Germany’s last move

Great offensive in the west

Reply to blockade

Closing of North channel

More neutral losses

Despite the success, territorially considered, of the last German offensive against the Russian armies the heel-tap has a somewhat nauseous taste.

The impossibility of driving the advantage home, of carrying the positions against which they have been hurling their masses, will bring, if it has not already brought, to the Germans mind, a clear perception of the necessity of greater economy in human lives.

The Russians have made an excellent recovery and to shake them again, even if it were possible, would entail bigger sacrifices than the enemy is prepared to make if the second part of his programme is to be carried out.

Never to prophecy unless you know, is an injunction more honoured in the breach than in the observance. It has its merits but the temptation to resist it is sometimes too great.

Thus one ventures to offer the opinion that in the very early future a fresh set of instructions will be issued, ordering the retention in the east of a sufficient force to keep the Russians in check and the drafting of vast numbers of troops to the western front.

The eastern campaign is such a hopeless business, big victories are succeeded by such a depressing aftermath, the flags which gaily float in the breeze one day, cling limply to their masts the next – that it requires a stronger stomach and a stouter heart than even the Germans possess, to keep the game up indefinitely.

Moreover the losses sustained are so great that the whole process resembles an attempt to fill a bottomless bucket or to re-quote a better simile, the pelting of the eternal snows with a peashooter.

On the western front however, the Germans believe there is something upon which an impression may be made and prospect of something definite being achieved.

Moreover with portions of France and nearly the whole of Belgium in their hands and always wanting more, there is an attractiveness about the field which Muscovite territory does not in the present circumstances, possess.

Hence, before long we may anticipate a great new offensive in the west, an offensive which indeed, it would be highly dangerous for the Germans to postpone.

When it comes it will be no small affair but more likely the most gigantic of the attempted operations of the war so far.

German warcraft will be manifested by, among other ways, the deployment of many thousands of the troops who have tasted the delights of the eastern successes.

Morale counts for a great deal more than perhaps is commonly believed and an army flushed with triumph and believing itself irresistible will accomplish vastly more than forces who’s experience has embraced little more than the monotonous routine of trench to trench collecting.

It is the policy to keep the German soldier ignorant of what is going on but the man on the spot is not blind to his surroundings.