THE CAMPAIGNS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17097, 21 February 1916, Page 6

THE CAMPAIGNS.

It is right tliafc in studying the war nen - s lve should look from the restricted local engagements to the larger movements they may imply, bur the wise reader will hesitate to indulge in generalisations on the very limited information that is at present, being supplied concerning the various fronts. The average correspondent seems to be prono to extravagance in bis speculations. We have an example in the Salonika suggestion that the Russian activity in Bukovina threatens me. enemy's line of communication with Constantinople. The threat may exist, but. it is so remote that its influence on the course of the campaign may be ignored. Between Czernowitz and the line that feeds Turkey with munitions there is the barrier of the Carpathians and perhaps three hundred miles of territory. Even the existence of an Allied force at Salonika is only indirectly a threat, at Sofia, because by this time the Bulgarians, if they are wise, have constructed a. series of formidable defensive positions, which, would have to be stormed or turned one after another before the Constantinople line could he reached. The Russian offensive in Bukovina and eastern Galieia affects the position in the Balkans, however, because it'has already drawn several Austro-German divisions from tne southern front. As for the Allied army at Salonika, it may be intended for no immediate offensive, but when the time comes for a general forward movement on the part of the Allies the Salonika force will play its part, adding at once to the anxieties of the Central Powers and draining their stores of munitions. We cannot speak very positively concerning the position in Macedonia, but the fact that the Allies are maintaining there an army of perhaps a quarter of a million men implies that they have little anxiety as to the supply of men for the principal theatre, and that, we shoud say, is the most significant feature of this phase of the war.

.Not a great deal of news comes regarding the actual operations. We have a hint from the enemy of a British effort to recover the trenches lost south of Tpres. and some of the critics are taking rather an alarmi.'t view of the situation there. They suggest that if the Germans should make any substantial progress on the Ypres-Comiues canal the evacuation of the Ypres salient by the British would be forced. This is a long-standing threat, but the recent German success has brought it once more into discussion. In P'ranee there has been little movement, and virtually the only news of importance, from Paris concerns the German attack in Southern Alsace. The latest effort of the enemy has been made a few miles north of the earlier attack at Seppois. There has been a good deal of movement on the Russian front, hut the communiques arc not sufficiently informative to reveal its importance. An Italian report mentions fighting: in the Sugana valley, possibly the first indication of a new Austrian offensive.