Lull in the west

Another quiet day

Fierce Russian battles

Germans checked

When Belgium is pictured to us as resembling a huge fortress we begin to realise the magnitude of the task before the allies.

To invest it will need larger armies than are at present available and it is Britain’s duty to send out more men and still more men.

Recruiting, if all that is stated is true, is still not what it ought to be, and the appearance of a few Zeppelins would probably stimulate things in that direction more than all the platform rhetoric.

The present lull in Flanders is not likely to be of long duration, despite the weather, for there are stories of German preparations so circumstantial that they cannot be dismissed as idle chatter.

Guns and still more guns are being brought up and, so far as the actual fighting is concerned, there remains little doubt that at Ypres and the area surrounding, the allies have so far been opposed by superior forces.

At the same time, the Germans have accomplished very little and their need in the east becomes more pressing as the days go by.

The official communiques of yesterday do not take us much farther.

Snow has fallen over the Franco Belgian battlefield and the Germans complain that the wintry conditions are becoming difficult for their troops.

These changes in the conditions have coincided with a cessation of the German attack; the infantry having been almost totally unemployed while the expenditure of heavy gun ammunition has been much less lavish although the cannonade south of Ypres has been maintained.

The struggle for the village of Chauvoncourt has turned for the moment in the favour of the Germans who have re-occupied the area which they had destroyed.