The Fall of Bucharest.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15768, 8 December 1916, Page 6

The Fall of Bucharest.

There is no question that what has happened in Roumania Is a severe blow to tho Allies. The moral effect of the capture of Bucharest, which appears to. be no longer a matter for doubt, ' will be very great, and the material gains, especially if the Germans succeed in getting possession of tho oilfields, will be equally important. At the very moment when the pinch of tho blockade was being most severely felt, our enemies have secured possession of large supplies of the stores they most sorely needed. Hungary, which was apparently almost in a starving condition, will bo revictualled, and there is little doubt that the occupied country will be stripped, as fielgium has been, of everything that can bo made use of for military supplies. The only source of consolation which still remains to us is that so far tho Germans have not succeeded in their main object, namely, the annihilation of tlie Roumanian forces, and so long as tho Roumanian army keeps the field, there is a chance that, with Russian assistance, tho tables may bo turned. Under the most favourable circumstances. however, what has taken placeis bound to lengthen the war, and it is moro than ever evident that the Allies must strain every nerve if they are to secure the only kind of victory which can bring us a lasting peace. This is emphatically not a time to extend any latitude to those who are trying to stir up sedition in our midst. We must not only send every fit man of fighting uge to the front, but it is time we began to think more seriously than we have yet done about the strain on tho finances of the Empire, and how it is to be met in the future. It is impossible for us, with any decency, to go on basking in prosperity as the result of tho sale of our produce to the Mother Country,, and making no real effort to provide for the strain of the future by economising in tho present. The war has now reached a stage when those

who havo treated it rather lightly in the past shpuld try to realise what it is the Empire has to face.