The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1917-08-31
.LULL IN BATTLE
/. ON WEST FRONT
DURING WEEK
Major General Maurice
Gives Weekly Talk to
Associated Press
ITALIAN FRONT rs
MOST INTERESTING
Progress of Wearing Down
Germans Is Success
fully Carried On
(By Associated Press.)


London, Aug. 31.-The last week
has been marked by a pause on all
the western fronts-a pause which
was inevitable after the great sue
cesses of the previous week, pause
accentuated by the bad weather that
affected the operations all the way
from the North sea to the Italian
seacoast," said Major General F. B.
Maurice, chief director of military
operations at the war office in his
weekly talk to The Associated Press
yesterday.
AT the moment it is the Italian
front where the situation is the most
interesting. Here also after g. really
important advance, there now comes
pause pending the readjustment of
the artillery positions. There is
much more to be done during these
pauses. The problem is whether
General Cadorna will be able to get
his guns posted for the renewal of
the operations before the Austrians
get up adequate reserves, some of
which are being brought from the
problem in the pauses in all the bat
tles-the race between the prepara-
tons of offense and defense.
In Flanders the process of wear
ing down the Germans by continuous
bombardment, continuous air fight
ing and continuous air raids is being
kept UP and is having far greater
effect than the man in the street
realizes. This effect is shown in the
constant necessity imposed upon the
Germans of withdrawing and replac-
ing units. The best way to illus
trate this is to refer to the battles
of former times in which, as the
textbooks tell us, the first part of
the days battle was an attempt by
each side to draw in and exhaust the
enemy's reserves, thus preparing for
the second phase of the day, namely,
the decisive attack.
Exhausting Reserves.
$50 we now are in the first phase
of the Flanders battle. We are
exhausting with good success the
German reserves and later will come
the second phase to which we are
all looking forward confidently.
ION the Russian front there has
been another 'regrettable Incident
namely the voluntary withdrawal of
certain Russian units near Czerno-
witz. The result was negligible but
1t serves to show in conjunction with
General Korniloff's speech, the situa-
ton to which the Russian army has
come and makes it even more re-
markable that the Germans have
been unable to achieve more.
ION the Rumanian front Field
Marshal Won Mackensen's attack
failed owing to the gallant Rumanian
stand and the necessity Of Austrian
Withdrawals to the threatened Italian
front.
I'm the last month / have receiv-
ed remarkable number Of letters
from the United States showing how
widespread is the belief that the
British have let the allied and
Colonial troops do most of their
fighting. This is part of the Ger
man propaganda in the United
States. / have prepared for you a
few statistics to show how far this
is untrue.
"At the present moment the Brit
ish troops in France are six to one
as compared with all overseas troops
and the total casualties in France
throughout the war have been in the
of six and one-half Brit
ish to one overseas. In the Ypres-
Lens fighting since July 81 the
have been nine British to
one Colonial"