New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-08-28

TO relinquish thousand square miles OF
France, including the strong and heavily
fortified ridge between Arras and Peronne
and the high ground west of the Disc
about Noyon. The French attacks last
year about Verdun retook Douaumont and
Vaux, the two forts captured by the Ger
mans. The recent attack has retaken
Dead Mans Hill and Hill 3O4 and every
position of military Importance held by
the French before the great German as
gault in February, 1916. In Flanders the
British and French have retaken Pilkem
Ridge, the British have recaptured
Wytschacte Ridge, the Canadians have
taken Vimy Heights and Hill No. 20. North
CT the Aisne the French have captured
the high ground traversed by the Chemin-
des- Danes, and east of Rheims they have
taken the Moronviliers Hills, which were
perhaps the best of all observation and
gun positions along the whole front from
the Vosges to the sea.
If you should take a map Of the West
ern front and indicate the points of Anglo
French gain you would see that the Ger
mans have gone backward from their Sc
lected positions in almost every sector save
that about La Bassee, from Ypres as far
eastward as Rheims; and beyond Rheims,
in Champagne and in Lorraine, they have
also suffered material losses whose impor-
lance is not measured by the amount Of
ground recaptured but by the character
of the ground itself.
AS the fourth year Of the war begins
the steady recoil of the German line in
France is patent; the superiority Of the
Allies is demonstrated in the ever-grow-
ing number of important places captured;
the supremacy of Allied artillery and
of Allied tactics is revealed in the con-
trast between the German failure at Yer
oun and the successes of the Allies at the
Somme and elsewhere. The German SOL
der stands on a constantly receding line,
EXPOSED to artillery fire several times
stronger than that of his guns; he is con-
demned to see his electives melt away
fecause he is outnumbered and outgunned,
end he has begun to surrender in numbers
which would be impressive in any war
except the present and are already begin
ming to be significant in this contest in
volving the manhood of all nations.
Now the German is making desperate
effort to influence both the Allies and the
rublic of the world. He is endeavoring to
establish the idea that his line cannot be
l,roken and that incidental retirements do
rot affect his main strength. He is stead
ily assigning detectives for his enemies
which were not the detectives of their
commanders, and he habitually alleges
successes when the enemy fail to reach
not their detectives but his. He tries to
make the world believe his line is impreg-
nable because he knows that he will next
wear lack the men to man it and that it
will collapse if there is campaign of
1918. He hopes that the weak-hearted,
the faint-hearted, those whose horror OF
war is their dominating emotion, will be
SO impressed by his defence this year that
thew will use their influence to compel a
peace by negotiation this winter. If he
fails in this he knows that, with American
troops added to Anglo French numbers,
even if Russia fails to take the offensive,
he will face a military defeat and an abb
soute military decision in the West some
time between May and September of next
year.
Exactly the same sort of operation was
carried on in the Civil War when Grant,
IN his great campaign from the Rapidan
TO the James, failed to destroy Lees
armies and achieve an absolute decision.
The South, from it's shaking walls, still
Numbered forth the same defiances and
still proclaimed the same invincibility
which now falls from the lips of the Ger
man Emperor and is echoed by every Ger
man agent and sympathizer all over the
world. Yet it requires only the slightest
examination of the statistics for the past
fourteen months of the war to demon
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