Zeppelin raid was disastrous

Many have been killed

Day of revenge coming

THE fear expressed yesterday morning that the latest Zeppelin raid had been more disastrous to us than any of its predecessors is borne out by the facts.

It is not within our province to say more than that and the public must be satisfied or dissatisfied with the details officially published.

The Press Bureau’s second statement, reproduced in the last evening’s Argus, gives the total casualties as 106-120 killed (including 2 women and 6 children), and 86 injured (27 women, 13 children). Four of the victims were soldiers of whom one was killed and the remainder innocent non-combatants. Our account located the raid as in “the London district and the eastern counties”.

The German report claims that London, Norwich, and Middlesbrough were visited, that the results were “very satisfactory” and that all the airships returned safely.

Further raids may be expected as long as the meteorological conditions remain favourable but if the Germans achieve no greater military success than has so far attended their campaign of “frightfulness” they will merely continue to add to the bill they will eventually have to pay.

The object of the enemy is to create a feeling of depression in our midst, but some of our own newspapers do this much better than all the Zeppelins, whose visits really arouse exasperation and, almost invariably, stimulate recruiting.

The day of revenge (the use of the phrase and the exercise of the emotion which brings it into being are both excusable) is surely coming and the news from the two great fronts encourages the hope that it will not be long delayed.

The story of Tarnopol was told yesterday, and the loss of 8,000 men and 30 big guns in that surprising engagement has, it now appears, created a feeling of consternation in Berlin and Constantinople, for coupled with it were the defeat lower down of the Austrian force which had crossed the Sereth (2,500 prisoners) and still further, South, in the corner between the Sereth and the Dniester, the severe check imposed upon Pflanzers troops (1,000 prisoners).

This was a decidedly bad day for the enemy for with their casualties (1,500 in prisoners alone), their total losses must have been enormous.

There is every suggestion that, with all their military skill, they were taken by surprise in the main fighting before Tarnopol, and the evidence thus afforded of the Russians’ ability to protect their flanks robs of much of their value the German successes against our Ally’s centre.

It is possibly true that Dubno, the second point on the Volhynian triangle, has been lost, but the “premeditated retreat” is still being carried out without any likelihood of disaster befalling Russian arms.

When the Germans, casting about for a policy likely to yield most profit, decided upon seeking a decision in the east, they took no half measures, and, just as certainly, they would have been mad to undertake such operations had they not expected success to crown their efforts long before this.