AN EXPERT'S VIEWS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXII, 7 October 1916, Page 5

AN EXPERT'S VIEWS.

GENERAL SITUATION EXCELLENT

.iEOR ALLIES.

LONDON, Oct. 6

Mr Hil,aire Belioc, the war critic, points out .that. the. Roumanians surprised General' Mackensen by unexpectedly crossing the Danube marshes, utilising a belt of sandbanks amid the .meres. The sandbanks form a natural | causeway uniting the villages of Tomigil and Floranda. The magazines at \ Bucharest are an hour's railway , journey away/ and the Roumanians i - were able to secre,tly pile up munition stores, it was a hazardous experiment, but the approach to,the Danube ■was masked by a belt of marshy woodland. Thus Mackensen. was ignorant of the concentration until the Roumanians were- across the Danube. They' now hold the bridgehead near Rahovo. The Bulgarians, realising the effect of the news of Mackensen's danger upon Greece and other neutrals, published a lying communique claiming that they had dispersed fifteen Roumanian battalions at Rahovo. Meanwhile there is excellent news of General Sarrail's offensive to recapture Serbia. The British are threatening the enemy railway communications between Rupel and Seres, the Serbians are on the .right, the French ;in the centre, and .the Russians on the left. They continue .to advance, and are within five -miles of Monastir, before which the Bulgarians occupy a line of defences. / After the Uulgar «. -counter-attacks were broken, the1 Serbian advance assumed the character of a pursuit. The Serbians have already regained 250 -square kilometres of "Serbian territory. The Morning Post's Budapest correspondent states that Germany is sending an immense, number of agricultural machines Jto Bulgaria with a view to endeavoring to increase the fertility of the 'soil. 'Thousands of scientific men are advising and urging tke primitive "Bulgarians to adopt modern methods. Germany greatly fears the prospect of the cutting of the Constantinople railway, and is concentrating heavily with the object of preventing that occurring.