The gloom with which last week opened has to a fair extent been relieved by realization of the fact that the Allied troops in Flanders, which the Germans hoped to entrap and annihilate, have for the greater part been evacuated and are now in Britain, British, French, and Belgian soldiers, who refused to obey the orders of their king to surrender,—resting and preparing again to meet the foe. For obvious reasons no detailed figures can be given of the numbers which have been extricated, but all reports go to show that, despite German claims, they are very considerable. The operation is probably the most brilliant one in military history. When the Germans succeeded in breaking through the Allied lines north of the Somme and swept along the north bank of that river to Abbeville and thence northward along the coast of the Channel, their high command confidently expected that with their numerical superiority they would be able to close the trap. Simultaneously with that movement fierce attacks were made in two localities. along the Flanders front in an endeavour to cut the Allied forces into two and to^drive the left wing westwards. The movement very nearly succeeded, but the Allied troops fighting a strenuous rearguard action retreated slowly before German pressure until they were in a position to avail themselves of the situation which would be created by flooding the areas from Nieuport in the east and Gravelines in the west. Thus a corridor was created, with the flanks protected by stretches of territory under water, along which the Allies slowly retreated a: thousands upon thousands of men were rapidly embarked at Dunkirk and taken across the Channel. Despite every attempt of the German air arm to prevent this being done, hundreds of vessels of all classes shut-tied back and forth across the Channel can ing men of the three armies back to safety In their work they were supported by the Allied navies, and to some extent assisted by weather conditions. It was a complicated operation which could easily have gone awry if any mistake had been made, and it speaks well for the degree of ce-operation which exists between all arms of the Allies that so enormous an undertaking could have been carried out so smoothly, The Allies have, of course, lost a very considerable amount of material, though it may be taken for granted that what could be destroyed was, and what could not was rendered useless to the enemy in its present form. While all this was going on the Allied air forces maintained a continuous bombardment of positions behind the German lines and of industrial military objectives in western Germany. The Germans are naturally keeping very quiet about the damage which has been done in this way, but despatches from Berne in Switzerland report that the destruction which has been caused is enormously beyond general awareness, and that the German police have been obliged to rope off entire areas to prevent civilians from seeing the damage, which is reported to have already had serious repercussions on the moral of the inhabitants of those regions. Also in Germany there is being borne home to them the huge cost of lives and material which the German success in Flanders has involved. The German authorities are following their usual practice of endeavouring to keep the truth from the masses, though the sight of continuous lines of trains carrying wounded through Germany to Aus-trio, Moravia, Poland, and in fact anywhere away from the heart of Germany, cannot but have its psychological effect. In the early stages of the battle which is now drawing to a conclusion it was reported that the Germans had thrown 1,800,000 troops into the fray. Casualties are reported to be at least 500,000, and if the enemy has indeed lost practically a third of those effectives during the past three weeks, the imposing victory which the Germans claim must be, in the eyes of the world, considerably modified. That the enemy has succeeded in driving the Allies out of Flanders and north-eastern France beyond the Somme is readily admitted, but he has failed in what was after all his main object: the destruction of the Allied forces, and his success, therefore, is only partial.
One of the most absurd claims which the Germans have made is to the effect that as a result of these operations one million prisoners have been captured. As the Allies only had 1,200,000 men in that area, and as apart from the Belgians, not all of whom have surrendered, the Allies have succeeded in transporting the greater part of their men back to Britain, the absurdity of the claim is only too manifest. What the next few days will bring forth it is not easy to see. When the Germans eventually obtain control of Dunkirk, and the whole of the Channel coast from Abbeville it may be that they will seek to consolidate their position and prepare bases for the threatened invasion of Great Britain. That the Allied air forces will seek continually to hamper them in thi work may be taken for granted, and it may still be some time before the Germans will be ready to embark upon this movement which has fascinated other and greater military leaders than Herr Hitler. On the other hand he may decide to strike southwestwards across the Somme, and the Aisne in the hope of capturing Paris. The idea seems to be that if he could accomplish that he would then offer France peace on generous terms, thus isolating Britain as the object of the next attack. Apart from the unques-" tioned loyalty of the French to the Entente they are much too realistic not to understand that such a split as that would in the end involve their own destruction. Such a move, therefore, is doomed to failure before itis ever made. The Allies have sustained no blow in Flanders from which they cannot recover. The battle has, therefore, not proved decisive, except insofar as it has probably postponed the ultimate defeat of the Germans. The Allies are just as determined as ever they were, if not more so, to continue the struggle along the lines they have consistently followed since the commencement of hostilities, understanding that as far as they are concerned, their immediate duty is to foil Herr Hitler's Blitzkrieg, and to continue the struggle with the knowledge that time and the Allied blockade ar assisting Herr Hitler's own wasteful methods in bringing about the enemy's downfall.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.