PROGRESS OF THE WAR

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 10085, 25 September 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

We have reached the climax of General Allen by’ b great victory. “The Turkish Army in Palestine has ceased to exist.” It is the first time such words have been written during the war. What is more, they chronicle not a victory of the great German machine, hut of a British general, over one of the expressly chosen ones of the great German machine. Liman von Sanders, selected to bring the big Turkish armies up to date, who was in personal command, was outmanoeuvred and upset as’ any child would nave been in the same position. He began with a strong front resting on the sea and the hills \ he ended with his front broken, his flanks turned, his troops surrounded, his guns captured, his whole material and transport in the hands of his adversary, his two armies utterly destroyed. There are tew such victories in the annals of war. The one that comes nearest to it is General Maude’s victory before Baghdad.

There is here much food for reflection. These, the two greatest, most spectacular victories of the war, are British victories. They show the spirit and the efliciencv the British military service possessed in its day of small things when the Kaiser abused it as "contemptible.” and has preserved till its present day of great things. They teacn, in fact, that one of tho secrets of the rapid British development to military greatness, is the combination of efficiency and determination which were the marked characteristic of the old service. Tlpit old service maintained the virility and snap of the race when the shallow critics were proclaiming the .degeneracy of all things British and predicting the downfall and disruption of tho British Empire. Now, having produced the magnificent armies on the West front, they have astonished the world with this immense victory of General Allenhv. who heat tho German general without giving him time to issue an order. Imagine a race in which one horse covers the distance before the other has loft tho starting post, and you have tho measure of the Ger-man-Turkish defeat.

There is another point that strikes. It is that a largo proportion of the troops under General Allonby's command were Indian troops, and ot these a certain proportion were recruits who had never been in action. But of these, we are told in the reports of tho battle that they fought as well as the votorans, and covered in their forced marches of victory astonishing distances. In co-ordination with troops of tho United Kingdom and troops of the Overseas—the New Zealanders, we note with pride, sweeping past tho retreating Turk s at the right moment, blocked the last of the Jordan crossings on which the escaping enemy depended for escape—these soldiers of India have given the world a demonstration of the solidarity of the British Empire. Thus wo realise that a great proportion of tho engaged in this great battle of the Sharon plain were supplied direct from India without any diversion of strength from the crucial theatre of tho West. Tho same can bo said of tho conquest of Baghdad and tho subsequent occupation of Mesopotamia. Those fine campaigns prove that India can bo relied on to defend tho approaches to her northern borders, and to supply armies to conquer and hold advance posts of powerful defence. These things set tho recent determination of Indian public opinion to increase tho Indian levies for those great purposes in a peculiarly fine light.

Moreover, the fact that Mesopotamia was once the garden of tho world, intoxicating historians with its fertility and beauty, is- a sufficient reply to those who declare that Mesopotamia spells discontent to the Indian, whoso natural outlet commercially agriculturally, and climatically is

1 East Africa, which, moreover, has justified reliance by years of successful colonising and exploitation. Capital and engineering skill can advance Mesopotamia to tho ancient level which attracted irresistibly the Assyrian, tho Persian, the Greek, the Roman, and the Saracen, and will as powerfully attract tho surplus millions of India. To return to General Allenby’s victory. One recent account gives tho tale of prisoners at 26,000, and another declares that 40,000 Turks (now no longer soldiers) remain surrounded by tho troops of General Allenby. These numbers appear to give the Turkish Seventh and Eighth armies engaged against Allenby original strength (allowing for casualties at,, say, 24,000) of 90,000 men. That, assuming that each army consisted of two corps, each of tw-o divisions, would give eight divisions on the eve of tho battle, of a strength of between 11,000 and 12,000 men. As some small units probably broke away’ as unarmed fugitives, it would he safe to estimate the strength of tho two armies destroyed by General Allenby at about 100,000 men. There is no clue to tho strength of the AngloIndian forces under tho British General. But it does not seem likely that it was anything more than half the number of the enemy.

These estimates are modified by a later report, which puts tho Turkish strength west of the Jordan at 60,000, of which the combatant proportion is 35,000. There appears to be some rough sort of agreement between the two estimates, for the capture of combatants appears to he 24,000, while the 40,000 still uncaptured may refer to tho balance of the ration strength. The figures are, for the purpose of judging the results ■ exactly, unreliable. But the main fact stands out clear —that two Turkish armies between the Jordan and the sea have been wiped out, and all their guns, stores and transport captured. That their casualties were very great is evident from the detailed description of the execution done by the air squadrons. It is an instance of the frightful power a well-equipped, powerful air force has over a beaten and routed army.

. The hurried exit of the commander of these numerous lost Turks may be due to his anxiety to bring up fresh troops to minimise the defeat, and make a fresh bar against further British advance northward. But ho will have to find guns, material, and transport. His Turkish colleague, Enver Bey, considers himself a compound of Napoleon and Frederick the Great. It is an opinion which certain reverses in the Caucasus have prevented from spreading beyond this groat man’s immediate entourage. Djemal Pasha, the second of the Young Turk Triumvirate, once had a military reputation—apart from his infamy as a big-scale murderer of Christians, Jews, and Arabs in Syria and Palestine. But as this did not survive his freaks against the Suez Canal,, not much help can be expected from him in this crisis. Talaat Bey, the third member of the Triumvirate, oamo into dazzling prominence with the others when they murdered Nazim Pasha at the end of the Balkan war, and seized the reins of government. But this sort of service does not offer any encouragement to Liman von Sanders as a reorganiser of Turkish forces, unless he were seeking for an executioner to relieve him from further . responsibilities and anxieties.

Moreover,-the Turks have not, since the Brest-Litovsk negotiations, given any signs of strength or of spirit. Before that event the test of the Mesopotamian campaign had found out their futility. For a time the German von Falkenhavn lived in the halo of a vast army about to descend on Baghdad by both the Euphrates and Tigris. But when attempts were made to produce results the British commanders struck so hard and so skilfully—somewhat in the Allenby manner, with the Allenby pace—that the halo and the armies died away. They have not materialised since. On the whole we shall not bo surprised if tho Turks, with or without Liman von Sanders, wake up some fine morning presently to find General AUonby in Damascus. Ho has the land communications in good order, the sea is his on the left, without any menace so far as is known, from the captured Russian Black Sea Fleet, and apparently does not require anything inconvenient in the way of reinforcements. But yesterday he was at Beersheba—about to-morrow he ought to bo at Dan.

, The news from the Salonika front improves daily. (1) The advance on the Mouastir side has cut the railway in tho Yardar vallev between Uskub and Salonika; (2) the enemy on the eastern side has abandoned the whole of his Doiran line. Tho second signifies that the first has compelled a general retreat of tho enemv from the whole of tho Macedonian front. New York reports that German and Bulgarian reinforcements are arriving in the Vordar valley to bar the road to Uskub, and meet the retreating columns on both sides with welcome relief. But there is not much probability in tho reports of these reinforcements. The Germans want every man in France, and Bulgaria is tired of the war, and is on the look-out for a chance to take “backsheesh 7 ’ from the Allies with one hand, and stab their allies in the back with the other. Be this as it may, tJie general retreat of the enemy is the great fact of the situation. Presently wo shall have lively times between Uskub and Veles. unless the Serbian advance, which has cut the Yardar line, gets to Uskub first, in which case the Bulgars falling back on Veles will go over the hills to Sofia, leaving guns and material behind them.

The “Echo de Paris” publishes the statement that the civil evacuation of Douai, Camhrai, and St. Quentin is in full swing. We cannot’ say that this is unlikely, because it is beyond doubt that tho powerful, persistent offensive has shaken that long section of the German lino: that the French advance is gradually pushing forward towards Lnon; and that tho menace against Lorraine is taken very seriously indeed by the enemy. But the news cannot bo accepted without confirmation.

Tho same journal declares that tho Allied air raids over German territory have produced a mighty effect, tho wildest rumours spreading of the immense number of tho victims and tho enormous extent of tho damage done. It is not tho first time that the enemy population has been said to "realise the horrors of aerial war, of which they highly approved so long as the infliction was one-sided.

Tho latest story is that the Austrian Government is going to make another peace offer, this time accenting Presi-

dent Wilson’s fourteen propositions. According to this, Germany is not ready to stand in, but the remarkably persuasive effect of Marshal Foch's offensive is said to be working wonders. Against this, the Kaiser is reported to have made a great effort to stir up the courage of his troops, who listen without the boisterous enthusiasm of the early days of the war. It is all interesting. But it is not war. Of the latter we shall probably have a great instalment presently, when the weather settles.