New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-05-20
The Climax

and long battles that it is very hard now
to recognize in such dispatches as come to
us that the climax of the fighting of the
war has been reached. Nevertheless, this
is the fact. Never in human history
never in the history Of this most terrible
Of all wars-has there been anything COM
parable in magnitude or in intensity with
the fighting which is now going on.
A greater army than that which Napo-
leon took to Moscow, measured numeri-
cally, has been put out Of the conflict
in the first month Of the Western Of
fensive. Not less than 100000 casual
ties measure the cost of a month of
the battles of Arras and the Aisne.
Compare with this 100000 men who
fought for three days on the battle
field of Gettysburg, with a casualty cost
of $4,000. At Waterloo the British lost
$4,000; the Prussians much less; and Ma
poleon's routed army not more than 10000.
In the greatest battle Of the Franco-Prus-
sian War not as many men were engaged
on both sides as were killed, wounded and
captured in the six weeks of the Battle of
Arras.
A casualty list such as the British are
now bearing would mean a total loss for
the present campaign-killed, wounded
and captured included-of almost million
men. and it would mean not less than
million and half for the Germans. This
is what real attrition means, and this is
what the war has come to-an obliterat
ing of the able-bodied manhood of Western
Europe.
1t is not too much TO say that in the
last four weeks we have seen the supreme
effort of the German military establish
ment. 1t has not terminated, but it has
already wrought a loss which must stagger
a world already accustomed to horrors by
three years of war. What the Germans
are now doing is not hard TO discern, how
ever difficult it may be to explain it in terms
Of judgment and ultimate military wis
dom. Having, by reason of the combined
Franco British attack, lost the initiative,
they are now seeking, by the employment
Of vast masses of men, to bring back the
old condition of a deadlock which was
broken by the British success at Arras.
At the present time we are not seeing
tie kind of war of position which has sub
sisted on the Western front since the
Battle of Ypres. All the organized lines
we're broken by the British in Easter week
on a front of nearly twenty miles. The
lines which the Germans had constructed
behind this front are not comparable in
strength to those that they were driven
from. No longer able to hold back the
attack of the British by field works and
iitrenchments, they were compelled to
change their tactics and by enormous coun-
ter attacks TO endeavor TO beat down the
British assault. On the French front they
did succeed substantially in holding back
the French advance. On the French front
Of
tinues; but this is not the case on the
British front.
What we are seeing, then, is tremen-
dous effort on the part of the Germans,
who are employing not merely that stra-
iegic reserve which they had held for an
offensive Of their own on the Western
front, but also large masses brought from
the Russian front, TO break down the force
of the British blow, TO infict such losses,
to put upon the British machine such
strain, that it will be unable TO continue
the offensive. Ii is an effort Of brute
strength rather than strategy or tactics,
and il is a desperate effort to compel re-
turn of the old deadlock conditions which
preceded the Battle of Arras.
II is far too early to form judgment
as 10 whether the Germans have succeeded
or failed. SO far they certainly have not
succeeded, because whenever their blows
are temporarily halted there is British
advance. Slowly, but steadily, the Brit
ish are creeping forward by rods and not
by miles, but in the face of the most
stupendous attack ever directed upon one
army by another.
We are seeing along the Scarpe a finish
fight between the British and the Germans.