Germans move in the west

Is a major offensive under way?

It was inevitable (remarks Mr Edgar Wallace in the Birmingham Daily Post) that as the eastern offensive died down there should be resumption of fierce fighting in the west and on one or two sectors of the western line daily battles have been fought and are still being fought and we may expect the area of that activity to be considerably widened.

These happenings are quite in accordance with the German tradition.

The eyes of the German people are now to be directed to the West and they will obediently follow the direction.

The eastern campaign will die away into a series of insignificant actions and the German, with very little addition to his present forces in the west, will either attack or provoke attack not with the hope of achieving any decision on this side, but with the assurance that if it makes sufficient din he will impress the deluded people at home into the belief that having displayed invincibility on one frontier, he is now going to repeat the process on the other.

The first thing that has to be remembered at this moment, when things are getting a little lively nearer to home, is that if the German has withdrawn any troops from the Eastern front it is a very inconsiderable number.

The French War Office, which is always well informed upon these matters, no better informed than the British, perhaps, but more communicative, could tell us that the stream of drafts which have been passing eastward in pursuit of the army groups on the Russian front continue to flow in that direction and common-sense will tell an average human being that after between two and five months incessant fighting - some of the corps in the east have been at it for the whole five months - the veterans of the Russian campaign are not fit, and will not be fit, to undertake a new offensive for a month or so.

What in all probability has happened in the west is that the German reserves have been strengthened on this front and that on some sectors a brigade or two has been put in to tighten up the line and that this new development is little more than a prolonged and more intensified “hate”.

By far the fiercer fighting has been seen in the Argonne but the Crown Prince has not achieved any greater success in his last attempt than in his earlier efforts.

In the Vosges there has been a liveliness in the region of Hartmannsweilerkopf, the crest of which, it will be remembered, is held by the French and the Germans, the front trenches being seperated by only a few yards of ground.

As yet, however, on any part of the line there seems to be no great concentration of enemy troops.

But when that concentration comes you may be sure that the public will have little notice of what is going to happen.

The German is a master in hiding his military secrets and it is for his own purpose that he allows the Amsterdam correspondents to telegraph movements of troops to and from Belgium and France.

We cannot see how the German can risk the wastage which would be inseparable from an offensive in the west.

It would be burning the candle of reserves at both ends with a vengeance.