Mow Fengtien Has Failed to Profit by Its Opportunities to Break Through: Wu Pei-fu Short of Money and Equipment actually' goi on as was possible without chaining them down.
This mixtare of courtesy and supervision made everyone in the party feel like the rimate of an exclusive asylum inded aristocrats and now Roowey Gunexr. set us all itching to get away and tell the world all of the little that While the news of thie couj a' eral in Peking seemed to dispose of any question of further fighting at the Great Wall, the following article will be found'of much interest as clearing up obscure points and illuminating the position of either side. we had observed, which was for the most part unfavourable to the Chili jeause. This restless feeling was intensified+by the certain knowledge all that we knew and could not Tientsin, Oct. 18, 'The closer one gets to this war in the North, the less likely does it. seem, judging according to all accepted standards, that Wu Pei-fu can possibly win' it, Yet, atter six days with the headquarters. train, which set out from Peking at 4 o'clock on Saturday morning, October 1, during which everyone' had an unrivalled opportunity. to study. the weaknesses of Marshal Wu's force in equipment, organization and personnel and, from the corres pondent's point' of view, no little ground for resentment ' and pre-Judice, the writer doo believe that the Chihli armies under W's direction will register not only a decisive but a spectacular victory over Chang Tso-tin within the original two months prescribed, 'The likely alternative to this' is a spectacular Chili collapse, The writer is not one of those who prophesies a stalemate. A draw might be possible if there were Chang Tso-lins on both sides, but Wa Peifu has gone into this ight temper to risk everything 0 esporate chanees and ho will either bbe completely overwhelmed by his own disabilities or crush Chang Tso-lin for ever. The writer, while placing no bets, is inclined to believe for, various reasons that Chang Tso-power will collapse completely \d irretrievably atter one or (we serious reverses and that there may. be expected any time within the next two or three weeks. Thix outcome its best in the bitter weather of mountainous North Chihli and Manchuria, Either he or his subordinates tell and a great deal besides, Jobtained through a well organized intelligence system, was being sent. wut by Japanese wireless, and ws have tied the Peking-Mukden railroad east to the world through the way into a web of knots and are now allowing military—offiials to mese news agencies, so that ignore the railway staff and move leven the puerile messages that were trains according to their "ignorant accepted from ws subject as they but autocratic "whim, ao that the [greta im the overburdened results would already have spelled cinated by much' more intelligent complete defeat if the Chihli forces and accurate Japanese reports. This had been facing any but a Chinese treatment was such marked con-army. As it is the results are bad trast to that which observers have Jenough. Delay in transport means received from Marshal Wu on preshortage of reinforcements, a vious campaigns that the resentment, dangerous shortage of supplies, the was all the keener and the reaction death of a goodly percentage of the kely to be all the stronger. seriously wounded, the loss of numerable animal who are side.
Japanese Sympathiex trucked without water or fodder, While the American and British Jand the ill will of both Chinese and attitude towards Wu Pei-fu is foreigners in every. community cases mildly sympathetic, in served by the railway, eases mildly hostile and in' the As the weather gets colder Tien-great majority' of eaves wholly: tsin is more and more inclined to indifferent, the Japanese make no your Chang Tso-lin because of the t of the fact that they would jocal famine with which the com-regard his victory and his subsequent munity ix needlessly threatened because of Wu Pei-fu's mismanage ment of his transport. The Kailan from whom control of Manchu: as a calamity. If a tenth of the suspicions entertained of the Japanese in Wu Pei-u's following could be substantiated, of the struggle, for reasons bound up in the psychology of the two men, Will be all the more likely if Wu Pei-fu loves his positions about Shanhaikuan and is forced to fall back and form a new Kne at Luan-chow.
The Unpopular President Wu Pei-fu's weaknesses are more conspicuous than his assets and are easily catalogued. He is fighting, according to. his own statement for the reunification of China, which ix a pious enough objective in itself but which the nation and the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.