CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 11, 16 December 1915, Page 5

CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

| Since last notes, the 'military. pos 1 !- | pion hi' .the Balkans ha s " developed ; I 'and the Allies havef'niade a ! I safe .retreat clear from Macedonia in- 'j [tordreece.' 1 ' 1 The 'enemy the whole of Serbia and Macedonia,"' although the' armies of Serbia' are 1 still' oyer 200,0b0'strong and the Allies hftYo.'raiJly not' been decisively beaten,, /but ,hfive in their, difficult .retreat suffered fairly* severely. A glance) at a -relief map,of. the country in which i the fighting has been going on afc once gives an idea of the immense difficulties of the retreat. However the position, is that the Allies are falling ! back'on Salonika before superior numbers. The question now is whether they will be able to keep the Bulgars, at' bay,'pending urrivals of re-Inforcementg sufficient to farry out ah offensive later 1 'on. ' But before that aspect is considered,' there arises the |qil6stion a s to whether the Bui- • ganans 1 will'follow; them, seeing that Macedonia is entirely in their 'hands.' Macedonia is what they wanted';''But it i s hardly safe to say that stop their fighting. They are. a, race carried, away by lust of battle and avarice for more territory, and their greed seems unsatiable. It was this same avarice that led to their undoing in the last Balkan War. General Sarrail Seems perfectly confident in the ability of his forces to hold the enemy. The Bulgarian Commander will doubtless find .out that such is the case, and will, after making an effort to crush the Allies, withdrawto a'Strong line oh the border and there 1 endeavour to keep the Allies out, when the invasion comes. For the present we must rest assured that General Sarrail will be able to repulse the Bulgar s as effectively as he did the Huns for months' in France: that the War Council of the Entente has the position in hand: and that the dogged courage that (won on the Marne will win in Greece.

The invasion of Egypt seems once again to be causing a lot of stir, and to-day we have a cable describing the preparations on an important scale going on in Palestine for an expedition against Egypt under the German General Trussemer. A double railway has been constructed from Damascus to . Jerusalem and from there to Ghaza further down the coast, and then across to the Isthmus of Sue/-. From Ghaza to the Canal there are over 120 mile 3 of desert, but the light railways will make the water difficulty safe. One hundred thousand men are garrisoning Jerusalem, which is strongly fortified. The remnants of Djemal Pasha's unfortunate exp'edition that made the feeble attack last year are at Ghaza. The report, which comes from a missionary, does not say what sort of troops are at Jerusalem, but he does say that they are short of rifles, there being only on© to every hundred men. Therefore the total number of rifles does not exceed 1700. There are only four old guns for training the artillery. The whole expedition is merely a collection of unarmed men who are useless as yet. But their presence and the construction of these railways show what possibilities there are if the enemy are allowed to get through Constantinople .and win in the Balkans. It means i that the Allies must hang on at the . Dardanelles and make a great effort i against Constantinople through Mace- j donia and on Gallipoli. If the Allies j get astrido of the railway (at present blocked to Germany and the muni-, tions) then the danger in Egypt is re-

moved. The importance of winning ; out in the Balkans is plainly imperative, and any operations undertaken there are undoubtedly justifiable. One campaign in the whole war affects the others, arid attaok^'by the enemy in, one quarter are only prevented by attacking him in his own quarter. Until'the' trje Balkans, the Canal scare remains a scare. But even it it does, realise, we may be sure that! the vital ' chord ■of Britain's Eastern Dominions is not to be left 'unguarded, and any risks taken. The enormous concentration of troops in Egypt answers the question of whether we are taking precautions.