In the western theatre of the war there has been
what the Admiralty might call a certain liveliness. Thursday's com- munique from Paris describes, indeed, a very considerable advance in Flanders. The Allies have gained a good deal of ground in Belgium around Ypres and also to the north-east of Arras. One of the features of the advance was the bombard- ment of the coast east of Nieuport by British warships, supported by land batteries and infantry attacks on shore. It is, indeed, one of the curiosities of the situation, but one highly creditable to the traditional tenacity and calmness of the British Navy, that while the Germans were inflicting a pinprick on the Yorkshire coast and slaughtering non-com- batants and women and children by the hundred, our Navy was doing real business—clearing the strip of coast near Nieuport of the enemy and cannonading the German entrenched position in and around Westende.
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