ALLIES' STRONG POSITION.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 September 1915, Page 8

ALLIES' STRONG POSITION.

"SUPREME TASK AHEAD." One of Reuter'a special correspondents afc the General Headquarters of the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, writing on July 17, says:— "Tor goodness' sake tell people ftt home what a tremendous proposition we are up against here." So spoke a battalion commander to me as we crouched in the parched earthiness of his dug-out, watching the puffs of enemy in the rear through the fly-netting which screened the sloping entrance. The Turks were merely pin-pricking, their favorite method of keeping up an irritating liveliness between our own at- | tacks and their regular response of coun- | ter-attack. Their prodigality of ammu- . nation in this direction certainly does not ' lend much color to the rumors of shortI age.

That we are no longer holding on with the akin of our teeth, but are in solid occupation of a 2one about three miles deep south of a line drawn from where the 'French are resting upon the mouth of the Kereves Dere to a point south of Krithia, is a triumph of sheer dogged determination and Homeric courage. But it is an achievement which still leaves tie supreme taek ahead. The sandy, fire-ravished soil is furrowed 'by trenches as though a titanic ploughing competition had been held across every acre. Fragments of shell which would aggregate iron enough to build a battleship are strewn in pink and blue and rusty segments athwart whatever path one may choose in this now trackless waste. They have left,their marks in an interminable warren of blowholes and miniature craters. Barbed wire of enormous gauge (nothing like the Turkish barbed wire has ever yet been seen in warfare trails through the scorched yellow stubble at every dozen steps. GRIM BATTLEGROUND.

True, these are the commonplace details of this sort of fighting, and I only refer to them at all because they so grimly illustrate in their crowded grouping how our progress hag been a aeries of terribly blood-stained steps, with an evor-inercasing difficulty of natural obstacles. There is no depression, no faltering on the part of our men, Of the political aspects of a campaign it is not the business of a war correspondent to speak. He is only to consider the military aspect. The price of victory—that is to say, the military price—is a effort. We hold an excellent position now' for the development of that effort. Twelve miles up the west coast forces hold a wonderful cliff-perched enclave, which compels the enemy to maintain at least two divisions to counter the permanent threat to their communications. The • French artillery, has established a most effective dominance along the spur of a ridge extending from the shattered and baked village Sedd-el-Bahr towards the eastern slope of Achd Babo.

The legend that the defences of the peninsula include heavy guns travelling upon rails through tunnels may be dismissed, At the first • discharge any heavy weapon so mounted would pitch off the metals. Here, then, is the position as it stands to-day. It is known that the Turks are being well and abundantly fed, and, recollecting their terrible privations in the Balkan war, this fact must exercise a great influence upon sustaining their war-worthiness. Prisoners admit a weariness 011 the part of t'he enemy, but it is clear that a complete misconception as to the causes and objects of the war is general amon« the Turks. They are undoubtedly con° vinced that England is conspiring to betray them into the hands of their hereditary enemy, Russia, and they still regard the annexation of the two battleships building for their navy as a sheer act of piracy on the part of the British Admiralty. Germany, by "giving" them the Goeben and Breslau, and by sendin" submarines to attack the warships of the Allies, not unnaturally stands in their distorted vision as a genuine benefactor.