TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE GREAT BRITISH VICTORY. THE British performance in bursting through the terribly formidable Wotan line is probably the greatest ffeat of arms which our soldiers have accomplished in this war. It may well turn out to be the most signal and determining act in the whole war. We now know that no German line is too strong for the Allies to pass through it. The effects of this knowledge both on our own men and on the enemy will be enormous. In countless ways, through growth of confidence on one side and its decline on the other, we shall watch those effects in opera- tion. The Wotan or Switch line with its massive concrete fortifications, its broad and bristling outworks of trenches and particularly strong barbed wire, and its subterranean corridors resembling tube railways, ]it by electricity and providing safe and easy communication for the hurrying bf troops to threatened points, all seemed to the German people, and naturally so, a quite impregnable position. It is an open secret that some of our own experts shared that opinion. Yet this line was overrun within a few hours, and our perfectly justifi- able conclusion is that the Germans can nowhere count upon holding a line by their great mechanical ingenuity.
One fact which we think must be especially grateful to the British nation is that Sir Douglas Haig has come into his own. His brave and uncomplaining patience in the past, his incessant holding to hie duty, without rest and too often without visible recompense, have at last been rewarded. All the time that he was gaining painful inches of ground and receiving, we cannot help saying, only a grudging mead of approval from the Government at home, he was actually, though invisibly, undermining the strength of the enemy. He was gradually bringing the enemy to the conditioa in which it would be possible to crush him. Although we think that Sir Douglas Haig has had just reasons te complain—for such reasons for example as that a change in his plan of campaign for 1917 was imposed upon him, and that the drafts he continually demanded were withheld—the present moment seems to be an occasion for general reconciliation. Let no one insist unduly on the grievances which the Army leaders and members of the War Cabinet may be argued to have had against one another in the past. Sir Douglas Haig has shove. that he deserves all the trust that can be placed in him, and if a handsome acknowledgment of this fact were made by the Government, as we hope it will be, there need be no. more " doubt, hesitation and pain." Even the dangers which lurk in the single command are never likely to appear so long as the Allies continue to march forward in triumph. The tide, even though it may be checked, is vefy unlikely to turn against us, so that while the desirability of com- plete accord between all depertments in the final stage 9f the war is obviously desirable, it can also be asserted to be easy.
Our situation at the front has improved so vastly that there are now opportunities for the training of troops tem- porarily withdrawn from the trenches. This is so important that we must say a few words about it. The Germans, always cherishing their hope of a rapid break-through, made up their minds to depend for the actual break-through upon specially-trained storm troops, who were to be the spear-head, as it were, of the German armies. When this corps d'elite had made the breach, inferior troops, byvirtue rather of weight of numbers than individual skill, were to swarm through the breach and widen it. The chief risk of this gamble—for gamble it was—was that if the- decision should not be as rapid as (ermans hoped, the ultimate stages of the fighting woul depend after all upon troops who had been taught to rega themselves as second-rate. Our own army leaders, and particularly, we believe, Sir Douglas Haig, have always most wisely set their faces against the doctrine of the corps elite. To a small extent the French have grouped together specially-trained troops, but not on a scale comparable with that of the German plan. Our own leading soldiers have argued that in a long war of exhaustion, such as this war is, victory would go to the side which could produce the highest tandard of merit in the average soldier. We believe that the British doctrine is already vindicated, and that by the time the war ends it will be established for ever as the only sound one. For the training of troops temporarily withdrawn from the line special areas with all the manifold equipment that is necessary for training ought to be held in readiness. No doubt such areas are being prepared if they are not already in existence. When they do not exist the troops sent for training have to create all the machinery of their training, and practically the whole period is exhausted before the training proper has begun.
It is tempting to speculate on the prospect opened out by the great. British victory. The Germans, as is obvious from the comments of their newspapers, are being prepared to shorten their line as far as possible and to settle down to a defensive war in the West. Sir Frederick Maurice, writing in the Daily Chronicle on Thursday, predicted that the imme- diate plan of the German Staff is •to shorten their line still more in Flanders, to hold the Sens& Canal (that is to say, the northern part of the Canal du Nord) covering Douai, to go back to the Hindenburg line in front of Cambrai and St. Quentin and further south to the Chemin des Dames. Whatever line the Germans consider most easily defensible, though it will probably be a line much further back, they will no doubt try to sit upon it during the winter while they put into operation plots for dividing the Allies and inducing them to negotiate a peace. On our side we must assume that the war cannot be ended till towards the end of the campaigning season of next year, though we need not exclude the possibility of some wonderful windfall victory before that. The numbers of prisoners taken by the Allies show that the weakening of the German armies I has been very rapid. Consider these figures. Between July 18th and August 31st, according to a French estimate, at least 128,000 Germans were captured as well as 2,069 guns. That is admitted to be an extremely cautious estimate, since in the month of August alone the British took 57,318 prisoners and 657 guns. It is practically certain that during the last six weeks at least 150,000 prisoners have been taken. It is usual to multiply the number of prisoners by four or five to estimate the number of casualties. If, erring on the side of caution, we multiply the German prisoners by four, we see that their casualties in six weeks have been something like 600,000. Marshal Foch, however, we feel sure, must be developing his plans for delivering the most shattering blow of the war next year. That we shall win and win outright is now as plain as anything can be. The latest developments in Russia make victory more than ever necessary It -is the only insurance for the civilized world. In these circumstances it ie -disappointing to read the cloudy resolution passed by the Trade Union Congress. We are convinced that this resolution was prompted by reasons of domestic concern—by the desire to hold all trade union parties together. Nevertheless it is bewildering to find labour leaders like Mr. J. H. Thomas declaring one day that Germany will have won the war if she is allowed to keep Russia, and on another day that we may safely make peace when Germany has been driven out of France and Belgium. Plain men and plain occasions deserve at least plain language. We recommend the leaders of Labour to read the stimulating language of Mr. Gompers.
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