IS IT A BLUFF?

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2362, 19 January 1915, Page 5

IS IT A BLUFF?

STATEMENT FROM .CAIRO ADVANCE ORDERED BY BERLIN BATTLE OF SOISSONS '.GERMAJB CLAIM ''SURRENDERS FIERCE "FIGHTING IN POLAND The absorbing topio of interest in ; the war nesva to-day is the threatened 'advance of the German-officered Turkish army on Egypt, ' where the' Australians "and New Zealanders, with Indians, British Territorials and Regulars, and Egyptian troops, are in readiness to resist on the land, and the British warships are at hand to bombard from the sea. The Press' Bureau has issued a communique (based on reports from refugees at Cairo), in which the situation is reviewed. It is stated that the Turks are advancing, against the better judgment of their German officers, who regard the ill-organised Turks with mis- ' givings, but who are under orders from Berlin, to make the attempt. • In Belgium the British have achieved some progress in the region east of Nieuport and Lombartzyde. • The German bombardment of Soissons - • . continues; to judge from the German narrative of the battle which . raged' to the north of the oity, and culminated in the retirement' of a portion of tho French line to the south bank of the Aisne, the action was prolonged,'hotly contested, and included the surrender of one portion of the French line, which was taken by surprise and overwhelmingly outnumbered. Apart from its unreliable origin," the story makes interesting' reading,. compel ing some regret • that the official accounts of the Allies' successes from time to time are nob similarly In the Near Eastern theatre the Turks are advancing into' . Persia, while tho Russians in the Caucasian ranges, having inflicted a ' ! ■disastrous defeat' on the Turks at Kara Urgan, are pursuing the-fugi-tive remnants with relentless vigour. In Poland, the Russians are making progress along the Lower Vistula, but the Germans on the left bank, after delivering seven consecutive, attacks on the Russianline, succeeded, with great loss, in capturing a single advanced . trench. The Russian advance guards in the Bukowina region havo stormed one of the Carpathian passes, opening up aocesß to Hungary from a new quarter.