Good tidings

Four enemy ships engaged and sent to the bottom

The military position

Eve of retreat

Today in addition of tidings of a more welcome character, we have another official document of length, the publication of which would have been wicked to delay for another twelve hours.

Upon this a few words of comment may be made later but for the moment we may glance at the general situation.

The news which came through last evening that four German warships had been sunk off the Belgian coast most naturally pleased, not least because it was a set off for recent misfortunes and showed that in a fair naval fight the German is no match for the Briton. It indicated too that our men are ever on the alert and that wherever the enemy ventures out we are ready and waiting, and only too anxious to come to grips.

If the Germans think that they are going to use Ostend as a naval base as has been hinted before, it is likely to prove a curse rather than a blessing to them.

Let us hope that they will make another, and bigger attempt to get their warships there. They will reach their destination all right, but it will be a destination decreed by the British Navy and one for which the compass has not been designed.

What is happening on land

Highly important messages are to hand. How absurd are people who would have us think of this war for six days a week only. All the time without cessation a struggle is going on which menaces the welfare of the whole world, our very civilisation in fact. A war which is militarism agains democracy, brute rule against the ethics of Christianity.

Imagine the man with soul so dead as to calmly wait to learn that right was triumphing and that the forces of evil were on the point of being crushed and crushed so effectively that their power is never likely to be the same again.

Our latest communique issued at midnight shows that the excellent progress on our left is not only being maintained but accelerated. It will be noted that we have occupied Froncelles and that our line is gradually moving onward so as to include Lille.

A Bordeaux message says with delight “General Joffre is thrusting the enemy out of doors without any unnecessary fuss” That message should hearten us all.

German preparations Great battle on our left This is the 75th day of the war and we are once again on the eve of great events for it is generally believed that there will be a decisive end to the desperate conflict being waged from the coast downwards.

The official communiques do not tell us much, but reading between the lines there is to be discerned much of an encouraging nature. The 3 o’clock communique says “The German troops occupying Western Belgium have not passed the line, Ostend-Thurout, Roulers-Menin.

Relative calm prevails on the greater part of the front, on our left wing no change has occurred in the Ypres region. On the right bank of the Lys the allied troops have occupied Fleur Baix as well as the immediate approaches to Armentieres. In the region of Arras and in that of St Mihiel we have continued to gain ground.