SALONIKA.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 May 1916, Page 8

SALONIKA.

PROBABLE OFFENSIVE BY THB ALLIES. tTTom G. Ward Prjce) : Salonika, February 17. If tnere is no attack made against us in our present fortified position, and unless the chief command here is restricted by a contrary decision of the Allied War Council, it is mere than probable that when this force is ready we shall take the offensive. The country ahead is about the most difficult that could be found through which te make an advance; and the enemy is already firmly established astride of every road and railway (there are few enough of them) which we could use; but General Sarrail is on old officer of the French Alpins (Alpine Regiment), and there is no risk of failure through an underestimation on his part of the obstacles to be overcome.

But fsr this advance to be made, a reorganisation of the force here is necessary, and lias already been begun. An adequate supply of mountain artillery is .required, and the transport system ef the army needs to be adapted for use in a mountainous and roadless country. The larger units of the force at least must have enough pack animals to be self-supporting,' for the wheeled transport by road and rail will be unable to follow them into the sphere of their operations for more than a comparatively short distance. Three-fourths of the French force here, it may be said, are already organised on this basis. At first sight the plan of a frontal attack upon the entrenched enemy in a mountainous country appears to be a dangerously hazardous undertaking. But this disadvantage to the Allies' attacking force be reduced by opening the offensive against the Germans and the Bulgarians at four or five points of their line at the same time. Lateral communication along their front will be practically impossible for them; they will be prevented from concentrating their forces far resistance; and whatever contingents of the Allied Army are successful in breaking the enemy's local resistance will constitute a menace to his line of communication and thereby relieve the pressure of resistance against other sectors of the attack. There is, of course, still a possibility that the enemy may choose to take the initiative and attack ns here. Highly improbable as that may be, it is conceivable that political or other considerations elsewhere may nevertheless lead him to attempt a sort of forlorn hope here. That the enemy in attacking wauld suffer probably more severely than any troops in this war have yet suffered is evident to anyone who stands on the hills along which our gun emplacements lie and looks down first at the tiers of trenches that stretch like an amphitheatre along the face of the slope, then at the ever-widening network of barbed wire below, and finally out across the swampy seven-milcs-wido plain across the attackers would have to come. "They would be in the same situation as we were in front of Achi Baba," said a general who had been for nine months on the Gallipoli Peninsula. What makes an attack on the part of the enemy so unlikely is the immense difficulty he would have in bringing up his heavy guns or, indeed, in finding positions for them anywhere within effective range of our lines. There are three railways lending from his country into ours. One comes from Monastir, but as there is no railway running from Germany to Monastir he cannot transport his heavy artillery that way without first taking it on a long cross-coun-try journey. Consequently the French have so far left the bridges on the railway from Monastir to Salonika intact. As for the line from Nish and Ghevgeli, the French in their retirement from Serbia put that very thoroughly "out of commission," and though the Bnlgars are busily repairing it, it will not be ready for service for some time yet. Tf they do repair it and come down that way tiiey will .md an exceedingly strong position held by the French in front of them. There remains the line from Constantinople and Bedeagateh, which passes through Demir Hissar. Tt was to prevent big guii3 from using that route that General Sarrail was obliged to blow up the railway bridge there, and now the only line of approach that remains open for heavy artillery is the road from Sofia through Serres. That road is commanded by English guns admirably placed, and if they were not sufficient to repel an advance there are still heavier French guns in reserve i which could be brought up very ouicklv to support them