WHERE WILL THEY CRACK?

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 215, 6 October 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHERE WILL THEY CRACK?

By E. ASHMEAD-BARTLET. in "John Buil."

FINAL SIEGE OF THE HUNS BEGINS—GALLIPOLI TO BE AVENGED.

We are at the turn of the tide; but z, little time must elapse before the receding torrent slowly yields to view once again the blood-sodden, devastated soil of France, Belgian and Poland. Certain braadf acts stand out. The offensive and initiative have definite! / passed to the Allies. Germany has expanded herself almost to burstingpoint like some huge Zeppelin setting forth on a raid from wh : ch there may be no return. For the first time in two years the Allies are able to commence a joint offensive on all their fronts, thus allowing the Central Powers little choice of exploiting their interior Imes vast s.rstem of strategic railways, as they have invariably been able to d>; in "the past. The interior lmes remain; so also do the railways, as the organisation which runs them is as perfect as ever. Only now the human freight is lacking. 'The endless lmes of trucks still roll from east t 0 west or from west to east, but they carry few except the maimed. The East can no longer lend, at critical moments, whole army corps to the West; while tiro West can no longer send her tried veterans to that terrible dance of death through Poland, Galieia, and Russia, expanding the frontiers of crime fov the delighted gaze of German schoolchildren, and causing wooden gods, stiff with patriotic nails, to rise like mushrooms to Hindenburg and Mackerisen.

FINAL SIEGE OF HUNS BEGINS. The eyes of England arc concentrated oil our offensive on tiie Somme; but !■> maintain a proper perspective the battle of tho Somme must lx> consid erod' only in conjunction with events elsewhere. Rrusiloff is threatening Hungary; Kouropatkin is manoeuvring against Hindenburg's "thin, anaemic line"; Mackensen lias been obliged to recall his. divisions from Serbia, leaving the care cf the Near East to the Bulgarians. Cadorna is rega/ning tho ground lost on tho Trentino, while the French are' slowly nibbling back the bloodstained heights round Verdun. Above all,'the seas are open to us, and trom every quarter of the globe a steady stream of supplies, munitions, and ammunition is pouring into our trenches whilst not a orust or a cartridge :s reaching the Central Powers. The real and the final siege of the Huns has at last begun. I have shown briefly the ever-accum-ulating balance on our credit side. Can we, then, expect a decisive victory and speedy end of tho war? The answer is difficult. Modern weapons, modern fieldworks, and, above all, tho deadly ma-chine-gun, have rendered speedy consummations on the battlefield almost an impossibility. Directly an army assumes the offensive on the vast scale we are now undertaking, it automatically, so to speak, multiplies the numbers of its enemy many times oyer, because he is enabled to defend his positions with a minimum number of men and a maximum employment o! tmaohine guns. It is likely to be found that, as a decisive factor, morale will play a more important role in the closing stages of the war than tiie actual taking of military positions. It would seem to be sound strategy for the enemy to retire to a shorter line while he has the chance, rather than to risk disaster by holding on to such a huge and comparatively thmlylield perimeter. But the General Staff fear to retire because of the ill-effects such a move might have 011 the morale o; the whole army. A retrograde movement on a grand scale would open the eyes of the nun to the fact that the game was up, and they would very likely refuse to light or to rally on this side of the Rhine. Remember always that every yard we tako in Picardy may mean a mile's progress to the Russians. Our democracy is not dying in vain. To my mindj the historian will decide that tho fuming point of the war was the Grand Duke Nicholas's capture of Erzorum in nvd-winter. The importance of the results which have followed cannot be over-estimated. We are in fact, about to reap the full bene lit ot them.

At the present hour We must look to the Near East for decisive results, rather than to the west, where the enemy is at his strongest. Our hammer blows 011 the Somme will make possible the approaching dramatic changes in the Near East. We are nailing the enemy to lias entrenchments in the west, and meanwhile his dream of a Germanic-Islamic Empire stretching from tiie Rhine to the Persian Gulf is slowly fading info thin nJr. The Huns reachod their high water mark in t.he late autumn of MS. A solid mass of lialf-a-mi 11 ion Turks and Bulgarians hold the road from Belgrade to Constantinople. On this huge concentration the plans of the German General Staff for 1910 entirely depended. The fall of Erzerum has changed all this. The Turks hav,o been obliged to recall their armies from Gallipoli and Th race and to send them to the Armenian frontier. All the n?cely balanced plans of the Germans have been upset-. The Near East is no longer their strongest point; it is their most vulnerable. Hard pressed on all their frontiers, not a German or Austrian Division can be spared to assist the Bulgarians. Macedonia and Serbia are Iteing held by the Bulgarian army alone, assisted by the few remaining Turkish divis : ons which can be spared from Armenia. This force may bo strong enough to resist 01.'• offensive from Silonioa, but it is not nearly strong enough to withstand a joint attack from the north and from the south. It is Roumania who holds all the keys to Constantinople at this critical hour. If Roumania strikes, as '.she struck in 1913. it is all up with the Bulgarians. They must come to terms or face absolute ruin. Then we are left to finish our account with the Turks.

GALLIPOT J TO ISE AVENGED. Their numbers n.re not sufficient to offer any real re,-f stance this side of till line.s of Cataldja, which are only twentr miles from Constantinople. When they retire on Cataldja they must leave an •army isolated in Gallipoli lioldini; tlio linos of Bulair, just as they were obliged to do against the Bulgarians in 1913. How long could such an army with all its communications cut by hand, and our submarines dominating the Sea of M.irmora, hold out? Not long. If Rounmva. joins the liberators of Europe, we shall be in Constantinople before C'ristmn-s. Then the men who fought so gallantly and who suffered so much in Oallipol' and in Mesopotamia. will net, have died in vain. Slowly -and surely tlv> huge and hide, ous odifico of Prussian militarism is being underm/nod. The downfall is cct-

tain to come; hut it is too firmly constructed, and its foundations ho too deep in the social life of the German people, to collapse easily at tlie iirst sound of tli,' 1 trumpets of our new armies. When the fall dees conic it will ho tho greatest tlio world has rver KOll.