THE BALKAN CAMPAIGN

Marlborough Express, Volume LI, Issue 155, 3 July 1917, Page 5

THE BALKAN CAMPAIGN

The difficulties of the campaign in the Balkans were recently described by Mr G. Ward Price. He explained that the official title, "Salonika army," is misleading, for the army . does! not spend its time around-Salonika*' but is spread along a ninety miles' front, partly mountains, partly plain, but the whole of it is treeless, unsheltered, 'very cold arid wf-t in ■winter, very hot. and unhealthy in smmner. The British Army has changed the face of Macedonia. It "has--made roads arid railways, aiid ; how many hundred miles of trenches it has constructed no one can do more than guess. In France all the I convenieiK-es of transport are ready-

made behind the lines. Here everything has to be constructed from the beginning in the mother naked land. In the same way there are Bulgarian positions in front of us which are natural fortresses with iidviintages of site tar greater than those of the enemy hues in France. Finally, our army m the Balkans can never get away from the tremendous handicap or being on the outside of the circle wiiile the enemy is all on the inside. Ihe enemy can load up a railway truck with shell in an Essen factory and unload that same truck at his railhead eight miles behind the front we are now attacking. It would take a long paragraph to relate tlie unloading and transh.ipp.ings of a consignment of shells to the front irom Woolwich to a similar railhead on our aide. In a similar way the enemy can bring a whole new division here from Germany in six days.