Nelson Evening Mail. THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 1916. THE BALKAN CAMPAIGN.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue XLIX, 13 January 1916, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail. THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 1916. THE BALKAN CAMPAIGN.

VERY varied are the views on the Balkan 'situation expressed; !by different "writers in l the November magazines. In the "Nineteenth Century and After," Dr .Niko Zupanic, a Serbian, lays ■ stress upon the strategical irnpprtance of Serbia to the Central Empires, not so much as a country, • the -whole of /which they would want to occupy as of one through which they would wish to'establish a secure Tight of way.. He points, out that it lies across and commands the great natural high road which, connects the East and the West —Asia and Europe. He questions whether it. has been Germany's aim. to conquer and hold Serbia, inclining to the Ibelief that the southern .operations, of which Bulgaria bore the brunt, were intended by the Germans mainly as a measure to .prevent the Allies from coming to the aid of the Serbians before the AustroGermans obtained complete control of the Belgrade-Nish-Sona-Constantinople railway. _ With that railway in their Hands Germany and Austria would, of course, be able to provide themselves with raw .materials, food, arid fighting men from; Turkey, while sending'guns,' munitions, skilled artillery men, and expert officers to Turkey. They would open the way from Berlin to Baghdad, and might well be content tp 'fortify themselves on any suitable front, which would leave them in possession of the Serbian link of this line of communications .from the Baltic to Mesopotamia. In Dr Zuparnc's opinion, therefore, the loss of the portion of Serbia through which, the Oriental trunk trailway runs,

must ibe a serious blow to the Allies,

In the same magazine, however,, Mr J. W; Ozanne, while admitting the' possible dangers of the situation created by Austro-German 1 and Bulgarian successes in the Balkans,. suggests that, in spite of the initial advantage won by' them, the CentraLJCmpires will eventually regret that they undertook the expedition. "They are," he" says, "betraying symptoms of exhaustion on their Western and their Easteirn fronts. The Italian assault on the garrisons of the-

Trentino is progressing surely if slowly. '■ Germany and Austro-Hungary needed i every able-bodied man to cope -with the Allies in France, Flanders, Poland, Rus.-' sia, and on their own territory, yet they are recklessly calling out their last available resources by adding bne more to the already immense field of operations." Pi E, J. Dillon, in the "Contempor- ; ary," while trenchantly exposing the policies -pursued by Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria and King Constantine of Greece, insinuates that Allied diplomacy has been faulty, and denounces the censorship which lias striven to keep the facts from the public. He declares that' it was Tvfthi'n'. his knowledge, though he ' was compelled by the censor to keep silent, that when the war broke, outf Germany'&_ syndicate of ihree Balkan kings was bound iby express stipulations (

to the Central Empires; that Bulgaria had further supplemented, that agreement by a convention with. Turkey; that the negotiations of M. Radoslavoff, the Bulgarian Premier, with the Entente were meant to throw dust iri ■• the eyes of the Allies, and gain time for their enemies to organise an expedition against Serbia; and other things still which even now he may not make known. In the "Contemporary'.' there is also

an article by Dr R. W. Seton-Watson, an authority on the Balkaif peoples, „ criticising severely the- attitude c of ""'the Allies and insisting upon -the importance of Serbia from the strategical point' of view. He points out that in September Serbia, under pressure, from the Allies, consented to sacrifice to Bulgaria the whole of Sex-bian Macedonia between Egra Palanka*and the Lake of Presba, including not merely Istib and Veles, but Monastii- that is valuable in the disputed zone. Ochrida alone was to Ibe" -retained in order to preserve a land connection between Serbia and Greece. "That Bulgaria,", proceeds Dr Seton-Watson, "should not merely have : regarded this offer as inadequate, but should almost immediately afterwards have plunged into war against the Entente, proves, beyond dispute that flier 1 King and statesmen aim at something

far bigger than the recovery of Macedonia. Not even the wildest fanatic would declare war. merely in order to add Ocbrida to Monastir. King Ferdinand has a tretblo aim, and from his own standpoint it is perfectly logical. He has always hated Rtissia and the Czar, and he wishes to prevent Constantinople from ever 'becoming Russian. He fears Serbia, and is determined to prevent the achievement of Jugoslavia (i.e., Southern Slav) unity, under any save Bulgarian auspices. lie sympathises with the present regime in Hungary, hoth because he wishes to preserve his vast Hungarian .estates and also because Magyar racial tyranny and his own selfish' dynast »• interests entirely coincide. In a word, his aim is to keep Russia from the Aegean, and to supersede the dream of Jugoslavia under Alexander Karageorgevileh by the reality of a big Bulgaria, touching the three seas of Bulgarian political phantasy (Black. Aegean, and Adriatic), under Boris of Coburg. Serbia's solemn warning of the approaching Bulgarian mobilisation was disregarded by the Allies; her desperate but wholly justifiable and feasible plan of answering that mobilisation [by the occupation of Sofia before adequate resistance could be made was met by a stern veto, which was meaningless save on the assumption that prompt military aid would be pushed up from the south if Serbia's misgivings should pi-ove correct." ■