PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2920, 4 November 1916, Page 8

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

There are., no means. ,o.f .determining off-hand, whether the. lA.th.ens report about the interception of letters from' the King and Queen of Greece to tho Kaiser is,-or is not, true, but the point really matters very little. It cannot be doubted that such- letters' as .are described have passed between"-the' personages named, and the actual'letters may easily have contained information of much greater value to the enemy than particulars of the Suez Canal fortifications. That Constantine, in spite of his repeated professions of benevolent neutrality, is' as actively hostile to the Allies as his circumstances will permit is not a matter of doubt or uncertainty. The facts of the position are fully demonstrated by the drastic precautions the Allies have had fc> take to protect themselves against treachery on of the King of Greece. It is- >thus impossible to found a sensation upon the reported discovery of a portfolio of incriminating papers. At most they would only stamp Constantine with the character he already plainly bears. But ' the incident emphasises anew the mysterious and unfathomable aspects of the Allied policy in Greece: On visible evidence they are showing amazing toleration of a petty monarch who has done his best, and perhaps with some temporary and not unimportant success, to wreck their military plans. The Athens crowds which are said to have greeted the funeral of the Angcliki victims with cries of: "Down with the traitors and murderers—long live Venizelos!" would seem to have a better grasp of the Greek political situation in its essentials than the responsible representatives of the Entente Powers.

It is impossible to avoid a very strong suspicion that a mistaken policy in Greece has spoiled and defeated military, plans which would have enabled the Allies to enter the winter campaign in a much more advantageous position than they now seem' lifely to' attain ■ in tho immediate future. The spectacle presented in Grcccc is that of a great army held up for no visibly satisfactory reason. It is true that no official statement is available of the actual force under General Sakjiail's _ command. No such statement is available" respecting., any army, in any' theatre of war. 1 But from different quarters,' and over an extended period, there have come reports of the assembling of a great army in Grccce, and these reports are very largely borne out by tho length and character of tho front on which General Sarrail has been able to extend his forces in spite of his preoccupations in Grccce. Taking- account of Albania, the front is well over two hundred miles long. It is known that tho Ser-' bians numbered about 130,000 when 'the campaign opened, afnd they hold only a comparatively short section of the total front and not the most important section. All available, evidence .indicates that Generu, Saerail's army heavily outnumbers tho enemy forccs by which .it is confronted, and no evidence to the contrary lias been afforded in events or otherwise. No better explanation offers of the slow progress of the Allies in Macedonia to date than that internal conditions iu Greece militating against the security of the Allied base and communications have made a general • advance impossible.

There is little doubt that if General Sarrail had been able to concentrate solely upon tho (fnemy in front, Bulgaria would before now have been -overcome, - and Turkey isolated. The gain to Germany, if sho is able to retain command ofthe -Balkan' corridor throughout thewinter, will be considerable'. Defeat in this quarter would be seriously disheartening to 'all' sections of tne Germanic Alliance, and in particular would add heavily to the strain bearing on Austria-Hungary. Considering the extent to which German and Austrian man power has been cu t'down, it is a question of some importance also that Germany may. be able to draw "large' additional reinforcements 'from Turkey during the winter if 'communications '.with' that'country remain 'open. _ Turkey has' little enough to gain. by . exporting soldiers to fight Germany's battles, but she has nob been'able to train and equip all her available men of miliary age, and the members of the unscrupulous gang which holds sway at Constantinople are no doubt as willing as ever to traffic'in the lives of ..their' countrymen. The evacuation of Fort Vattx by. tfre Germans bears additional testimony to .the. ability ..with which the recent French offensive 'a"t Verdun .was planned and executed. Disastrously defeated in the. main battle, the Germans_ have now given up, without striking a blow in its defencc', a position which they won at- the cost of heavy losses, in a series of desperate attacks. The immediate reason for the evacuation appears in the fact that Fort Vaux was enveloped on three sides, and more or less effectively commanded from the Douaumont elevation on the north-west. Attempting to defend. the position the Germans would have suffered heavily without much prospect of retaining it long in any case. The evacuation was thus an act of wisdom, but it is to bo. observed that the French havo recovered in little more than a week ground that it took the Germans well over two months to gain.

A wireless report from Petrograd which states that a great battle, perhaps the most important of the war, is being fought o:: the whole front from Southern Russia, to the Danube, is perhaps an ex-

ample of a- passage torn from_ its context in some article, and given in that way an exaggerated, mean-, ing and significance. Great events are astir on the Russian a-nd Rumanian fronts, lint the suggestion that the struggle in these .areas has suddenly entered a new and more violent phase is not borne out by the official reports. ,'The 'Russians admit a limited loss of ground in Southern Russia, opposite Kovel, and the capture of positions in Galicia, the defence of which had been entrusted to Turkish troops. In Rumania the position is broadly unchanged. The - Rumanians are pursuing the enemy in the mountains 01 Western Wallachia, but somo progress is claimed by the Austrians south of the Rothefthurm Pass.

An important succcss by the Italians: is - reported. They have struck deeply into the Austrian positions on the northern part of the Cai'so plateau and east of Gorizia, advancing in places over a mile and taking nearly. 5000 .prisoners. The Austrians have been losing ground on the X'arso.-plateau , at intervals for some tirae past, and they arc fighting in this region at ah increasing disadvantage. Some of their strongest defences have been penetrated, and with each retirement they have a longer front to defend.

■ For reasons known-to themselves the Imperial authorities and tho Admiralty have departed- from their former policy of making known the essential facts of the enemy submarine campaign against merchant shipping. Apart from a few reports dealing specifically with individual ships, the bulk of the news which has come through lately oil the subject has given only a vague and confused impression of the scope of the submarine depredations. In spite of their obscurity and'poverty of detail recent reports' make it clear that' the submarine} campaign is again in a period ot intense activity, and it seems possible that the underwater craft are expelling the rate of destruction attained at any previous'stage of the war. _ Very heavy losses- of neutral shipping constitute an outstanding feature of the situation and perhaps in this particular also past' records, are being exceeded. Tho one fact quite definitely established is that there has been a big revival in the submarine campaign resulting in heavy losses of merchant shipping;. This is a very serious matter for tho time being, but though the Germans have more than once been able to suddenly enlarge and extend their submarine depredations after a period of passivity, presumably due to loss of submarines, these outbursts of activity have on all occasions been comparatively short-lived.