DEFENDERS OF SUEZ CANAL.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3826, 13 January 1915, Page 5

DEFENDERS OF SUEZ CANAL.

THE NEW ZEALANDERS’ TASK. HON, T. MACKENZIE’S SPEECH, SIDE BY SIDE WITH BRITAIN. (Times and Sydney Sun Services.) (Received' Jan.. 12, 5.20 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 12. Hon. T. Mackenzie, addressing the New Zealanders at Cairo, said Lord Kitchener had sent them to Egypt for tho purpose of training and also for guarding the Suez Canal, which some called the weakest link in tho Imperial chain. He paid a special tribute to the London Contingent of New Zealanders present, and said the spleiidid New Zealand force fulfilled his prophecy at Queen Victoria’s Jubilee that if the Empire was over threaten-' eel, New Zealand would stand shou.tier to shoulder with the soldiers of tho Motherland.

THE TURKISH ATTACK. APPARENTLY DECIDED ON. SLOW PROGRESS MADE, (Times and Sydney Sjui Serv’^csJ (Received Jan. 12, 5.20 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 12. The Ottoman leaders in Syria, inspired by the Germans, seem U have decided on an attempt to advance upon the Suez Canal. They are massing great forces and immense supplies, biit the projected movement westward is very slow. “DRILL, DRILL, DRILL 155I 55 WITH THE EXPEDITION. INCIDENTS ON THE VOYAGE. (Received Jan. 12, 7.15 p.m.) SYDNEY, Jan. 12. Banjo Paterson, the “Sydney Morning Herald’s” commissioner with the Expeditionary Force, says: “There was great excitement aboard the transports when orders were issued to get ready to disembark for Egypt, when they expected to remain aboard yet. He mentions that the expedition was officially informed that the Turks had put up a gun in the Red Sen with a view to blowing the convoy out of the water, but a force from Aden chased them off and captured the S' llll ' . , Ho continues: As we passed through tli e Canal, cam ns of Indian troops stretched along the hanks welcomed the Australasians cordially. “The voyage was cue continuous drill, drill, drill!”

- EGYPT DECLARED SAFE. TURKISH PLANS FAIL. (Received Jain. 12, 9.40 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 12. The “Daily Telegraph’s” Athens correspondent says it is admitted at Constantinople that the expedition against Egypt has failed, the Turks fearing tho British will land on the Syrian coast and endanger their communications. DIFFICULTY OF ATTACK. OBSTACLES OF THE DESERT.

An attack delivered from Syria against- Egypt depends upon two obvious factors—the desert and the Suez Canal (writes Mr Hilaire Belloc in “Land and Water”)! Unless transports are ready to convey troops and munitions across the Mediterranean; unless their troops and munitions have been long prepared, and unless the Eastern Mediterranean is at the same time empty of French and English men of war, there is only the land route. The ability, or inability of the enemy to traverse the desert and to overcome the obstacles *of the Suez Canal, sum up the whole business. It is, perhaps, the canal winch should first be remarked. It is a continuous obstacle from sea to sea, of a minimum breadth, comparable to a broad inland river, such as the Lower Meuse; everywhere deep, of course, equally, of course, nowhere bridged; and nowhere affected by a strong current The problem of crossing it, therefore, is the commonplace problem of crossing, under the protection of one’s artillery, a broad but sluggish uni'ordable stream Over pontoon bridges. Unless superior artillery is present upon one’s own bank to dominate the artillery of the enemy, such a crossing cannot bo effected. If it is present the crossing can be effected. The problem is further simplified- from the facts that there arc no heights or gnu positions on either side. It is simply a question of having the large guns, better served, and under their protection effecting a crossing. If the proposed invasion has not that superiority, the obstacle is absolute; if it lias, the obstacle is clearly negotiable. Save for one other important, and quite exceptional factor, the Suez Canal —unlike'an inland waterway-—is accessible to ships carrying heavy guns. That is where it differs Horn your broad river, to which it is the parallel. Similarly it is bridgeable, as an inland river rarely is, from tho presence of large ships within it, for ships can be slung across it. Much more important, however, than the obstacle which is the strategic frontier of Egypt, is tho desert, across which all land approach to that country must be made. This desert is the isthmus and peninsula, called after the group of mountains which contains, towards tho south of the peninsula the traditional peak of Sinai. The high mountains, I say, lie in tho peninsula portion of this bit of land, between the gulf of Akabah and the gulf of Suez. The northern, or continental portion, though crossed, especially at the north-cast, by ranges of hills, is not

mountainous. The whole region is, however, desert. There is hardly any water. Sucli water as there is confines all travel to two tracks, and to two tracks only, and tlio supply of water is nowadays very limited upon each. These two tracks are the sea road; — which is.that taken by all the historical invaders from Egypt, and of Egypt from Syria—the J.iadj, or Pilgrims’ #-oad, from Suez to Akabali, which is the road followed by the Mohammedan pilgrims (especially in the old days before steam traffic came to change the conditions of the pilgrimage), on their way from Egypt to Mecca. The northern, or sea road, after going down to the coast of Palestine, through country increasingly dry, crosses the conventional frontier of modern Egypt- at R-afa, and is already under desert conditions at El Arish. From El Arish to the town of El Kantara, or the Bridge, it is a matter of over 100 miles.' It suffers as a road of invasion toward Egypt from two disabilities. First, the earlier, or eastern portion of the march, is exposed to live from the sea. Tho second difficulty is, of course, the difficulty attaching to all this district l —the difficulty of water. It is much more than a day’s march; it is over 30 miles from El Arish' to tho next supply of water—by which distance all danger from the sea lias disappeared, as tho road is by this time protected by wide shoal lagoons, which stretch between it and the Mediterranean. This water (found in a single well, with no great depth of water) is at the port of El Maza; another equally long stretch—far more than a day’s marching—takes one to a much better supply of water, at Bir el Abd. A long day’s march farther west gains us Katiph, and from this point the chief difficulties : of a desert march are overThere is a sufficient supply of water at Katieh, not only in existing

wells, but obtainable by digging. The remaining march to El Kantara is, indeed, much more than a day’s going, but the supply of water obtainable at Katieh, and the presence, once, the Suez Canal is reached, of frosli water from the Nile canal, alongside of it, disposes of the main difficulty. If a force can reach Katieh it can reach the canal. A force not too large might supply itself with water at'the various points (Napoleon did so, with a force, indeed, smaller than should bo required for any operations against Egypt to-day, but he was going the other way* 'into Syria, ail’d in his time the obstacle of tile canal did not exist). Tint such a force, though it had managed to cross tho desert, if it should fail at the obstacle for any appreciable time, would find that difficulty of continued water supply simply insuperable. Tho maj/ch on Egypt by this route is, therefore, if feasible at all, a matter for a comparatively small force, especially so long as that force finds the sea under the control of its enemies. The southern route, from Akabah to Suez,, though everywhere perfectly good going, is very much worse provided with water Opposite Akabah, from the pine grove of Tabah, after a sharp climb of 2000 ft, you are on a flat, hard plateau, running directly in the direction of Suez, between low hills, and the Pilgrims’ road is marked fairly clearly upon ibis hard plateau. At what is very nearly the central point between Akabah and Suez you get tire first reserve of water. A modern force upon the march would not reach that reserve until tho end of the third day at the very earliest. There _ are cisterns, to hold a great provision of water; whether these arc, or now can he, kept filled, I can find no authority to' tell mo. The remainder of the way to Suez there is but one point of water, the well of Moses, “Ayun Mousa,” a short march before Suez. _ It is evident that this second marching route is much harder than the lirst, and I believe that, historically, no great force lias ever taken it, though there may have been Arab movements of which I am ignorant; but the Roman, the Egyptian of pagan times, the Assyrian, the Greek, and the Frenchman have all chosen the sea route. On .either route, right up to the neighborhood of the canal, petrol traffic could move at Will, and carry such armament as petrol will carry within a day for light vehicles, within 18 hours for heavy ones. But petrol vehicles, save in very great numbers, though they may seize important points ahead of an army, will not convoy an army. GER&IAN WAR LOAN. REPORTED COVERED. (Received Jan. 13, 12.-5 a.m.) LONDON, Jan. 12. Amsterdam reports that the German war loan has been covered. GERMAN JESUITS. FATHER PER NAItD • VAUG K AN CENSURED. (Received Jan. ‘l3, 12.5 a.m.) ROTTERDAM, Jan. 12. The Provincial Council of the German Jesuits censured Father Bernard Vaughan of London, whoso war sermons are considered insulting to theKaiser. ABOUT m A G H IKE G U N 3= Every day in the newspapers thorn crop up incidents dealing noth the effect of machine-gun fire, and an enormous number of these weapons are do. ing their deadly work to-day. In the British army the machinegun is the Maxim; the French use the Hotchkiss, or Puteaux ; Austrians employe tho Schwarz lose; and Germans the Maxim. In all cases ma-chine-guns are attached to the infantry forces, usually at the proportion of two guns per battalion, or 1000 men. These guns fire rifle cartridges at immense speed by mechanical means, and usually the kick, or recod of the gun, is used for the puipose of reloading. It is interesting to note that in a test of forty-two British first-class shots engaged against a machine gun, each firing at the same target for cue minute, the gun _ discharged 22S rounds and made sixtynine hits; the forty-two marksmen discharged 4 OS rounds and made sixt-y-two hits. THE WONDERFUL MAX. THE REAL REASON FOR GERMAN ARREST OF THE BURGOMASTER OF BRUSSELS. The ‘’Petit Parisian” now tells iho authentic story of M. Max. Some time after his arrival in Brussels Field-Marshal von cler Goltz summoned the Burgomaster and told him that the city had been ordered to pay j a war contribution, of which it had not yet paid a centime. “I order you,” said tho Field-Marshl, “to pay the first instalment of this indemnity namely, at least, five million francs(£2oo,UUo), within forty-eight hours.” The time-limit having expired M, Max called upon tho Field-Marshal. Four employees from the Town Hall followed him, bent beneath the weight of enormous parcels. The FieldMarslia 1 tore open the envelope of one., of tho parcels and examined it. I “What audacity!” he exclaimed. “1 ( asked for gold, and you bring me re- ; quisition notes of the German army, i You are making fun of me, nr on- 1 siour.” . ' “Are not thesenotes redeemable?” asked M. Max* with Iris most naive air. ! “Evidently,” replied the FieldMarshal. “But,” said the Burgomaster, “the officers who signed them told me that they were as good as bullion. I return you this gold.” M. * Max afterwards was arrested and sent to the fortress of Ingolstadt.

2500 refugees aboard, did not strike a mine, but was torpedoed by a tb marine, though our Admiralty is dumb upon tbe point. Tho German excuse is that the ship*was mistaken for a troopship—a troopship going to England! No yarn can bo thinner. At the same time the German submarines are commanded so daringly, so audaciously, that it is hard to belicv that one of them would have been guilty of such a monstrously inhuman act as drowning 2500 helpless noncombatants. One of our squadrons in a river estuary, which i must not name, lias a better opinion of the German submarine than this.

This squadron lias every excuse for entertaining.a market respect for tbe enemy’s suhmersibles. It was coaling and refitting, as it thought secure from the- attack of any German ships of war, when two submarines came to tho surface and had a squint at their prospective victims in the exact centre of the half-circle formed by pur warships. Luckily our sailors were Argus-eyed, and twigged the periscopes before tho submarines could go down again and discharge their toriedoes as our stationary ships. Broadsides were poured into them, and both sank cut of sight and did not reappear. The gunners are confident that the;/ hit them, and the failure to make any attack supports their theory. 'The shells from the big guns did not, however, all find their way into the depths of tho .sea. As a boy I remember deriving great delectability from making flab stories skip along tho surface of ponds. The shells from tho squadron riochetted in the same manner along tlie top of the sea, and with a liop-skip-and-a-jurnp playfully whisked through farmhouses on the ocher side of the shore, to-the intense consternation of the homely peasant folk. More thrilling is a .story, which also readies me from a credible source, of

several German submarines caught m a bay up "north. The operations of the German submarines conclusively showed some weeks ago that they must have a base either in the shape of a parent ship reaming about tlie North Sea, or of a harbor right- out of the beaten track and in an _untenanted part of the United. Kingdom. My informant states that a sanctuary of this sort has been tracked, and several enemy’s submarines were found inside .its mouth, that mines have' been laid, across the only exit, and that outside it our destroyers are prowling up and down waiting for the other fellows to risk being b!own_ up in order to get bad: to the North Sea. A novelist never invented a more stimidating, tantalising or exciting situation.

ALIENS ARM 1 It would be a shame to turn from bird vitalising episodes to domestic

affairs were it not that the most- prosaic of our daily doings bring us into the range- of things that are deadly earnest. Our Liberal papers are opening their columns to the protest of aliens against the regulations which are bringing them under the control of the police. One woman writes: ■‘l was married noarlv twenty years ago, when our good Queen Victoria was on tlio throne, and I only followed in her footsteps. I married the man I loved, and he has proved worthy of my love, and so did she. Hors was a Prince Consort to her, but mine is a king to me, though only a working-man. Mv husband has been in England twenty-seven _ years, and has been in bis last situation fourteen years. Now my country lias taken ids living and mine a wav from us and thrown us on the scrap-heap tostarvo. Would it not have been more bum-one to have put us and our ciiudren in the lethal chamber? ’ That petition sounds unanswerable in its simple demand for justice. But it cleverly passes over tlie fact that tho German -—tlie husband —has not become a naturalised subject, despite his years of residence, and even ir ho were naturalised a scene that was swiftly enact'd in a restaurant yesterday would abundantly vindicate the Government. A gentleman would net believe that a German waiter in this hotel, or German waiters in other hotels-constitut-ed a danger to tho commonwealth. To all the assertion of a friend he remained obstinately loyal to nis own conception of the German character. The friend, who speaks German fluently, took him to lunch, and arranged that at the end of the meal he would say in a stage whisper and furtively to the waiter. “Where do you mobilise?'" As be settled tbe account lie put the question rapidly to the German waiter, and the' latter, sinking his voice to the same level, replied, “At Dover, sir." It is better that there should be one or one thousand acts of injustice than that England should have a German corps assembling ready armed and ready equipped, with an intimate oersonal knowledge of every yard of her surface, within her borders.

GERMANY ENYADED. SWIFT MENACE OF RUSSIAN ARMIES. GRAND DIKE’S BRILLIANT STRATEGY.

The Russians have'completed a wonderful series of victories in the cast, and have commenced a fresh invasion of Germany at two points (wrote the London correspondent of the "Age" on 13th November). Russia began a •succession of remarkable, victories by driving back tiro Germans from the Niemen into East Prussia, inflicting on them heavy losses. Then the Russian army fell upon the flank German army advancing upon Yt arrow, and broke it up. Next, the main German armies were driven back from tho line of me \ istuki in headlong flight. Russia next grappled with a stubborn Austrian resistance on the San, fought the Austrians hard for three whole weeks, and ultimately compelled them to retreat in disorder. The latter victory, described by the Grand Duke Nicholas, Commander-in-Ghief of the Russian armies, as the most important in the eastern theatre since tho beginning of the war, was followed, in turn, by the Russian invasion of the German Empire at two