Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-07-27 | Page 13 | German Reserves are Being Used Up

GEfffi RESERVES ARE HIKED UP LONDON, July 2C. Aa a result of the past week's activities, the whole situation situa-tion on the western front hog been transformed. trans-formed. The Germans, according to dispatches dis-patches from the front, have used sixty-five sixty-five divisions on the Champagne front, and the whole of the crown prince's reserves re-serves have teen exhausted. Tho only fresh reserves remaining" to the Germans are less than thirty divisions attached to Crown Prince Kuppreeht's armies. Last week it appeared certain that Prince Rupprecht would be called upon to launch an attack on the British front, b'ut the enemy pat off this attack, and , the psychological moment for it probably has passed, for the Germans appear committed com-mitted to the great battle in progress, and cannot afford to stake heavily on a dubious operation at another part of the front, according to the- view of British experts. The German situation in the salient, although awkward, is not untenable. The enemy's difficulties are not greater than' those in which the British army was placed for many months in the Ypres salient, sal-ient, before the capture of Messines ridge. The Ypres salient was five miles wide and five miles deep, and was dominated by the enemy. The present German salient sali-ent is now twenty miles wide and twenty miles deep, and, similarly, is dominated by the allied artillery. Captured documents show the enemy had made- up His mind on 'the day after the allied offensive began to undertake a retirement to a line along either the I Ardre or Vesle, and had actually given ' orders for this. The orders were later 1 cancelled, presumably owing to the difficulty dif-ficulty of effecting an orderly retreat in the pinched, salient. It is possible they have, decided to retain the positions as long as possible. Military writers ' point out the allies are using up the German reserves in a battle where the Germans are continuously continu-ously in a disadvantageous position, so the situation is entirely satisfactory. If the enemy remains he cannot undertake any important offensive and the allies could hold the salient lightly and devote their energies elsewhere. One reason Tor the .Germans' abandonment abandon-ment of the plan for retirement is found in the reports of allied airmen, which show tremendous congestion along the lines of ' German communication. The Germans may be merely holding on as long as possible, in order to effect an orderly withdrawal and to remove the vast accumulations of stores and munitions muni-tions which had been gathered in this district, dis-trict, ready1 for a great advance southward. south-ward. Undoubtedly, a big effort will be made to straighten out the confusion which now exists along all the arteries of the salient. These arteries are now constantly constant-ly under the allies' shell fire, 'and work along them must be very difficult.