TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES.
riallE General Staff ought really to receive credit for '-1- exercising that sort of profitable guile of which English- men are supposed to be innocent.. For many weeks every " well-informed " busybody could tell you when and where the " great push " of 1917 was to be. Whatever co-operation might be given on other parts of the line, the feature, it was said, wastto be operations along the sand dunes of Belgium. And. now the "great push" has begun, and we find that the hard blows are not on the coast, but on the old ground in front of Ypres—ground fought over again and again in the earlier stages of the war. No one in the Allied countries will be able even to read the names of the -villages and ridges which figure in Sir Douglas Haig's despatches without old emotions rushing back upon him. A Third Battle of Ypres -is in full swing.
But how different from the other two battles ! It is good, for the consolation of those who merely look on, that the battle should‘ be there, if only because it makes our progress in the war appreciated by means of a comparison that can -escape. nobody. In the former battles of Ypres only miracles saved us. Now the Germans, acknowledging our superiority in men and guns, pray for miracles to save them. It is impossible in such a war as this to keep anything absolutely secret from the. enemy. The very fact of an intense bombard- ment for some days at a particular point advertises our • intention to advance there. And yet it is most satisfactory to reflect that in a storm of rumours the truth may to a con- siderable extent lie concealed. Our new offensive surprises the British public, first because it is just where it is, and secondly because the French soddenly appear in strength on our left flank. Staff officers whose plans take their own country- men quite unawares are doing fine work. There can be no doubt- about that. Not one newspaper reader in a thousand suspected that the new offensive would begin with a Third Battle of Ypres. The nine hundred and ninety-nine told themselve.s that the capture of the Messines Ridge had all the appearance of being a single act that was not to be followed up within the immediate future. "That dominating ground," they said to themselves, "had to be in our hands for our safety. But now that we have got it, and there is no sian of Sir Douglas Haig going on, in spite of the triumphant spee with which the Ridge was captured, it is obvious that there are no large plans for this particular part of the line. We must look elsewhere." Certainly we have reason to congratulate the General Staff.
The strong and promising blows which have been struck in the new battle are, we imagine, only the first in a long series. Those who know the ground which lies before us, with its swamps and canals and undulations that rise like islands out of the sea, will not be surprised- if the movements of the war become more lively. Not that it is possible to advance very quickly over such terrain—there are many
• impediments at all times, and during heavy rain the difficulties are immense—but on the other hand it is not so easy as on other parts of the line for troops to dig themselves in -and ‘make fortified halting-places. Any map in any newspaper -shows the possibilities that are opened up by the new advance. In front of the Messines Ridge lies a swampy triangle between canals, which is controlled by our guns, and at the apex of this triangle to the east is Menin. Heflin is a junction of greatimportance for the supply of Lille, which lies nearly due south. In front of the French line, which extends northwards from Boesinghe, there is Routers, another very important junction. . The country immediately in front -of Ypres is, As one might say, littered with names which are written on the hearts of Englishmen. The Pilkem Ridge—though there is not -much of a ridge—is where the Germans seldtheir .souls as soldiers in April, 1915, and discharged the first cloud of lung-clogging poison-gas. In the First Battle of Ypres t hey had evidently made up their minds that the ridge was necessary to them,, and some of the hardest of the fighting occurred there. St. Julien, Bixschoote, Hooge (where des- perate trenches were most desperately held by the British all through the Second Battle of Ypres in April, 1915) are unfor- gettable names. Our troops have advanced over ground across which the thin and weary British garrison that held the Ypres Salient watched the picked troops of the Kaiser stream again and again in vain to the attack. In some ways the most significant name of all ih Gheluvelt—but that place at the time we write still lies within the German lines—where the Worcester& saved the situation by their charge in October, 1514. The fourth vear. of the war is opening with all the lessons of the past three years being. applied not.only with science but with resolution on -both sides. Our Staff work in the field seems to be irreproachable, and Staff, work that escapee abuse must be good indeed, as every soldier would admit. Our artillery has attained an accuracy that could never have been expected of it, and the infantry, whose-losses are said to be comparatively light, march behind the moving curtain of shells and bless the gunners as they go. If the captured German guns and the German prisoners seem to be fewer than we had hoped, the explanation is partly that the Germans have modified their tactics since the Somme and Ancre Battles. They now hold -their first and second lines lightly, and make much more play than before with the reserves, who are kept in comparative safety till the moment for the counter-attack arrives. At least this is their theory, but the reports of the battle tell us that our guns have kept such a large tract under continuous, heavy fire that the German reserves, even far back, have lost heavily along every road and approach.
On the -whole, our troops, up to the time when wo write, have advanced more successfully on the northern than on the southern part of the line. But in this as in all other battles it would .be an-entire mistake to estimate gains by a geo- graphical. measure. More important is the moral 'measure. A war, as a test of endurance, is very much like a race. For almost the whole course two competitors may run level. An inexperienced eye could see little difference between Ahem. As they run step for step abreast it seems that there is " nothing in it," and that. either might win. But a more seeing eye, or a closer view, would reveal the fact that one of the men is much more distressed than the other. He "hangs on," but he has no reserve of force left. And suddenly—right at the end of the race—the crisis conies. His opponent springs ahead ; the man who is left behind is hopelessly, beaten. Then it is made clear to everybody that for a long time there had really been a great difference between the men. Only the crisis of the final spurt had disclosed it. It is for such a crisis that Sir Douglas Haig works. He means to produce it and to survive it ; knowing well the truth of what Palmerston Raid, that the merit of the British soldier is that he can hold out" ten minutes longer" than his opponent.
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