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The Dominion. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1916. RUMANIA AND THE MAIN THEATRES

Looking at,the events of tho Rumanian campaign and regarding with concern and anxiety the measure of misfortune that has overtaken a brave ally, there is likely to be a tendency to invest the latest venture of the Teutonic armies with more importance and significance than it really holds. To those who are capable of looking beyond the immediate and surface aspect ,of affairs, however, it should not be a very difficult matter to assess the invasion of Rumania and such undetermined dangers as it still holds at something like their true importance. It is to be admitted that no one can say with confidence at the moment just how far the invasion is likely to go. But it is possible to hold very definitely and upon sound evidence that what the Central Powers have achieved or may achieve in Rumania has a comparatively minor bearing upon the general trend of the war. It is the more necessary that the relative importance and magnitude of the Rumanian campaign should not be misjudged in contemplation of its immediate aspect and events since the Germans undoubtedly rely even> more upon the moral effect of their invasion than upon its material results. We may accept without question the statement lately made that Germany is out to furnish the neutral world with an object-lesson of her invincibility. We may safely go further and assume that sho wishes to create the impression, oyer a wider field than neutral countries afford, that with the war in its third winter the German armies are not merely unbeaten, but victorious. But to assess the enemy claims at their actual worth, and realise what lies behind the stage-management o! 'tho Rumanian campaign, it is only necessary to regard it in its true setting as a detail development in the European war. Viewed in-- isolation, the invasion of Rumania rives some ground for anxiety as well as for concern at the fate that has befallen a section of the Rumanian people. In its setting in the war and by the standards of the war it is, comparatively speaking, a flash in the pan. As a demonstration of power, not to sneak of invincibility, the invasion of Rumania loses much of its impressive quality when it is remembered that this is the only offensive enterprise in which the Teutonic armies have prospered during a year of the hardest fighting the world has ever seen, and that in vastly greater fields of conflict they have suffered terrible losses and unrelieved defeat. That the Germans and their allies, favoured to some extent by the limits which winter weather sets upon operations in tho main theatres, have been able for the time being to assemble a superior force upon one comparatively small section of the long European battlefront proves little more than that they are still capable of taking advantage of the fact that their interior position enables them to transfer troops to given points more rapidly than their antagonists. But what must not be lost sight of in this great struggle is the effect of given actions on the situation as a whole, and in calling on their reserves to prosecute the campaign against Rumania the Central Powers are squandering their resources in a secondary theatre of the war without hope of decisive gain. To appreciate what this means, we have only to consider what the position would have been had Rumania continued neutral. In that case, the forces of the Central Powers which are now being used up in the attempt to crush her would have been available to replenish the depleted ranks on the two main battlefronts. The attempt to crush Rumania, therefore, even though it were pressed to a completely successful conclusion, which is unlikely, would still leave the Central Powers worse off so far as the main struggle is concerned than when they set out on 1 this their latest effort. _ The forward drive of tho invading armies in Rumania, deplorable as its immediate rosults must be to our allies the Rumanians, _ counts for comparatively little in the general situation, in face of the circumstances known to exist in tho main theatres. When the descent of winter brought her partial respite in the Western theatre, Germany was fighting one..

losing battle after another on the front which her utmost efforts and most unsparing sacrifices have failed to hold secure. On the Russian and Italian fronts the outlook for the enemy is not less ominous than in the Western theatre, and 'his present efforts in Rumania arc doing nothing to better his prospects in any one of these theatres. That Is the feature of the_ situation which should not be lost sight of. Nothing that the_ Germans and their Allies achieve in Rumania will alter the fact that they are faced in the main theatres by forces which have already very (inclusively demonstrated their superiority, and will grow and increase in a fashion the enemy cannot hope to rival.

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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19161128.2.10

Bibliographic details

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2940, 28 November 1916, Page 4

Word Count
839

The Dominion. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1916. RUMANIA AND THE MAIN THEATRES Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2940, 28 November 1916, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1916. RUMANIA AND THE MAIN THEATRES Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2940, 28 November 1916, Page 4

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