OCR Text |
Show PROGRESS OF THE WAR. The most claimed by the entente allies at this time is that the tide of war hun turned against the Teutons. Civilian observers are apt to misinterpret misinter-pret the military situation, because al-J al-J most invariably the' estimate victory i by the gain of gmund. A military man ! estimates victory, not "by tho ground j gained nor even by battles won or lost, ' but by thov.e elements which tend to j bring success or failure in tho end. One , side may have more man power than the other, but less ammunition. If in a battle one sido exhausts its ammunition ammuni-tion while it still has greater man power than the enemy it has beoti defeated. If it exhausts its man power while it still has ammunition it is defeated. Keeping the?)fj principles in miod, it is possible to form an estimate of what has been accomplished in the recent re-cent offensives. The mere fact that the British have been held up in the Somme region whilo the Freuch have continued ,to gain ground is not largely large-ly significant. The French are exhausting exhaust-ing their man power while their output out-put of ammunition is increasing. The : Knglish man power cannot approach the j stage of exhaustion for several years, ! and the English, too, are increasing their I output of ammunition. Germany, like liVance, is rapidly ex- hausting her man power. She is not (increasing her outpnt of ammunition, i but does not need to. It is said that j Germany and Austria are producing 500 shells a day and that the allies, even with the help of the factories of Japan anr the United States, have not yet placed themselves on equal terms with the central empires. The Russian offensive has appeared to the average observer as a great victory, vic-tory, because of the ground gained, but it has been a great victory for a far dj.ft"orent reason. No doubt the gaiu of .ground with such rapidity has helped the Kussians to take a vast number of prisoners, pris-oners, but the victory was due, not to the acquisition of territory, but to tho weakening of the man power of Austria Aus-tria and the seizure of immense quantities quanti-ties of supplies. Some experts estimated esti-mated that, at the beginning of the Russian offensive the Austrians did not ! have more than 800,000 bayonets for use on all fronts. It is necessary to explain what is meant by bayonets in contradistinction i to men. Recently Winston Churchill j estimated that for every soldier able to engage the enemy three other soldiers were required behind the firing line for tho supply, transportation and other departments de-partments not directly .concerned with fighting. Tho armies of the central empires em-pires are hotter orgauized in this respect re-spect as a result of the light field railroads rail-roads which they built whenever they made advances, and seemed to be more or less permanently settled in conquered territory. Their superiority in organisation organ-isation permitted them to make the most of their man power.. Nevertheless, Austria Aus-tria cacnot now muster more thau 1,000.-000 1,000.-000 bayouets and Germany cannot muster mus-ter more thau 2,230,000, if we are to believe certain military observers. Aud yet Germany has about 6,000,000 men under arms and Austria about 3,000,000. "Hmgland has 5,500,000 men under arms and the number will be augmented by some hundreds of thousands within the next year, not counting losses. England can muster in France only about 1,250,-000 1,250,-000 bayonets, but it is evident that as the enemy's man power decreases Great Britain caa throw a greater proportion of her reserves into the actual fighting. fight-ing. Russia 's strength must be estimated in a slightly different way. She has , an inexhaustible -reserve of man power.1 It is not a question as to how many men she can muster for the bayonets, but how many bayonets she can muster mus-ter for the men. That is h3r biggest problem. That she has accomplished marvels in solving the problem since her defoats of last year is admitted by all, ;k1 is evidenced by the fact that she has placed superior numbers in the field against the Austrians. It will be seen, therefore, that the offensive in the west, when considered as a part of the war of attrition, cannot can-not be pronounced a failure, even should it be held up for a long time. Should tho English and French sweep rapidly through all the German defenses, take I points of strategic importance, capture J hundreds of guns and gigantic stores of : supplies and force the enemy to aban-I aban-I ile-n regions in which the defenses have . been made stronger and stronger during ! twenty -two months, obviously the tri-( tri-( umrh wuild be decisive. And yet s!m-! s!m-! ilar Tesults can bo attained by slow prepress daring the m-xt yt-ar. If the Ii i. I i -ii have t !: e ammunition t o keep j thi-ir offensive in operation until next i '-'.U they cannot but weaken tho foe vital'y. The L'nglish nd French offensive was iL.fcr guru ted on a iiont of about twenty-. rive rciltf, h". F"rei:'b moving forward j on a feii-iniie front and flu; Ezgii-b ou j a 1'ifte- n-mile front. Ton French gained j on thnir entire front a vter taking the . first lino Genua u trenches. Tb Y,:- : g!i:h took the fjrst hne tren-jh'is on a I t if?eon-nii!? front, but they tv re al.de In ; break through to a iircat-T d"pth only on a front of about five or six nvles. rmniTliatcl v east of Albert, which 13 their bape for the operations, they won their principal victory, taking the stronghold at Fricnuxt after pveral days ' fighting. They pressed around this town from the north and south, first eaptnring Mamotz,' which is a little to the southeast. The capture of Msrnts made the frill of Frieourt certnin. Pushing Push-ing on from Mamftl li e Fngli; h ca p-turcd p-turcd Montauban, at. a distance or about five mik-s from their original He1. This .still forms the most advance! point of thir line and yvt is not quite Rn far ad'.-anced as the French line, whb'h has reached to within two and a half miles of Peronne. The English gains were chiefly un what might be described as their right flank. On their center thy rushed toward to-ward T.a Boisselle, where they were held up. The village changed hands several times during the week, hut the English appear to be definitely in possession now. Pushing forward, they attacked Ooutalmaison, which alo has changed hands several timps. The Germans seem to bo in possession cf at least a part of this village. l,a Roissflle and Contain) Con-tain) ai son are only a little more than a milo from tho original British 15 no. Still farther to the north, toward the British left flank, is Thiepval, which is only a trifle beyond the German first j 1 lino trenches. Th'c English took this village with a rush, but forgot to clear the dugouts of tho enemy. The result was that the Germans b rough t thci r machine guns from tho dugouts alter this region had been overrun by the advancing ad-vancing enemy and fired upon the British Brit-ish columns from the rear. The attack ended in disaster for the British, who were compelled to fall back almost to their original lines. j After repelling German counter-at-j tacks for several days, the English have ! begun a new offensive and have ad-1 ad-1 vanced somewhat beyond La Boisselle and have forced back the Teutons in the i Thiopval region. j The French drive went forward to a : depth of nearly six miles on a front of 1 six or seven miles. On their right flank they were held up at Belloy en Santerre and Es trees, but have now obtained possession of these villages. Tho Russians appear to have five dis-i dis-i tinct offensives under way, which reveals re-veals the fact that they have been able to obtain an amazing amount of supplies. sup-plies. Beginning at the Gulf of Riga and reckoning to the southward, the ; Slav offensives may be numbered as fol-! fol-! lows: j First A drive just begun in the Riga j region. i Second An offensive in the Vilna region, extending for fifty miles north and south of that town. Third A counter-drive against tho Germans in tho Baranovichi zone, north of tho Pripet marshes. Fourth A. drive toward Kovcl and north and south thereof. Fifth A drive in all the region to the southeast of Lemberg. The battle in the Kovel region has been in progress for a month, and has been of the fiercest character, for the Germans must hold Kovel at all cost if they are to maintain their lines intact from that point north to Riga. If the Russians take Kovel and push westward the Germans must soon withdraw their entire lino toward East Prussia and : Central Poland. The latest news from the Kovel zone j is that the Russians, after being pushed i back for five miles at some points, have ; now definitely gained the ascendancy and forced the Germans to fall back I toward Kovel on a wide front. Southeast of Lemberg, the Russians, after taking Kolomea, pushed westward and cut the railroad which runs from Hungary through Kirlibaba pass northeastward north-eastward into Galicia and tbence to Stanislas, Lemberg and Tarnopol. This was like cutting off the right arm of the Austrian enemy, so to speak. To , the southwest, west and northwest of Kolomea the Muscovites have pressed i on, defeating their foes in many suc-! suc-! cessive' battles and taking many prisoners, pris-oners, The offensives in the three nones north of the Pripet marshes have not developed sufficiently to warrant much comment. Von Hindenburg appears to have his hands full and the Russians are exerting tremendous pressure. At Verdun the Germans again are in . possession of Thiaumont works and have pressed somewhat to the south. Neither side has withdrawn any great number of men from Verdun, and the battle continues almost as stubbornly as ever. The Italians continue to drive the Austrians from strong positions in the Tyrol region, but the resistance has become be-come much more stubborn and the gains are almost inconsiderable. In Asia Minor tho Turiks have expelled ex-pelled the Russians from the Bagdad j region of Mesopotamia and have even J pushed them back out of tho important Persian town of Kcrmaiihah. The loss, however, does not interfere essentially with the grand duke's campaign. He is operating successfully west of Erze-rum Erze-rum and to tho south out of Trebi-zond. |