New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-04-30
The Winter Campaign in the
West.

ing more than calendar division. Kitch-
ener had been quoted as asserting that
while he had no guess as TO the date of
the termination Of the war, 1t would
begin with Mayday. But however apoc-
ryphal this legend, the solid fact that
the conditions Of weather, Of soil, Of roads
would then be favorable TO active cam
paigning established IL as the time when
the winter campaign would end, the sum-
mer operations begin.
In any review Of this winter campaign
II is natural to divide the resume into two
parts, the campaign in the west and that
in the east. Turning first to the cam
paign in the west, the simplest and cas-
Test method Of estimating what it has
meant is to return for moment TO the
conditions existing when it opened, 70 the
situation in France and Belgium on the
morning of the fall of Antwerp and in the
succeeding days.
Antwerp fell on October 9, when the
German occupation began. In the next
few days German invasion flowed over
Western Belgium like torrent released
by the breaking of dam. At the same
moment that a German force was ap
preaching Warsaw, the bulletins Of all
combatant nations reported the approach
of the Kaiser's troops TO the Channel, TO
Calais and to the cliffs Of Boulogne, from
which Napoleon had surveyed the British
shores a century before.
Consider now what were the Allied
preoccupations at this moment. From
Switzerland 10 La Bass6e the French
army stood solidly in the trenches it had
taken up after the German retreat to the
Aisne. But in the desperate fighting at
the Marine, in Alsace and in Lorraine
French losses had been enormous. Efforts
TO outhank the Germans from the Disc to
the Lys had been beaten down by superior
German numbers. The process of reor-
ganization of French armies had begun,
but had as yet made little real progress.
Equipment was still lacking to the sol
diers, ammunition was as yet insufficient
for immediate needs.
As for the British, a thin red line
was just taking root in the salient about
Ypres. After two months less than 120,-
600 British troops were in the field. On
this little army, presently reinforced by
the remnant of the Belgian army re-
treating from Antwerp, the great storm
was just breaking in Flanders. For a
whole month the world was each day to
wait with excited interest to learn
whether the Jerry construction thrown
across Flanders from the Lys to the Sea
could bear the terrific burden that was
being imposed upon it.
It's failure would not in all probability
have meant the advance Of new German
armies 70 Paris, but it would have meant
complete conquest, not alone Of Belgium,
but of Northern France. 1t would have
meant the capture Of the Channel ports
Il would have meant terrifying German
position in the west almost impregnably.
In sum, as the winter phase opened
German armies were on the offensive in
the west, as they were also advancing
upon Warsaw IN the east. Success or
failure for their second great offensive
hung in the balance for at least month.
The extreme limit Of Allied effort con-
sisted in rushing new formations, as they
could be assembled, into the stormbeaten
gap between Armentieres and Newport,
where, under the eye Of the Kaiser him
self, German military power was writing
an imperishable page in the history Of
devotion and courage.
Now. to measure the distance between
October and April, 1t is but necessary to
revert TO the April situation in the same
fields. In that later time French often
sives were being carried on in Alsace,
about st. Mhiel, in Champagne. English
forces were attacking north and south Of
Armentieres. For months the German
energy had been concentrated in the
heavy effort TO meet fresh Allied troops
with numbers not equal, but adequate TO
parry dangerous thrusts from Alsace to
Flanders. Everywhere on this broad
front, too, ground was being lost, not
much. not of decisive value, but actually
the German line had been recoiling slight
" for n continued period Of time. Neuve
Chapelle, Les Eparges, Hartmannsweiler-
kopf. Hill 60, ali marked recession under
pressure.
Read the German official statements for
October and April and the transforma-
ton is instantly evident In October each
bulletin reports new advances, towns
taken, districts occupied, the arrival at
the sea, the approach TO Warsaw. Until
April 20 there appears the monotonous
record Of Allied advances checked, Of
French assaults that broke down under
"our artillery fire." Prisoners once taken
by the thousands are occasionally re-
ported by the hundred. English and