HARD, LONG ROAD.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 August 1915, Page 5

HARD, LONG ROAD.

THE DARDANELLES PATH. HOW GREECE COULD SMOOTH THE WAY. ! WORK FOR ENTENTE DIPLOMACY. [Mr. (!. Ward Price, who lias recently spent much time in. the Balkan Peninsula, sends to the Mail an interesting account of how Greece might help to open the gate of Constantinople for the lilies, and what is preventing her from doing it.] "Everybody has been cheered lip l-y the news that M. Venizeljs lias won the general elections in Greece with a tivothirds majority," writes Mr. Ward. "Hut the extremes bolli of optimism and pessimism are to be avoided in matters so complicated as the tangle of considerations that make up the pre;' ; diplomatic situation in Europe. "Y\e luv- 1 all her a little depresv-d ' about the Dardanelles lately. Our troops lauded there by a lout of supur'o galhinIvy on April Wo are now half-way through June, and we have not yet aoeiii'ed a sullicient hold on the peninsula to be able to protect the whole'of the part that we occupy at its extreme toe from being shelled by the enemy.

'■HOLD OUT YOUR LKFT THUMB." ''Hold your left thumb, in fiiont'; !nf ycm across vom- bodv. That is rougljlv 'tin shape of the lower pavt.ot ilic Gafi!.ppli Peninsula, looking at it fro.n ;t)ie, nearest island in the Aegean. Your tluinib-nail is the part of (lie peninsuhi occupied by the Allies. But in the middle of the top joint is the hill called Auhi I'ab.i. It is only 700 ft lnjjli and from our side is the culmination of u gradual rise of (he ground from il:e tea. J!nt until we eau Aelii Baba and post our batteries upon it, the TurkUh guns mounted on that hill and the others round it can bombard all the thumb nail part, which we now hold.

'"We lmeo consequently got to take Aehi Baba in order to confirm our landing and make our based and rest camps safe from the constant anxiety and ocinjury of enemy shell Art* "I# i's -a long and'hard tksk, fav'Achi Baba is a smaller model Spion Kop.. It lisrf bowl 1 eunnint'ly entrenched nmler the of Gcruiau sappe®. wUq

Save learned-all the lessons tliat the wail in the weat lias taught. '■ ' . "Moreover, when we have carried Uii " height of that frut knuckle and poat&t ■ ■ our guns there to prevent tho enemy's i batteries, which will have withdrawn to » new positions beyond, from bombarding < us, we have still got' to carry out tha .*» object which this landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula is intended, to effect. We ' < still hafe to advance a good deal farther - about eight miles—over very broken •' '* and difficult country, and capture tha forts on the European side of the Nar- « rows, wheh stand, on your thumb model, just about the lower joint, where the thumb joins -the hand. ' "And as it has taken us seven weeks ' to advance to the point where our froftt ■; trenches now are, four miles from the landing points, it will clearly take us a ■ good deal of time to force our way to /> - j Maidos and Kilid Balir. ; WHAT GREECE COULD DO. ■t' ■ "All this, of course, must have been clearly foreseen and allowed for by the Allied General Staff, and the prevailing feeling of impatience and depression about the Dardanelles operations is con*, sequently unnecessary. "At the same time, it would plainly bo very much better and easier if we could , find a backdoor or a <vay round to Constantinople and so avoid the heavy cost in lives of battling a way up this narrow corridor of the Gallipoli PennsUla. . v "It is just in this connection that th« ' coming return of M. Venizelos to power 1 in Greece has cheered people up. 11 tho < Greeks,' they say, 'will send an army to .* ; laud at Enos or at Bulair, at the root ' ' end of the Gallipoli Peninsula, the Turk* i will cither fall back and let them advance, or they will be compelled to withdraw troops from Gallipoli to meet them,, ■'*. and so lighten the Allied army's task.'. GREEK GENERAL STAFF SAyI '/ "NO!" >;

"But we may be preparing for our« selves a disappointment if we rely upon ! * M. Venizelos' return to power to bring all thia to pass. "M. Venizelos is certainly a heajtjr' > : t advocate of Greek co-operation in the war. He has proved himself a great anil ■■■. j far-seeing statesman in no exaggerated ■/ sense of those words. . • V"

"M, Venizelos realises now that the future prosperity and expansion of his country are bound up with the success of the Allies, while, if the Germans win, she will fall back into her past inaigniflcance, only aggravated this time by the 1 necessity of servile subjection' to tha armed bully of Europe. < , ! "The reason why Ureece will probably ; 'j want to keep her army at homo is that ■

she is afraid of Bulgaria. ' - "Consequently, the Greek Genera) j i jt Staff is so far absolutely against sendt ing a single Greek battalion out of tho - country. * Bulgaria, from the military point of Jt .view, is important for two reasons. She ' has one of tho best armies in the Balkans, and by geographical position holds , , the keys of the back door to Constin> ' tinoplc. 1 - ' \fi "Tho Bulgarians boasted to me wheji y I was there last month that they would V,. be in possession of Adrianople a couple of days after the declaration of wax on ,V? Turkey. It would not tako them long) I '. with most'of the guns from the farts s T.> and the garrison Bent to tl/e Dardanelles. 5" And from Adrianople you have got the railway and open country right dov<jn to - j Constantinople,.with only the Chataldja lines, which arc weak in comparison with ; the Gallipoli positions, to cover the -

capital. "Hitherto the Bulgarians liavo lain ■. _■ low and said nothing in this war. , 1 WHAT BULGARIA WANTS. "One good .point of the situation is <' i '■ that everyone knows what Bulgaria , wants. She wants concessions from Serbia ' and Kavalla from Greece —the territories that were originally allotted to her by the Balkan Confederation that defeated Turkey. 1 ■, "Btitherto the Allies have not been (lis* •. posed to pay Bulgaria's price. , "On the other hand, the Dardanelles ' are costing the Allies a great deal of blood, too. And if the sacrifice of & fyw ( ■ ■ miles of Serbian territory would matert- ; ally help those operations by bringing. .J" Bulgaria in, there is no doubt that the compensations which Serbia would re* ■ i : ceive after the war in the way of an ■> outlet upon the Adriatic and the cession of the strip of Hungarian territory called the Banat, to serve as a bridgehead, to Belgrade, would open such a new na- ~ tional outlook as to make the renouncement of her gains, in the second Baikal! ' war more easily forgotten. ...ji "This diplomatic nettle of the Balkans will-have to be gripped, and England being the one Power whom all the Bal- 1 . j kan States agree in trusting, it is to -her that the initiative should full," concludes 1 Mr. Ward. , •