Somme Progress.

Allies’ Great Advance.

6,000 Prisoners.

Russia Strikes Again.

REFERENCES to the improving weather and sundry indications of preparatory work towards the end of last week could not very well be misinterpreted, and the suggestion made here last Friday that “we may expect a resumption of the larger activities almost immediately” has been justified by events.

There is unfortunately no space to discuss at any length the series of operations (as brilliant as any since the Somme offensive opened) or the results as recorded to date in the official reports, but these despatches are reproduced in full, and the semi-official and other messages we are able to give this morning convey an excellent idea of the nature of the fighting and the ends achieved.

The troops engaged in Sunday’s fighting quadrupled the numbers who fought at Waterloo, and our victory is all the more gratifying in view of the statement that Hindenburg inspected the Picardy front on the eve of our assault.

The whole of Guillemont and part of Ginchy are in our possession – we captured the enemy’s defences on a front of 3,000 yards – and we have again levelled up our line so that it runs now almost continuously with the French down to the edge of Combles, which is threatened on two sides and forms a salient jutting into our line.

The French achievements, as recorded in last night’s communique, are even greater, territorially speaking, and the Expert Commentator, it will have been noted, suggests the imminence of further Allied strokes along the Western front, “presumably in those sectors which have now been weakened to provide Hindenburg with the necessary reserves for arresting the Roumanian offensive”.

Everywhere, however, the enemy is so hard pressed that robbing Peter to pay Paul will prove a futile expedient. The Roumanian invasion of Translvania and the Banat is not going to be stopped so easily, and if Hungarian divisions are recalled from the Italian front our Southern Allies “through break” on the road to Laibach and Vienna will only be facilitated.

On what may still be called the main Russian front the story is the same. The Czar’s forces have scored another success in Galicia where in the region of Brzezany, they have crossed the river Teenivoka, a western tributary of the Zlota Lipa, and captured the enemy’s position, together with over 2,000 prisoners. In the wooded Carpathians the advance continues towards the Hungarian frontier. Between August 31 and September 3 General Brussiloff’s armies have captured over 19,000 prisoners including 1,300 Germans, who surrendered.

At Salonika, General Sarrail is only biding his time. Soon the Russians will be in contact with the Bulgarians in the Dobrudja and the push from the south is likely to at once follow.

If General Sarrail is waiting for the full development of the Grecian situation before he moved his patience is not likely to be tried much longer.

M. Venizelos, according to the German newspapers, is quite confident as to the future, and expects the King to formally depart at any moment from “benevolent neutrality”