THE LAST RESERVES.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 October 1917, Page 8

THE LAST RESERVES.

WILL DECIDE THE ISSUE. There are one or two publicists who decline to accept the current doctrine that the war is essentially a struggle of endurance and that victory will be to the side that can last longest, but that is certainly the only view that should count with the general public. It has the emphatic endorsement of the authorities in all Allied countries. When General F. B. Maurice, Director of Military Operations, was surveying the position at the close of the thira year of the war he laid it down that "the whole lesson of- the three years of warfare is to emphasise the military maxim that the man with the last reserves is going to win, and we still have the whole power of the United States to draw upon. The United States is to-day the general reserve of the Entente. With that reserve intact we may look' the fourth year in the face with entire confidence." That is why General Maurice regards the entry of the United States a>. the most important event of the whole year. "Up to the present," he ' said, France and Russia always have been able to say to their people that the English power has not yet been developed to the fullest extent and that when England's full weight was in the field, the pressure on the French and Russians would be somewhat lessened. That still is true, but only to a limited extent. Even England is getting near the point where she cannot extend her work mucf> further in France. Meanwhile the strain in the continental countries is becoming greater and/greater, and the French are in real need of more and more support.' i"Of course," he added, "the same is true, and probably in far greater measure, in enemy quarters," General Maurice went on to speak ol the broader aspects of the war, outlining the course 1 of the campaigns and developing the argument that the Central 'Powers are steadily declining in strength. "In the autumn of 1013," he said, "Germany definitely abandoned hei\old prewar strategic scheme, and started on a new plan developed since the war began, namely, an effort to upbuild "MittelEuropia' as a great block composed of four so-called Central Powers which would command the road to the East. The autumn campaign of 1015 consisted, in essence, of the furtherance of this scheme by conquering Serbia, bringing in Bulgaria, and halting our Dardanelles effort by rushing munitions, supplies and soldiers to the assistance of the Turks. By the winter of 1015 Germany had gone a long way toward realisation of her own ambition, and this point represents to myimind the grand climacteric of Germany's offensive power. All this time Great Britain had been building up armies, and with the beginning of 1915 we, for the first time, had a real armv in the field. With the spring of 1016, Germany had eome to realise that the conquest of Russia was impossible; Russia was too massive to kill .or crush. So the German staff again turned on France, and the Verdun attack was the result. "With the defeat of Germany at Verdun came a turning of the tide of which further manifestation was seen in a successful British offensive," Goneral Maurice continued. "Previous British military efforts had been, comparatively speaking, minor operations or operations undertaken in support of the French. At the Somme we started cur new work, and really great, important work it was, although a great deal of contemporary effect of the Verdun defeat and of the Somme victory was neutralised by Germany's push into Ron-mania. The Roumanian push, however, viewed in true historical perspective, was merely a flash in the pan. The Gorman military power was already on fife decline, and her offensive strength was nothing like what it had been the year before. The end of 1910 found the situation between Uie two great group? of contestants about equally balanced, but with the scales leaning sltehtlv in favor of the Entente. The year 1917 lias presented a still rosier picture. During the whole third year of the war Germany and her allies have attempted nothing on land. Thoy everywhere have been on the defensive. The Turks lost Bagdad and the Sinai peninsula. On Germany's eastern frontier, although the Russian revolution enormously weakened Russia's military power, Germany was Incapable of taking advantage of the situation. On the Austrian front the Italians got In powerful blpws. In the west the British and French struck repeatedly, and the Germans have been powerless to answer Back." ?'Bar«)v able to hajw on." is General

Maurice's ultimate verdict concerning Germany. The failure of the offensive against the demoralised Russians in Oalicia and the failure of the big offensive against the Russians and Roumanians on the Sereth confirmed the view that German quiescence during the revolutionary period in Russia was due to her military weakness, and not to any tenderness towards Russia. The failure to take immedliflte advantage of the opening on the Dvina tells the same tale. No doubt enormous efforts are bping made to gather strength for an offensive against the northern Russian armies, but the threatened drive could not be delivered promptly, and so far the enemy has merely occupied the territory that was voluntarily abandoned by the Russians. "This Is the pitiful state," the general concluded, "to which we have reduced the great Power whose whole military gospel was summed up in the phrase 'vigorous offensive.' Germany's military helplessness owing to the long strain on her man nower, material and resources is such that to-day she barely is able to hang on, and her only hope is that she mny find some way of similarly wearing us down and forcing us out of the war before wo get up the momentum to drive her bnck. At present Germany is banking on the U-boat. She hopes against hope that the U-boat will reduce the people of the Entente Powers to the sqme state of want, privation and suffering which she has been enduring for months and years past. She hopes to make the Entente peoples cry enough and start peace parleys while she still has the big pawns with which to bargain at a peace conference,"