POLITICS AND WAR IN THE BALKANS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2945, 4 December 1916, Page 5

POLITICS AND WAR IN THE BALKANS

OUR CONTROVERSIAL DIVERSIONS

(By Professor A. F. Pollard, of tha London University, in the "Daily Chronicle.")

Our operations in this war may be divided, into two classes, those on which all critics have agreed and those on which there.has heen and is a sharp conflict of opinion. , No ono disputes the correctness of our action in boldly throwing the whole of our availabjo military force into Franco at tho beginning of tho war or the value of the . assistance that force rendered in win- | ning tho Battle of the Marne. But our whole conduct of affairs in the Balkans' and Middlo East falls into a different category, and critics still vigorously debate the policy of the Dardanelles, Bagdad, and Salonika expeditions. The general lino of adverse comment is that these were all measures dictated by political considerations, that they ran counter to sound military principles, that the conduct of war is a. matter for soldiers, and that politicians invariably muddle military matters by making strategy subordinate to politics. The question might be more fairly discussed if it were not begged by the implicit denial of statesmanship to our politicians, for tho hardiest of military critics would hardly'deride the function of statesmanship in war. When our Naval War College was started, Admiral May wisely laid down as a regular subject of study "the deflection of strategy by politics." This was not to provide scopo for cheap abuse of statesmen, but to impress upon sailors the fundamental fact that strategy would always have to be conditioned by political circumstance. The Balkan Diversion. This is peculiarly tho case with the British Empire. Sound military principles may have counselled complete concentration on the Western front; but, fortunately or unfortunately, the British Empire is scattered all over tho globe, and particularly after tho intervention of Turkey and the attempt to establish, the Berlin to Bagdad connection the East could not bo left to look after itself. Wo could not afford to sacrifico Egypt and India, or even our inteersts in the Persian Gulf, to military dogmas, however sound. Nor was it a question of the British' Empire alono; Russia and Serbia had also to bo considered, and _ it would have required a mighty triumph on tho West to mako Germany relax her hold on tho East; if sho had, succeeded, as she might have done in sweeping the whole of tho Balkans into her not and launching German armies into Persia and Egypt. Honce tho Dardanelles expedition and the inevitable diversion of troops to Mesopotamia, the Suez Canal, and Salonika. That there have been serious blund--crs in execution is painfully obvious, but that is a different question from tho policy of theso operations. It is also clear that tho defensive Egyptian campaign was a sounder model than the offensive in Mesopotamia; but even tho advance on Bagdad cannot bo judged without an impossible discussion of the prospects of Russian cooperation, which might have made it successful. . A similar reservo impedes the formation of a definite- opinion about tho Dardanelles; but the subsequent appearance of Turkish troops in tho Dobrudja, Galicia, and even on tho Riga front indicates that tho retention of Turkish divisions at Gallipoli had some military compensations. Salonika and Rumania. v These political operations are not, as is so often assumed, without their military advantages. But for tho Salonika expedition Rumania's 600,000 troops would not have been cast into tho Allied scale, and 400,000 Greek troops might well have been thrown into the balance against us. Would the Allied forces now' in tho Balkans havo counterbalanced, if sent to the Western and the forces which, the enemy could have brought thither, if tho Balkans had been abandoned to the Germans? Occasionally, of course, political considerations do conflict with strategy, and there has been some criticism of Rumania's action in concentrating on Transylvania rather than on the Dobrudja. But, apart from tho Transylvanian issue, Rumania would not havo intervened. Had it not been for Bulgaria's declaration; under German pressure, of war upon Rumania, Russian troops might bo advancing from Orsova towards Belgrado, instead of fighting in the Dobrudja, and the corridor might be threatened in tho north rather than in the south of tho Balkan peninsula. Possibly tho need of a change in strategy accounts for the delay of which Mac-, kensen was able to take temporary advantage, though there are indications that a Russian march southward rather than westwards was intended from the first. In any case, it is agreed that every effort must be made to help Rumania, and it is almost equally evident that progress on tho Western front will not produce an immediate effect in the Balkans. Italy in August achieved her greatest success in tho war by the capture of Gorizia, but it is doubtful if. Trieste will fall very long before the conclusion of hostilities, and it is a far cry from Trieste to Rumania. Effectivo assistance can only come from the Carpathians, in tho Dobrudja, or from Salonika. The Problem of Creece. That brings us back to Greece, where the Court is still doing infinite harm to the cause of its former Serbian and Rumanian allies and rendering effective assistance to its natural Bulgarian enemies. _ Tho King is also bent on establishing an autocratic militarist Government incompatible with the conditions upon which tho three Powers responsible for the liberation of Greece guaranteed its independence. The situation has points of resemblance with our own under George 111, when the "King's friends" enabled him to break up the British Empire by the War of American Independence. ■ It also brings out the fact that this war is a war for popular government; autocracy in Greece depends upon German success, and autocrats cannot desire a German defeat. It is a pity that the German guests from Karalla do not include their War. Lgrd. Only the triumph of the revolutionary movement now spreading through Constantino's dominions can give General Sarrail the freedom ho needs; and nothing would stimulate that movement so much as the capturo of Moriastir. Tho defeat of Bulgaria would not by any means end the war'; but the "corridor" is tho chief emblem of success in German eyes, and its breach would break up the enemy constellation by separating the two Central Empires from their two southern satellites. Meanwhile, amid tho horrors of war, the path is appearing to peace. Men, as Burko remarked, are not governed primarily by laws, and. still less by violence. They are governed by opinion; and tho predisposition to war before 1914 arose from tho German opinion of war as an early paradise. They aro being converted, and the military correspondent of tho "Frankfurter Zeitung" wrote the other day that "tho soldiers who aro fighting in hell." It is a hell which tho Germans desired. "0 God." exclaimed "Der Tag" in August, 1014, "what glorious days are theso!" Tho glory of war is departed from Germany, and the longing for peace —not moroly for a victorious peace, but for peace sans phrase—is pervading her disenchanted soul.