The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, October 14, 1915. THE INVASION OF SERVIA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1459, 14 October 1915, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, October 14, 1915. THE INVASION OF SERVIA.

As was shown at the beginning of the war, and as is being again demonstrated in the present invasion of Servia by the AustroGerman forces, which has already resulted in the fall of Belgrade, the Setvian frontier facing Austria is not easy to defend, A recent writer'on the subject points out that the Servian frontier facing Austria is a long and difficult one lor a small army to protect, It extends over 340 miles. The northern boundary of the country is formed by the river Danube from the neighbourhood of Orsova, where the Austrian, Servian, and Roumanian frontiers meet to Belgrade. Thence it follows the course of the River Save to the mouth of the Urina. There it turns south up the Drina, keeping to that river until nearing the Montenegrin border, and even then not departing far irom the stream. North of the Danube and Save, which are very shallow in several reaches, and have plenty of crossings available to an invading army, the Austrians have a complete system ot strategic railways connecting with the main army bases in Hungary and Austria, whilst the lateral lines are good enough to permit of rapid movement of troops from one point to another on the frontier. The advantage which the Austrians reap from the nature of the frontier is that they can feint at many widely separated places, and so prevent the Servians from concentrating their full forces to resist an attack at the place actually chosen for the main invasion. At the beginning of the war the Austrians made feints along the whole length of the Danube and Save frontier, hut their main inroad was in the north-west corner, from Shalmtz south-west to the Drina,