OLD STUFF

It is interesting to notice the German comments on the British drive, not only in the official reports, but also in the press. The War Office, in its communique, admitted briefly that their permanent positions had been broken into on a short front. But the interpretation accorded this admission in the newspapers is bound to have a greater effect on public opinion, and one of the most representative of these, the Lokal Anzeiger, actually attempts to portray it as a moral victory for the Germans. "The British attempt to break through," it writes, "collapsed entirely in the face of the extraordinary bravery of our troops. It went no farther than the initial success. . . . . The enemy will not succeed by this abortive attack in diverting our attention from Flanders, where he is certain to renew his efforts." In other words, the public is made to believe that it was only a successful local attack which entirely failed in its broader strategic aim of forcing the Germans to transfer men and guns from another portion of the front. The stand taken by the press at the time of the Marne to the effect that a real defeat had been suffered and that it should be retrieved by yet harder fighting, no longer seems to be a safe policy. It is the necessity of making the German public fancy that their army had avoided a trap and thus won a negative success which is the true significance of this attitude. No hint of a failure is admitted to the people even in the midst of a series of unqualified successes.