GERMAN IN RETREAT

Vigorous Russian Attacks

WESTERN ADVANCE FEARED

RUSSIA is scoring heavily on the water and if it were not for the desperate devices to which certain English newspapers resort in their efforts to bolster up conscription, the press generally would see nothing to induce panic in our Ally’s position on land.

The “Morning Post” comes out today with a leading article headed “The Sober Truth” a title justified by its “next morning” characteristics and nothing more.

If conscription is necessary and is shown to be necessary the country will agree willingly enough to its imposition but the cause is not advanced by the dismal stuff with which the “Morning Post” insults the intelligence of its readers.

Says the writer: “Germany is advanced far into every country round her borders with which she is at war; we cling to a few miles off Flanders and a few miles of the Gallipoli Peninsula... Our only protection is to be prepared to defend ourselves as a nation.”

There is no man with anything approaching an average intellect who does not know that the “Morning Post’s” statement of the position is wholly incomplete and misleading. I would be only adding insult to insult if space were devoted to answering it.

The references to Russia however, call for some comment. “The plain truth is,” says the “Morning Post,” that the Russians “have been driven out of all their forward positions at have abandoned several great towns and a very valuable railway system to the enemy. They are now falling back on a prepared position which is threatens by most formidable movements and... there is no reason to hope for any forward movement by Russia for some time to come.”

Here we have a statement which is largely true, but which, nevertheless, does not contain the whole truth. We know that our heroic Ally has “suffered terribly” but we also know that our foe has half a dozen men or so suffering from bruises and abrasions, that their armies are now advancing with a limp and that the farther they go forward the longer their journey back.

Let us glance for a moment at the position as revealed by yesterday’s and this morning’s news and so that its presentation may not be open to criticism we may for once quote from another conscriptionist organ. What follows, until the quays took marks end, is taken from this morning’s “Times”.

“Considerable reinforcements appear to have reached the Russians in the most northerly theatre, where the army group of Von Hindenburg is operating, because for several days past the Germans have been retreating at all the principal points. During this time, the Berlin authorities have observed a discreet silence on the situation in this region but there is ample evidence in the Petrograd reports to show that for time being the enemy is over-matched.

“The German failures began at Riga nearly a week ago when the concerted attacks by land and sea broke down in both directions. South East of Riga Von Hindenburg’s army had advanced till his front formed an arc nearly 130 miles long, reaching nearly to the Dvina, near Jacobstadt and Dvinsk. Three or four days ago he was checked, and he has since been steadily retreating, closely pressed by the Russians.