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INTERESTING AND PERTINENT TOPICS OF THE DAY FOCH AND THE INITIATIVE Having seized the initiative can and will General Focli keep it This is the foremost military ques ¬ tion 011 the western front now There are many good reasons for thinking he will The chief of these is that the Allies arc intending a large offen ¬ sive this autumn At Washington information to this effect has been published If the Allies have such a purpose it would pay them to keep on hammering the Germans first at one point and then another forcing them to use up reserves in defen ¬ sive actions Such an offensive will have to be ready in two mouths and the interval is too short to give the Germans rest and opportunity for re cuiKttition and reorganization reorganizationAlready Already the German and the Allied forces are about equal in numbers and material If losses in the next two months were equal the Allies would he superior in October by the additional American troops brought in Moreover the using up of the German assault troops would give the Allies other advantages If a continuation of the pressure is Fochs decision he may be trusted to economize in men in the interval making his artillery air ¬ planes and other machinery do the bulk of the work Foch has even been a great husbander of his troops im to the point for ruthless striking He and the governments behind him cannot fail to appreciate the effect on German morale of a per ¬ manently lost initiative with a grand offensive by the Allies coming as a climax of the seasons cam ¬ paign The turning point has been passed because if the Germans failed so disastrously iu taking even Rhcims mountain they assuredly cannot hope for success against Amiens or the channel ports This turning gives General Foch exceptional opportuni ¬ ties to prepare the way for what is coining coiningIt It was recently announced from Paris that the British army in France had again been brought up to 2000000 men or equal to the high point of 1917 The losses of the spring defeats have been made good and more than made good With half a million American troops in or ready for the field and the Italian situation apparently secured General Koch may reckon he can afford better than the Germans the exhausting strain of relentless fight ¬ ing If lie did not he would have stopped his Manic drive after forcing the Germans to retreat north across tlie river Premier Cleiuenceaus paper says that the Germans have had a million casualties since March In the recent drive south of the Manic their losses must have been 150000 The free reserve of the Germans is reduced to perhaps twentyfive or thirty divisions If Foch can with Miialler losses to his own armies force the employ ¬ ment of that reserve in defence he will have ac ¬ complished wonderful work in preparing for his bigger measures Toronto Daily Mail and Empire
