Allies’ successes

Gains at many points

No ground lost anywhere

Progress at Soissons and Verdun

Somewhat surprising was the news last night that 24 out of 50 forts at Antwerp, apparently those on two banks of the Scheldt were holding out.

This may account for the lack of detailed information in the German official reports but it is just as easy to exaggerate the importance of this stubborn but fragmentary resistance as it is to over estimate the value to the invader of the capture if the city itself.

In regard to this latter a military critic this morning remarks on the fact that the tongue of the scaremonger is wagging without restraint, and that as a consequence the public and the press are slightly dissociated.

These fits of depression are harmful in more areas than one and it is well to remember that it is the enemy who alone has the real cause to feel downhearted.

Little more than a month ago the British Army was retreating with the French on its right and encircling columns of German cavalry on its right.

The Germans were at the gates of Paris and we were prepared for the further retirement of the allied armies on Orleans and the south.

Today the German, twice as strong in numbers as when the advance started, is on the defensive and is being slowly pushed back.

The German admits that he has bitten off more than he can chew.

Notable indeed are the admissions as regards the campaign in Eastern Prussia and the Berliner Tageblatt confesses that the campaign is one of supreme difficulty against a force admittedly superior.

The forests, lakes and swamps of the district offer insuperable difficulties to effective German offence and the writer admits that the question of offence for the moment is subordinate to that of defending the borders of Prussia for the army to the extreme right and that strongly reinforced on the left.

Successes are reported from elsewhere in the large field of Russian operations and in the latest official message from Petrograd we learn that the detachments of Russian cavalry having crossed several of the passes of the Carpathians have descended onto the Great Plains of Hungary.

Reports are current this morning that the German forces previously occupied with Antwerp are advancing to the coast and that they are already in Ghent and that Ostend just 38 miles away is becoming alarmed.

There are no developments on the main fighting lines over the past 24 hours.