PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 254, 15 July 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Though it is a- comparatively small enterprise by the standards of the war, the Allied offensive in Southern Albania is developing with good promise, and may broaden out considerably beyond its present scope. Already Italian and French forces, operating from the region of the coast, have advanced in places for twenty-five miles or more through difficult mountain country, and today's reports show that they have captured the town of Bcrat, about thirty miles north-east of Valona, and captured close on two thousand prisoners. The essential object, meantime seems to be to gain possession of the road communications connecting Monastir with the Adriatic coast, and although the Allies arc still considerably short of this achievement they have made notable progress towards it in the successful fighting of the past week. Roads run inland from tho coast at Valona and at Santi Quaranta, farther south, and at least one good road affords a continuous route all tr.o way to Monastir. It runs, however, through a comparatively narrow tract of country between Lakes Oehrida and Presba (at the southwestern corner of Serbia), which will afford the enemy strong defensive positions. Another road runs inland from Durazzo, and passes round the northern end of Lake Oehrida, and the Allies evidently aim at gaining command of this highway as well as of those which traverse the country farther south. Developing their present success to the point of gaining complete control of the roads connecting Monastir with the coast they would, of course, seriously menace the right (lank of the Bulgarian Army on the Macedonian front, and the enterprise has already been carried far enough to afford some warrant for the expectation entertained in America that the advance in Albania may. be followed up by a general offensive on the Macedonian front.

Some of the prospects formerly open in tho Balkans have vanished, but it is still possible even from the narrowest military standpoint that the Allies may elfcct a useful diversion in this theatre. As some of to-day's messages point out, however, political as well as military factors to some extent favour the Allied enterprise. The widening division between tho dominant and subject races in the Dual Monarchy has a practical bearing upon the position in the Balkans as in sorno other theatres, and it is, conceivable that the enemy's political difficulties may at once simplify the task oi mo Allies in the offensive upon which 'they have now embarked and enlarge its results. The statement made in one of to-day's messages that all the oppressed Rationalities in Austria are anxious to join in the fighfc_ is in keeping with other information on the subject. Not only is there a definite and growing spirit of revolt within tho boundaries of the Dual Monarchy, but members of a number of its subject races are to-day fighting on the side of the Entente in various theatres of war, the Balkans included. In this area lai-fje numbers of Southern Slavs, natives of tho Austrian territories adjacent to the Adriatic, have joined fortunes with the Serbs, who are gallantly continuing the war undismayed by the fact that all but a fragment of their country is for the time in the hands of the enemy. It has to be remembered that the enemy has to reckon in the Balkans not only with Italian. French and British forces, but with the Greeks, now presumably mobilised in a strength of something like 300,000 men, and with the Serbs.

*#. » * Of the condition of the Serbian Army, a special correspondent of the London Times wrote in May last in the following terms:—"Visiting fliis front again after an absence of eight months, I am able to report not merely .that the moral of the Serbian Array is still unimpaired, but that it is more perfect than it has ever been since its glorious series of victories in Macedonia in the autumn of 1916. The long periods of comparative inaction to which it has since been condemned did, indeed, as was only natural, weigh on its spirits and induce a> certain passing lassitude. But to-day it shown not the smallest trace of war weariness, and the revival of a robust, cheerful confidence is now observable, due partly to the gigantic conflict now raging in France and Flanders, which the Serbs expect to be the decisive struggle. of this war, and partly to the reinforcemont of their ranks by thousands of Jugoslav volunteers. One in blood and language with the Serbs, they were welcomed with transports of joy such as can be well understood by all who have seen the effect of the arrival of new drafts on the war-dcplctcd units of any army. Of splendid physique and courage, these men are the most desperate of fightors. They give an example which, it is hardly necessary to is followed by tho rest of the Serbian troops."

On the whole'itsccms by no means impossible that tho Allies may be able'to conduct a campaign in the Balkans which will serve its immediate purpose in creating a useful diversion, but may lead eventually to much larger results. From the Adriatic to Eastern Macedonia the Allies have a considerable force of war-hardened veterans, habituated to mountain fighting, and the reinforcement of the Serbian Army by Southern Slavs who have cast off the Hapsuurg tyranny is one of a number of positive indications that the enemy is seriously weakened by internal divisions. Apart from' Austria's internal problems, some recent reports have indicated that the Bulgarians, who constitute the bulk of the enemy forces at present stationed on the Macedonian front, arc- becoming uneasy about the future, and are on that account increasingly restive under the Teutonic yoke.'