PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2656, 30 December 1915, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

CoMPAiiATXVBtiY little has _ been .heard about the western frontier of Egypt in the past operations of the win l , but it hw at all Umw htwn necessary, to kejj watch and warcl

against the raids of Arab tribesmen in this largely desert area, and the accounts given to-day of the minor battle in which New Zealanders and Sikhs defeated and dispersed an Arab force do not necessarily mean, that a now campaign lias opened. Gorman agents are no doubt at work among the tribesmen in Tripoli, but the absence of events hitherto in Western Egypt indicates that a very slight measure of success has attended their efforts. The Arab raid now reported was evidently not of a- very formidable character, and there is j full proof that the flamboyant -accounts of its success given by the Turks are entirely lacking in truth. The facts, offically attested, are that an Arab force from Tripoli penetrated about a hundred miles into Egyptian territory, having apparently journeyed along the coast. It was_ attacked and dispersed on Christmas Day by a New Zealand battalion and a Sikh corps, eight miles from Mersa Mafcrtih, which is the railhead of a coast railway from Alexandria. Mersa Matruh is about 180 miles west of Alexandria'as the crow flies. The locality of the engagement is about 100 miles inside the. Egyptian frontier, east of Tripoli, but the Egyptian territory penetrated by the raiders before they were encountered and dealt with is largely wilderness.

Official reports in hand, thoujh definite in stating that the raiding force vya-s dispersed and that the British losses were slight,- givo no indication of the loss sustained by the raiders. Supplementary information under this head is supplied in an unofficial message from Cairo, which states that the British land force was assisted by warships, and that the enemy, three thousand strong in tho first instance, left two thousand dead. These figures are a little staggering, and must await confirmation. A force of three thousand men losing two thousand in dead alone would be not dispersed, but annihilated, and the official reports claim only that tha raiders were dispersed.

Some misapprehension may bo created by the Paris communique. dealing- with a 'naval descent on Solium Bay, where the Egyptian-Tri-poli frontier touohes the coast. It is stated that a cruiser explored the bay and destroyed a Turkish battery. The Turks have.no means of sending guns to the Tripoli coast, but the simple explanation is available that the guns in question are probably a relic of the Tripoli war, in which Enver Pasha, with the' active cooperation of leading members of tho Senussi sect, organised the Arab tribesmen against the Italians. Two enemy submarines were encountered and put to flight by the Allied squadron which entered Solium Bay, and submarines probably represent the only means available to the Turks and their Allies of reaching the Tripoli .coast. Surface craft should have a poor prospect of evading the Allied patrols in the Eastern Mediterranean. The mission of the two submarines encountered no doubt was, as has been -suggested recently, to land enemy agents to carry on the work of stirring up the Arab tribes.

A message from the New Zealand correspondent shows that it was one of tha Rifle Brigade battalions which assisted to defeat the Arab raiders near Mersa Matruh. Brief as the official accounts are, it is i evident that the battalion, in receiving its baptism of fire, fought a very creditable action.

Though tho position as regards recruiting- policy in Great Britain will only bo definitely cleared up when Mit. Asquith makes his forthcoming announcement in the Imperial Parliament, reports on the subject to-day are in the main satisfactory. They lend, indeed, some colour to the assertion roiindly made bv one London newspaper that the alleged crisis is purely fictitious. The prevailing opinion appears to be that /he Imperial Government is about to take the only logical step in rounding off its recruiting policy by bringing. in a measure for the compulsory enlistment of unencumbered ' single men who have declined to respond to tho voluntary _ appeal. Apparently also the opinion obtains that this departure will not involve any important split in the Cabinet, t-houah some resignations arc expected. The necessity of legislation to compel tb/j enlistment of unmarried men does not admit of question if it is correct, ,as the Dcuhj Chronicle states, that 600,000 single l men are holding back. This number, it is estimated, will be reduced by half when account is taken of men medically unfit and those engaged in the manufacture of munitions and in other essential occupations. . The net total is certainly not a negligible quantity, and if it has been correctly assessed, lingering objections to the adoption of compulsory methods should quickly disappear. According to one report today, -serious opposition may still be offered by the Irish Nationalists, though their hostility may bo overcome by excluding Ireland from the operation of the compulsory legislation. There are obvious objections to such an exclusion, but that it is contemplated is quite possible since the compilation of the National Register and tho canvass under Lord Derby's scheme, which followed, did not apply to Ireland.

Knowledge of what is happening and is likely to happen in tho Balkans is little advanced by such news as is in hand at time o'f writing. It is as well to recognise that the censors of all parties are evidently under instructions to keep a tight hold upon'such information as might be of value to the enemy, and that until these conditions are relaxed— of which there is no immediate prospect—no real elucidation of the situation in the Balkans and in the Near East generally is to be looked for. Thanks to their intelligence departments, the respective headejuarters in the Near East are no doubt very much bettor informed of enemy plans and preparations than the outside public, but when every reasonable allowance has been made under this head the Near East must be regarded as offering much greater facilities for surprise operations on an important scale than either of the main theatres or. the AustroItalian theatre. The comparatively hard and fast conditions of the main theatres are not duplicated in the Near East, where smaller forces are operating with relatively open prospects. The obvious explanation of the obscurity in which the existing position in the Near East is veiled is that each side is in hopes of sooner or later springing a surprise upon tho other, and it follows that the position is not likely to bo elucidated until events of far-reaching importance have occurred. Whero something is to be gained by withholding information it is not to bo expccted that news of a reitlly informiilivo uharacter will prnqedo and the. only. recourse in the

ciroumstances is to wait patiently for news following upon events.

While Allied and enemy commanders have such an obvious motive for keeping a tight hold upon information, it is very natural that correspondents and commentators should be boxing the compass as they jtre doing at the present moment, but it is only necessary to read the news to see that the peoplo who are producing it are not at the fountain head of information, and are thrown back upon speculation and guesswork. In one breath we are told of rising feuds betwcoh the Germans and the Bulgars and of a determination on the part of the latter not to pursue the campaign against the Allies in Greece, and in the next that preparations are being made for a great converging attack upon Salonika, in which the Bulgars will take the lion's share. With intelligence of this kind to go upon, the only thing to d.o is to wait and see what happens. 'From a mass of contradictory reports and rumours one detail stands out to-day which possibly deserves attention. It is stated in an Athens message that the Greeks will offer no resistance to the Bulgarians if a frontal attack is made on the Anglo-French troops at Salonika, but will not permit a Bulgarian invasion from the flanking points on the frontier. This report is in keeping with others which imply that the main burden of continuing tho campaign againsc the AngloFrench army will bo thrown upon the Bulgarians, for presumably if tho Greeks object to a converging advance through their territory by tho Bulgarians they would object equally to such an advance by a mixed force of Austro-Germans and Bulgarians and possibly Turks.

FitoMthe Greek standpoint tie distinction between ; a frontal attack on the Allies at Salonika and a converging attack is of the utmost importance. A frontal attack by the enemy would involve only a direct advance south along the main railway from Serbia to Salonika. So advancing, the enemy forces would pass along a bottle-neck, with Greek armies on cither side and the Allied force at the southern end. In these circumstances the Greeks would be in a position to effectively limit and control the incidental occupation of their territory. On the other hand, if they permitted a converging attack _ by the enemy from the flanking points on-,, their frontier, the Greeks would be under the necessity of evacuating a great part of their northern territory and consenting to .an occupation over which they could not hope to exercise any effective control. One of the flanking points mentioned is that at which the Greek frontier is crossed by the railway from Monastir. It lies nearly 70 miles west of the Ser-bian-Salonika railway. The other is in the region of Demirhissar, about 40 miles east of the railway north from Salonika. Here a main road from Bulgaria junctions with the railway running east and west through Eastern Greece, the railway which links up Salonika with Constantinople. (

The point to be noted is that by giving the enemy the widely extended acccssto their frontiers which has been indicated the Greeks would not only be under the necessity of evacuating a great part of their northern territory, but by the same act would practically resign effective command of whole railway system. In view of the standing enmity between the Bulgars and the Greeks, it is highly probable that the latter are strongly averse to making any such crippling concession even if they are quite prepared to allow the Bulgars to advance against the Allies at Salonika by the direct route. Assuming that Greek policy is correctly stated in the report quoted, the refusal to allow the enemy to traverse Greece, except along the main railway may in part account for the continued delay in attacking the Allies. The possibility remains open, however, that larger causes are at work to account for the general halt in the enemy's Balkan operations, and though the London Times, in an article quoted to-day, commits itself to tho opinion that a formidable converging attack upon the Allies at Salonika is imminent, the indications upon which the opinion is said to be based are not visible in the_ news received here. No definite evidence is available warranting the assumption that an attack of any kind is imminent—that it is possible is not, of course, disputed—and reasons which have been touched upon exist for supposing that a converging attack is unlikely.

While, definite developments are awaited some encouragement is to be drawn from the account given by the special correspondent of a German newspaper, the Yossische Zeituiiy, of the scale upon which the Allies arc making their preparations at Salonika. According to this correspondent, 210,000 men, including 90,000 British troops, have been landed, with 1200 guns; and a first line of defences has been completed and a second line is being_ prepared. Some other German writers have voiced an opinion that the Salonika defences will be unable to withstand the force of artillery the enemy intends to bring against them, but if they are being organised on the scale indicated, and there is no reason to doubt it, the Salonika defences will have much in common with the ercat field fortifications constructed in advance of Verdun and other strongholds in the Western theatre, which have successfully resisted the utmost efforts of the enemy.