Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1918 — RUSH U. S. MENLLOYD GEORGE [ARTICLE]

RUSH U. S. MENLLOYD GEORGE

BRITISH PREMIER ASKS THAT U. S. SEND MEN AT ONCE—ONLY THE BEGINNING. New York, March 27.—A message from David Lloyd George, premier of Great Britian, calling upon the United States to send American reinforcements across the Atlantic in the shortest space of .time, was read tonight by Lord Reading, British high- commissioner to the United States, at a dinner given here in his honor.

“We are at the crisis of the war, attacked by an immense superiority of German troops,” said the premier in his message. “Our army has been forced to retire. The retirement has been carried out methodically before the pressure of a steady succession of fresh Geman reserves which are suffering enormous losses. “The situation is being faced with splendid courage and resolution. The ,dogged pluck of our troops has for the moment checked the ceaseless onrush of the enemy and the French have now joined in the struggle. But this battle, the greatest and most momentous in the history of the world, is only just beginning. Throughout it the French ahd British are buoyed with the knowledge that the great republic of the west will neglect no effort which can hasten its troops and its ships to Europe. • - . “In war, time is vital. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of getting American reinforcements across the Atlantic in the shortest space of time.” The dinner, which was given by the Lotus club in honor of Lord Reading, was the most largely attended of any. ir. the history of the organization. The strength of the great German offensive in France apparently is fast diminishing. On the seventh day of the titanic battle there were strong indications that the enemy was feeling materially the strain he had undergone" and that his power had been greatly impaired though bard usage. While the twon of Albert has been captured from the British and west of Roye the French have been compelled to give ground in the face of greatly superior numbers, the British have repulsed heavy attacks, both north and south otf the Somme, and also driven back of the Ancre river the Germans, who forced the stream Wednesday. The British gains between the Somme and Ancre regions are represented by the recapture of the towns of M’orlancourt and Chipilly. South of the Somme they have advanced to Proyart. which lies to the south of Bray. All along the fifty-mile front; from the region of Arras to the south of the Oise near Noyon the effects of what was to have been the final stroke to end the war in a victory for .the Teutons are only too plainly evident in ,the devastation "of the countryside and the wreck and ruin of the towns, villages and hamlets through which the armies have passed. Westward from where the old battle line reared itself the Germans everywhere have pushed forward for material gains, but with foes before them who fought with the greatest bravery and stubborness and ceded no ground uhless recompensed at usurious rates in men killed, wounded or made prisoners. ' . It is estimated that in the great attacks dedivered in mass formation more than four hundred thousand of the nearly a million men the Germans threw into the fray are dead, wounded or in the hands of their foes.