Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 212, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1917 — HATS OFF TO BRITAIN [ARTICLE]

HATS OFF TO BRITAIN

LAST GREAT DRIVE PROVES THAT BRITISH SOLDIERS x DO THEIR PART. People who have tried to find some point to criticise the war have taken a great delight in repeating the German lie that England was pushing her colonial soldiers forward and holding her own back. In this, the greatest drive of the year, the soldiers from England have proven that they are capable and willing to do their part. . .. . God speed the Briton sons m their drive east and north of Ypres! They are attacking with all the bulldo tenacity of their breed; they are making ridiculous, nay, idiotic,/ those threadbare Teutonic lies about England’s getting other folks to fight her battles. But we might as well recognize that this push will meet the stiffest resistance that the dwindling resources of the central empire can muster.

The British drive is in two ways a deadl ymertace to the German scheme. Every yard that it progresses weakens the hold jof the Germans on the Belgian coast —and consequently on their valuable submarine base at Zeebrugge. If the Britons can get even within ten or twelve miles of that port, they can make it a most unwholesome place for the Kaiser’s murder boats. And every net and barrier placed in the way of the submarine campaign this fall means added weight in the dose the Kaiser is to get next spring. So much is at stake, even on a short British advance. A victory which drove the Germans from the Belgian coast would be still more far-reaching. It would put the allies in touch, on land, with Holland: and from the hour that such contact takes place, Germany never will know how soon the Dutch will be added to her list of foes. _The aristocracy of Holland is pro-German, like the privileged classes everywhere. The merchants who have made tens of millions out of German trade the last three years feel kindly to the Kaiser. But the masses of the Dutch people know him as a tyrant who sinks their ships, ruined and butchered their Belgian neighbors and threatens to absorb themselves. Let them be sure of competent allied support and they are more than likely to make their sentiments manifest in action. Any British victory in this territory must be won over the greatest force of men and guns which the Kaiser can collect. Under such circumstances a gain of yards means much and advance of a mile is epochal.