NEWS OF THE WEEK
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IF we judge matters superficially, the week has been one of disappointment—we had almost said of encouragement for the pessimist. On the Italian front, at Verdun, and on the Vimy Ridge the Italians, French, and British respectively have been exposed to violent attacks, and in all three cases the Germans have made ground. Only on the Tigris have any of the Allied forces advanced, and there it would be absurd to attach any very great importance to our small success. Even if General Gorringe and his gallant men—now, we are delighted to think, in touch with small advance parties of Russian cavalry—manage to take the lines of trenches and redoubts which bar the way to Kut, we shall not have achieved any considerable result. The Turks have no great object now in holding lines which once meant so much to us.
