General Byng formed three “Pan-Germanic groups” out of his.  We recovered many square miles of the robbed territory of France—­40 villages one day, 100 villages another; while the condition in which the Germans had left both the recovered territory and its inhabitants has steeled once more the determination of the nations at war with Germany to put an end to “this particular form of ill-doing on the part of an uncivilised race.”

During May there has been no such striking advance on either the French or British fronts, though Roeux and Bullecourt, both very important points, from their bearing on the Drocourt-Queant line, behind which lie Douai and Cambrai, have been captured by the British, and the French have continuously bettered their line and defied the most desperate counter-attacks.  But May has been specially Italy’s month!  The Italian offensive on the Isonzo, and the Carso, beginning on May 14th, in ten days achieved more than any onlooker had dared to hope.  In the section between Tolmino and Gorizia where the Isonzo runs in a fine gorge, the western bank belonging to Italy, and the eastern to Austria, all the important heights on the eastern bank across the river, except one that may fall to them any day, have been carried by the superb fighting of the Italians, amongst whom Dante’s fellow citizens, the Florentine regiment, and regiments drawn from the rich Tuscan hills have specially distinguished themselves.  While on the Carso, that rock-wilderness which stretches between Gorizia and Trieste, where fighting, especially in hot weather, supplies a supreme test of human endurance, the Italians have pushed on and on, from point to point, till now they are within ten miles of Trieste.  British artillery is with the Italian Army, and British guns have been shelling military quarters and stores in the outskirts of Trieste, while British monitors are co-operating at sea.  The end is not yet, for the Austrians will fight to their last man for Trieste; and owing to the Russian situation the Austrians have been able to draw reinforcements from Galicia, which have seriously stiffened the task of Italy.  But the omens are all good, and the Italian nation is more solidly behind its army than ever before.

So that in spite of the apparent lull in the Allied offensive on the French front, during the later weeks of May, all has really been going well.  The only result of the furious German attempts to recover the ground lost in April has been to exhaust the strength of the attackers; and the Allied cause is steadily profited thereby.  Our own troops have never been more sure of final victory.  Let me quote a soldier’s plain and graphic letter, recently published: