Evening star., 1917-03-18

well into the Artois and Picardy high
lands. and has behind it considerabie
extent of rolling country. with hills
much the same as those which were
fought for in the battle OF the Somme;
hills that recall the New England
country in America.
The new ground which the british
have just taken over south of the
Somme is less broken and has oeeh
more heavily fortified by the Germans
than any portion of the western iront
because it covers the western side OF
the Noyon salient-that is, the portion
of their line nearest to Paris.
AS it stands, the British now occupy
something like 125 miles and the re
organized Belgian army some twenty "
five miles out Of a total of $50 miles OF
the western front. But the. portion
held by the British has been the scene
Of almost all of the severe nghting.
aside from the attack of the Germans
at verdun and the French in Cham-
pagne, during the last two years or
trench warfare. 1t is, too. the most
difficult stretch. long sections OF the
French front, notably the Nosges dis-
tricts. being totally unsuited for any
operations.
Extension to Elbow at Noyon9
The question of a further extension
of the British front remains open My
guess would be that some time this
year the British may take over as far
south as the Disc. This would make
a natural dividing point and would
greatly simplify the question of trans
port, for the British would thus occupy
all the sectors between the channel
and the great bend or elbow IN the the
a slight increase in British lines, ma
teriaily less than twenty miles. II the
Germans should attack the French as
they did last year, 1t is probable that
this extension would take place
promptly.
on the other hand. the demands upon
British numbers elsewhere are con-
siderable: there is strong British
force at Saloniki. another In Egypt and
a third in Mesopotamia. while the Brit.
ish navy requires many hundreds of
thousands of men. British man power
for the front is also limited because
Britain is supplying her allies with
many things from her workshops and
mines. 1t may be doubted, therefore.
f the British front will ever be ex-
tended beyond the Disc. but between
Roye and Ypres on the present British
front the fighting is likely to be more
desperate and more sustained than any
fighting 80 far in the British field OF
operations, and there is calm recog-
milton in Britain that British losses,
which last year amounted to about
SOC, 900 at the Somme alone. will pass
the million mark.
1t remains now to discuss the condi-
tion of the British army. I think there
is a general agreement that it's morale
and its efficiency have reached the point
where it has become one of the efec-
tive national armies. All that l saw of
I. reminded me of the accounts that
have read and heard of Grants army in
1864, when he started his great cam
paign from the Wilderness to Peters,
burg.
1t is we'll to remember that this Brit
til, yNOtr- q iyotx
volunteer army. Only few Of the re-
cruits that were obtained by conscrip-
tion have begun to arrive at the front.
A very large number of the officers have
come from civil life and the men them
selves represent the very best of the
British population.
Rated Best Material in Europe.
Physically. my guess is that the Brit
ish army today includes the best ma
teriaI in Europe. Watching the thou
sands and thousands of troops along
the roads, in the training camps and
back of the front. the impression is un-
mstakable of young. physically fit and
well trained soldiers. l was in France
during period of zero weather, unpre-
cedented in recent years. Nothing was
more striking than the impression of
health and of vigor given by the men !
saw along all the roads. They seemed
well fed, well cared for and in striking
contrast to the soldiers one saw in our
own camps during the Spanish war.
Certainly the question of health has
been settled with marvellous success by
the British. AS to the spirit of the
army. it is hard to exaggerate the con-
fidence of officers and men. For two
years the British army held its ground
in the face of an army superior in num-
bers, possessing every kind of imple-
ment of modern warfare that German
provision could supply. The British in
fantry was only in a ridiculously slight
degree helped by its artillery, because
they were lacking both the guns and
the high explosive munitions which had
become the prime essentials of modern
war. They also lacked machine guns,
having only a very few. perhaps one to
twenty compared with the Germans. |
Through all this period. largely
through the grit and determination of
the private soldier. who made bombs
out of meat tins and who used all his
ingenuity to provide weapons to meet
his foe armed with all the Krupp re-
sources. the British stuck to it. They |
opposed flesh to machinery and either
died where they stood or We're sacri- |
feed in hopeless attacks-attacks made |
hopeless by the absenc of artillery |
support.
Today the British are sending four |
shells to the German one. British ar |
tillery outnumbers and outreaches the |
German. The supply of munitions far !
exceeds the German. At the battle of |
the Somme the British aviators had |
complete control of the air, and Ger |
man artillery "shot into the blue" 1t
was the. Germans who We're then ham |
dicapped by the failure of their artil- |
lery to support them.
German Strength Weakens.
Today from one end of the British |
front to the other there is going for |
ward an endless and ceaseless pound |
ing, and under it the German strength |
is beginning to weaken. The British |
soldier sees day after day German de- |
serters coming in: he has the con- |
he has the confidence which a slow but |
sure progress forward gives. and he |
feels himself to be top dog" Having |