Eve of great events

What air raid may portend

The turning tide

Allies superiority on both fronts

Comic casualty lists are drawn up to show the visibly poor results attending the visits to our east coast of German aircraft and it is true that the damage done was very slight but at the same time some very narrow escapes of individuals are placed on record and with a bit more luck the hurt inflicted upon us could easily have been much greater.

Conceivably too, the mission of dirigible airplane and seaplane was not so much to drop bombs as to spy out the land.

It is well to be prepared for all eventualities, we may take it for granted the military authorities are, so forewarned is forearmed and shocks anticipated are robbed of half their effect.

The east coast it is true is the more convenient for German adventure but the importance and significance of their value must not be minimised on this account. It certainly should not be forgotten that near to the two areas North and South to which the attention has recently been paid lie possible German objectives, Elswick and London (Woolwich) It is not wildly improbable that simultaneous raids in considerable strength on both these points are contemplated and that this weeks excursions were designed to discover what means were at our disposal for writing off attacks.

It has been suggested further that German air activity coincides with with the reported movements of German warships and it seems to be generally believed that their cruisers have recently been seen some little distance from their accustomed hiding place.

There is also the possibility of coincident liveliness on the western front and it follows in the English Channel but at this point it is desirable to leave the subject. Enough has been said to instigate the thought at the back of the words.

Attention however may usefully be drawn here to a very suggestive article in the current issue of Land and Water.

After describing as very dangerous the tendency to regard the German Fleet as a more or less negligible factor he points out that the battle fleet is intact, that the damaged big battle cruisers ever probably not beyond repair, that new destroyers have replaced those lost and that, as mentioned in the Argus some 50 or 60 new submarines are now nearing completion.

He arrives at the important conclusion that the submarine blockade of our coast apparently such a failure is possibly of the nature of a feint intended to cover a future great and concerted attack on our warships.

As to the general outlook it is interesting to note that Mr Hilaire Belloc, who has hitherto adopted an attitude almost super cautious has now definitely ranged himself on the side of the angels.

He takes a most hopeful view of the situation on both fronts and says that the tide, in numbers has turned for good.

“Superiority of numbers of actually equipped and present men in the west is already established and it is now only a question of the completion of equipment for that superiority to to go on increasing steadily. The same is true of munitions, of the heavy guns, of air machines, and the same is true of the heavy pieces themselves”

Germany and Austria he says have still a certain amount of untrained material to hand which they can put in the field between now and mid summer.