The Washington times., 1915-05-16
THE WESTERN WAR. FRONT

the brltlsh nave on the ContlnenC,
though there is a disposition to as
supe that the figure stands some
where between 100000 and 1,000,-
900. They are holding a very short
line in very great strength, at the
, western end of the battle front.
What they are there for, and what
may at length be expected of them,
are queries that the military experts
are asking freely. There has been
no impressive demonstration of the
British strength in this quarter;
rather, the British line was bent
back in the Ypres region, and not all
the lost ground has been regained.
Let it be assumed that the Brit
ish have massed, or will mass in the
next few weeks, total strength of
million men, supported by a tre-
mendous power of field artillery, in
this region on the western flank of
the allies lines. The French are
conducting a tremendous offensive at
other points; conducting it, too, at a
time when the Germans must have
drained away great force from the
west to aid in their attacks on the
Russians in Galicia. 1t is difficult
to believe that, taking the western
front as whole, the Germans are
able to match their enemy in num-
bers; there have been evidences that
they are now inferior also in artil-
lery.
The position is as if we imagine a
ball of twine partly unrolled;
thread of twine stretches along the
250-mile line of trenches through
France and Belpium; the ball itself
is the big mass of British troops
massed at the western end of this
line. Give the ball push eastward,
and the momentum. will roll it back
along the line, rolling up the twine
that has been strung along the route
of the trenches. That would seem
to be the purpose of massing the
great British force at the western
end of the allies line.
If the allies strategy is not utter
ly beyond understanding, the British
force is the big ball. When it is big
and overwhelming enough, and when
the enemy is thin and attenuated
enough, this British ball will be
started, with huge burst Of artil-
lery attack, on the great movement
of the war in the west: on the effort
to roll back along the line of
trenches through Belgium and the
north of France, in the effort to roll
up and capture or wreck the Ger
man forces stretched along that
front.
This is the apparent explanation
of present dispositions. But it is
perhaps properly to be called the
seeming explanation of present ap-
parent dispositions. 1t is perfectly
possible that this is not the real in
tention of the allies. They seem to
have disposed their forces with the
purpose of accomplishing this end.
Perhaps they have misled US, and in
doing so perhaps they have intended
also to mislead the Germans. Their
movement may finally be entirely
different.
But as matters look now, in view
of the information at hand, it would
appear that a great British force is
being massed on the western end of
the line, which at the right time is
to make a grand smash at the Ger
mans In that region, drive them
back, clear Belgium, and then roll
back the Germans spread along the
whole Franco-Belgian line. 1t is
just such a movement as the Jap
anese achieved at Mukden, when
Nogi charged in with his invincibles
from Port Arthur on the western
end Of the Russian line and rolled it
up, almost closing the neck of the
IL Oll DolIlS III WIlCll tIlc CLdT b army |
came so near to being corked up. 1t
escaped through the neck of the bot
tie; but it blubbered and gurgled out |
in disorganized mass, and left the
Japanese in control of the field.
The Japanese accomplished that
on a battle front 120 miles long.
Seemingly the allies in the west
have in mind the effort to accomplish
1t on line about twice that long.
was the great japanese VIC
tory of the war in Manchuria. Not |
so decisive as Port Arthur in itself, |
but far more conclusive as to effects
on the war. Likewise, it is incon-
ceivable that this strategy could ac-
complish for the allies the utter an
Inhalation of the German forces, or
that it could make Sedan. But it
might be decisive enough to end the
war. Permysl was, in itself, as an
isolated incident, decisive; but not
decisive of the war in the east. We
look back just a few weeks, and
wonder that Permysl was ever re-