WHERE ARE THE TURKS?

Otago Witness, Issue 3336, 20 February 1918, Page 54

WHERE ARE THE TURKS?

By CfiAS. Vr.vcE. “Where are the Turks?” is a question which probably Germans are asking. It is a question which possibly Turks are asking, too. It is a question certainly which neutral critics are beginning to ask. Captain Norregaard, the Norwegian military critic, asking this question in the Morgenbladet on November 23, suggests some possible answers. In the end ho confesses that the matter is still a mystery. All the world knows the great hopes which Germany set on Turkey. She hoped that the Turks would chase Great Britain out of Egypt, and then the East would be open for Germany to drive (as Ernst Nevhaus said) “a highway for Ku.ltur deep into Asia.” When Turkey failed on the Suez Canal, and when British troops reached Bagdad, Germany resigned, for the moment at any rate, one of her greatest ambitions. But even this year the German people were still allowed to have considerable hopes in the East. Ealkenhayn went to Aleppo. Germany was to make a bid to recover Bagdad. Captain Norregaard speaks of this “ big Turco-German offensive under Ealkenhayn,” of which, he says, there were so many reports. He speaks, too, of “Radoslavov’s declaration that Bulgaria would send troops to help the Turks.” But when Captain Norregaard looks round, so far from finding any evidence that Germany and Bulgaria are helping Turkey, all he can find is “credible reports” that, on the contrary,' 50,000 or 60,000 Turks are on the Italian and Macedonian fronts. Turkey was sacrificed before to the more imperious needs of the Central Powers, when the Austrian line was broken last year by Brussiloff. She will certainly be’ sacrificed again when their need for men in the principal theatres increases. The designs which Germany had in the East this yfear must have been radically changed when Maude struck another of his swift, decisive blows, and destroyed the advance Turkish force on the Tigris at Tekrit. They must have been changed more still when Allenby in rapid succession took Gaza, Joppa, and Jerusalem. These were not in Ealkenhayn’s plans. But where, says Captain Norregaard, is Ealkenhayn?- Where are the troops? He is driven to the significant conclusion that, “ though Turkish troops are in Syria •'and that part of the world, Germany has not been able at this critical moment to spare them enough guns or ammunition, as she wants them all on the west front and in Italy, and her factories are unequal to turning out more.” It is a conclusion unpleasant to the German and alarming to the Turk. It is true that Captain Norregaard offers an alternative solution of the mystery—namely, that the Turks have concentrated between Damascus and Lake Tiberias, and that it is there that they intend to strike the blow which is to put Allenby’s array out of action and “clear the way for their advance southwards through the desert to the canal.” But it is impos sible to believe that the Turks would have lost Jerusalem, and all that the loss of it means to them in the East, for any other reason than that they could not hold it. Indeed, Captain Norregaard admits that his is a “fanciful reason.” He has to account for “the mysterious disappearance of the large numbers of Turkish troops that are supposed to be in existence and under arms,” and he thinks himself that the 'first solution must be right—that Germany is powerless to munition her ally. These are reflections of a neutral which must be very unpalatable both to Germans and to Turks, because they must be the reflections which they themselves have been forced to make. Where are their hopes of the spring? Is this Turkish army a phantom army? Is it an unarmed army, as Captain Norregaard suggests? Or is it merely a defeated army ? They must ask themselves these questions, and all they know is that both in Palestine and in Mesopotamia the plans of their staff have been forestalled by the British; that Turkey, which lost Bagdad at the beginning of the year, has lost Jerusalem at the end of it and that in losing them she has lost what little prestige still remained to her in the East.— (Per favour of the secretary Royal Colonial Institute.)