The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1915 THE WAR.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 319, 23 October 1915, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1915 THE WAR.

(With which is incorporated Tlie Taihapo Post and Waimarino News.)

The outstanding feature of the war now is, despite the vehemence of the conflict having been transferred to the Balkans, that Germany is nowhere successful. Austro-German armies are being severely dealt, with by the Russians, the Allies are pushing them back lin western battlefields and Servia has so far been able to hold up against the great onslaught that was to sweep over her territcries, crushing her armies leaving them a mere cipher in future considerations. View Germany's war for world domination as we will, 'et it continue in its present stage of desperation so long as her armies consent to be driven to death, the outlook for her is a vista of hopelessness. She set out to achieve something definite on the Eastern front, in which leading English ournals now state she completely failed. Failures in the West are. if -anything, more marked, while the sensational diversion in the Balkans, which seems to have been generally anticipated by the Allies, gives promise of no better fortune. Viewed from what knowledge is already possessed, the Austro-German offensive against Servia can only be regarded as a sign of desperation, a frantic endeavour, a mere speculative display to mesmerise Greece and Roumania and bring their armies into line with her own. Germany's supreme hope was that this thrust,, would cause a weakening of Allies' forces in the West,' for to whatever extreme this Balkan conflagration may go it should be kept 'in mind that the vital issues of the war must be decided in the West and in Russia. If the Allies could j have been induced to weaken their fori ces in France, then Germany would certainly have achieved her object and our position would have been rendered critical, but it is apparent that developments in the Balkans were anticipated and, if n °t. full y< were fairly well provided against. Who will suggest what may not have resulted if the hundred.thousand Allied troops had not been in readiness to land at Salonica at the precise psychological moment? It is safe to say that another million or more men would have been compelled to go over to Germany, and it is not at all likely that anything chimerical would have resulted in the ridiculously silly talk about a march eastwards, right on to India. These new force s would have been turned about and used in the theatre were decisive results can only be obtained, where the lost hopes of German w r orld domination only are retrievable. It is apparent that Kitchener has the situation well in ,hand and that adequate provision has been made for troops to meet this new speculative effort. Everything now points to that conclusion, and we may confidently hope for good, rather than ill, to arise from this latest tangent of German strategy.

So far the invaders of Servia have mnrie hut very little progress. Cabled reports, from Allied and enemy sources, disci use that Austro-German foces have be<m penned close to the Servian borders ipsnite t.he most desperate and bloody ffforts to force through and junction with the Bulgarians before Al'ied *"<.'•<:« s could arrive to assist, and German looses have been so appalling as '■'■• i :.!! forth admiration for Servi-m bravery :n German newspapers. Bulgari;i instituted an offensive at the dictation of held-up Germans, ana they

?hed to secure control of the Salon-x-yihh railway. They captured Vran- . !':■:- most important centre on the

railway at an enormous cost In casu-

alties, but they have since been hurled

back, the line re-taken, and the unhappy Bulgars are now feverishly at work preparing for seige of their own capital, Sofia. The hills around Sofia are being reticulated with trenches.and mazes of barbed wire entanglements .are being constructed to stem the tide of invasion they evidently regard is certain. They are to all intents on the defensive and can do little more than endeavour to parry the Allies' advance, urdess the Austro-Germans break tlr-orgh the Servian lines to their aid; but as the Allies are rapidly moving northward such chances are very doubtful. The very last German hope Oi* Tlmraania and Grecian intervention on b°r behalf has been dispelled, jii'lsf-ip-i by th. 1 dramatic utterance V ;>,»• Krbicr lb- says that Bulgaria is to he quoe ■ of the Balkans, with terrl-.ory from 'he Aegean to the Black Ser>. This certainly seeing to indicate tnat Roumnnia :i"d Greece have fallen from liis Imperial Modesty's favour and consideration. It. is reasonable to assume that Greece will declare for the Aiuss, and it is not improbable that her present attitude i s not part of the Allies' strategic organisation. Nothing has reached New Zealand to cause any thought of greater danger, or weakened conditions in our operations. Our enemies are being driven back from'Russia; they are being ousted with shell and bayonet from their holdings in France, and they are making no headway in their new sphere of operations against the Serbians. There is nothing to cause exceptional uneasiness, but. there is much to give satisfaction.