HARD, LONG ROAD.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 473, 16 August 1915, Page 6

HARD, LONG ROAD.

THE DARDANELLES PATH HOW GREECE COULD SMOOTH THE WAY. WORK FOR ENTENTE DIPLOMACY. [Mr G. Ward Price, who has recently spent much time in the Balkan Peninsula, sends to the "Mail" an interesting account of how Greece might help to open the gate of Constantinople for the Allies, and what is preventing her from doing it.]

"Everybody has been cheered up by the news that M. Venizelos has won the general elections in Greece with a two-thirds majority," writes Mr Ward.

"But the extremes both of optimism and pessimism are avoided in matters so. complicated as the tangle of considerations that make up the present diplomatic situation in Europe.

"We have atf been a little depressed about the Dardanelles lately. Our troops landed there by a feat of superb gallantry on April 25. We are now half-way through June, and "we have not yet secured a sufficient hold on the peninsula.to be able to protect the whole of the part that we occupy at its extreme toe from being shelled by the enemy. ~ "Hold Out Your Left Thumb." "Hold out your left thumb in front of you across your body. That is roughly the shape of the lower part of the Gallipoli Peninsula, looking at it from the nearest island in the TEgean.' Your thumb-nail is the part of. the peninsula occupied by the Allies. But in the middle of the top joint is the hill called Achi Baba.; It is only 700 ft high and from our side is the culmination of a gradual rise of the ground from the sea. But until we can take Achi Baba and post our batteries upon it the Turkish guns mounted on that hill and the others round it can bombard all the thumb-nail part which we now hold. "We have consequently got to take Achi Baba in order to confirm our landing and make our bases and restcamps safe from the constant anxiety and occasional injury of enemy shell fire. "It is a long and a hard task for Achi Baba is a smaller model Spion Kop. It has been cunningly entrenched under the direction of German sappers who have learned all the lessons that the war in the .west has taught. "Moreover, when w T e have carried the height of that first knuckle and posted our guns there to prevent the enemy's batteries, which will . have withdrawn to new positions beyond, from bombarding us, we have still got to carry out the object which this landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula is intended to effect; W r e still" have to advance a good deal farther—about eight miles—oyer. very broken and difficult country, and capture the forts on the European side of the Narrows, which stand,. on your thumb model, just about at the low r er joint, where the thumb joins the hand. "And as it has taken us seven weeks to advance to the point where our front trenches now are, four miles from the landing-points, it will clearly take us a good deal of time to force our way to Maidos and Kilid Bahr. What Greece Could Do.

"All this, of course, must have been clearly foreseen and allowed for by the Allied General Staff, and the prevailing feeling of impatience and depression about the Dardanelles operations is consequently unnecessary.

"At the same time, it would plainly be very much better and easier if we cduld find a backdoor or a way round to Constantinople and so avoid the heavy cost in lives of battling a way up this narrow corridor of the Gallipoli Peninsula. "It is just in this connection that the coming return of M. Venizelos to power in Greece has cheered people up. 'lf the* Greeks/ they say, 'will send an army to land at Erios or at Bulaii'j at the root end of the Gallipoli Peninsula, the Turks will either have to fall back and let them advance, or they will be compelled to withdraw troops from Gallipoli to meet them, and so lighten the allied army's task.' Greek General Staff Says "No!"

"But we may be preparing for ourselves a disappointment if we rely upon M. Venizelos's return to power to bring all this to pass. "M. Venizelos is certainly a hearty advocate of Greek co-opera-tion in the war. He has proved himself a great and far-seeing statesman in no exaggerated sense of those words. "M. Venizelos realises now that the future prosperity and expansion of his country are bound up with the success of the Allies, while, if the Germans win, she will fall back into her past insignificance, only aggravated this time by the necessity of servile subjection to the armed bully of Europe. "The reason why Greece will probably want to keep her army at home is that she is afraid of Bui-, garia. "Consequently, the Greek General Staff is so far absolutely against sending a single Greek battalion out of the country.

"Bulgaria, from the military point of view, is important for two reasons. She has one of the best armies in the Balkans, and by geographical position holds the keys of the back door to Constantinople. • "The Bulgarians boasted to me when I was there last month that they would be in possession of Adrianople a couple of days after the delaration of war oil. Turkey. It would not take them long, with most of the guns from the forts' and the

garrison sent to the Dardanelles. And from Adrianople you have got the railway and open country right down to Constantinople, with only the Chataldja lines, which are wealfi in comparison with the Gallipoli positions, to cover the capital. "Hitherto the. Bulgarians hava" lain low ( and said nothing in this war. What Bulgaria Wants. "One good point of the" situation is/ that everyone knows what Bulgaria wants. She wants concessions from' Serbia and Kavalla from Greece—the territories that, were originally allotted to her by the Balkan Confederation that-defeated Turkey. "Hitherto the Allies have not been/ disposed to pay Bulgaria's price.

"On the other hand, the Dardanelles are costing the Allies a great deal of blood, too. Arid if the sacrifice of a few miles of Serbian territory would materially help those operations by bringing Bulgaria in, there is no doubt that the compensations which Serbia would receive after the war in the way of an out?, let upon the Adriatic and the cession, of the strip; of Hungarian territory,; called the Banat, to serve as a bridgehead to Belgrade, would open such a new national outlook as to. make the renouncement of her gains in the second Balkan waY more easily forgotten. "This diplomatic nettle of the Balkans will have to be gripped, andEngland being the one Power whom 1 all the Balkan States agree in trusting, it is to her that the initiative should fall," concludes Mr Ward.