their stores away. His text, of course, is the Allied effort. "Whole fleets were busy for many months',." lie says', "carrying between Ainerica : and Europe their unending stream of supplies from the farms of the West and the mills of the industrial centres of the New World, all of which was accumulated here for what was intended to be the greatest slaughter of human beings ever known to history. All these gigantic preparations were conducted with truly English naivity, for any other nation would have told itself that fliers watching them day by day would have long ago supplied the German General Staff with very exact data of what was going on, and later they would he sure to meet sucli childishly obvious plans with proper means instead of sitting humbly still until John Bull should be ready to deal a deadly blow in comfort, as the great generals directing the British operations, seemed to think. Anyway, there can be no doubt that they worked with a will on the English side, and were nearly ready when the fair weather set in.

"Then' all of a sudden mysterious movements began on the German side. Soldiers, taking with them their kits and all other belongings, left the trenches and dug-outs, The mountains of munitions grew rapidly less by the efforts of mtay hundTeds of huge motor carriers, of waggons "drawn 'by eight horseß, streaming incessantly, day and night, over the groundless roads which nobody now thought of repairing any more. Whole villages disappeared over Bight, their inhabitants being concentrated in a few singled-out towns and phced where they were comparativelysafe and from where-they might easily reach tbeir own people when the time would come. Of bush and trees, nothing was left standing that might serve the Allies as cover. Even the belongings were removed from the houses before the latter were levelled to the ground. Night after night the artillery rolled back in an endless chain,, followed by regiment after regiment of silent grey war lords. Small troops armed with machine guns remained behind, however, and kept up a sham of trench war. Sb well did they succeed in deceiving the British that they often drew the British heavy guns to furious bombardments of what was already a deserted 1 strip of land. Behind their new positions, ten to fifteen kilometres back, the Germans chuckled when, they read in the British reports of the explosions of German munition magazines caused by the never-failing British gun-fire. They knew only too well that another village had been levelled, another bridge blown up by the astute German pioneers. When the British hesitatingly felt tlicir way into what were once the German lines' they discovered between the Oiae and Arras a lifeless chaos which baffled all their zealous preparations of many months for the deadly blow that would now fall on the air."

One could scarcely expect a German correspondent to admit that the retreat was made under compulsion, but his expressions of joy at the manner in which the Allies had been forestalled will have deceived only the. readers who wanted to be deceived. The whole article is simply an admission that the Germans could not face another Somme offensive. The correspondent of the "Tageblatt" demotes a little more attention to the actual retreat. "At last it is war again, man against man, German leadership against that of the Allies," he writes.

'lt is wonderful how many volunteers offer themselves for the most dangerous operations. It is hard to clioose from them. The Allies are searching the first heap of ruins that fell into their hands but never a chalk mark will they find that might indicate what German troops had been there before the grand exodus. The remaining natives are questioned, but their knowledge is very Vague and never correct. They themselves were surprised by the retreat, and only discovered what was happening when they received extra rations for days in advance. In one surrendered town the natives were provisioned for fifteen days but most of them gorged themselves and finished their provisions in a few days, trusting to be speedily joined by 'their countrymen. Some of them, it is true, had plenty. They would make it a practice to impose upon the good nature of the Germans, and hoarded what they had begged.

"Till the last moment the exploding platoons remained in the towns and villages to finish the work of destruction and then fight their way back the best they could. The general system of retreat was something marvellous. Every

detachment knew exactly which way to turn. Every column had its way prescribed, and, despite this gigantic movement of man, beast and truck, there were no blockades, no congestion anywhere, all arriving exactly at the prescribed Jiour. Messengers rode about to notify the different commands of the time to start while at the same time gigantic motor-cars distributed enormous quantities uf explosives to the pioncor platoons. Wherever possible \vithoiit attracting the special attention of the iiatiVes or the Allies, houses were burned down days before the evacuation. Walls that would not fall were exploded when the Allies were in the heat of an artillery fight, suggesting the tremendous effect of (heir fire. These preparations took many days, but toward the end heavy fogs in the mornings and cloudy atmosphere in the afternoons permitted the burning of villages without concealment. And to think, the Allies never had the slightest idea of what was going on. They never interfered with the German plans of destruction, and never thought of shelling the German lines of communication while ondless columns marched over them. The last I saw was German machine-gun platoons disappearing among the ruins, and German patrols taking what little part was left to await the. Allies. Slowly with enormous losses, the hostile hordes are now feeling their way through the dangers lurking all about them."