HOW GOES THE FIGHT?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11784, 23 August 1916, Page 2

HOW GOES THE FIGHT?

NOTES ON THE WAR. I THE POSIT!ON_ANA!YSED. | CHRISTCHURCH, August 23. General Smuts's columns are converging rapidly now on Dares Salaam, ffhero the Germans in East Africa seem likely to Ynake their last serious .stand. Van Devcntor, having reached the central railway at Dodoma, nearly 250 iniles from Dares Salaam, paused lons enough to make suro of his position Across the line, and then struck easb iowards the coast. Re is now reported to have driven tho German s ; from Kidete, a few miles west of tho important post of Kilossa, just IoG miles from tho coast. At the same time, the First Division of tho East African Force, under General Hoskins, has ndvanced rapidly from the north and has crossed the "VYami River at several points. A naval force had occupied Bagamojo, thirty-five miles north of Dares Salaam, and General Hoskins pushed' on and took over this port. The general position is that Smuts's columns are advancing towards tho central railway on a seventy-mile front, while on tho flank Van Deventer's mounted forces arc moving rapidly from the west. General Northcy, with the South Africans and Rhodesia us from "the head of Lake Nyasa, is in the neighbourhood of Iringa. too far away to he co-operating immediately with the main force, but in position to prevent the Germans from striking southwest when they decide to retreat. When the campaign opened c:.:"!y ..: ,thoyearit was estimated that the Germans had a force of some 16,GC0 men, of whom 2000 were white, with sixty guns and eighty machine guns. They were organised in companies varying from 150 to"200 strong, with 10 per cent of wattes and an average of two machine guns to a company. At that time the main enemy body was in the northeastern district, holding a portion of British territory as well as their own frontier. In the brief period before < she rainy season commenced General j Smuts undertook the expulsion of tho j Germans from British territory and-the i occupation of the-Kilimanjaro district. As soon as the weather conditions permitteji the main campaign was opened, j The British forces appear to have con- j sisted in February of two mixed divi- | 6ions, under General Tighe. There ' were Punjabis, Baluchis, native African Rifles, "South Africans, British j troops- and British and South African j mounted troops in the forces, and ad- j ditional brigades were to anivo at j intervals. The earlier operations were I carried out mainly by Tighe, with tho' Second Division, the First Division, as far as can bo gathered, acting on tho defensive and watching tho enemy between Kilimanjaro and the sea. This latter division now figures prominently in the advance towards the central railway. An estimate of the strength of the British forces would be out of the question, but it is obvious that the campaign was not undertaken with insufficient strength to carry it out. Now, when the Serbs are once more in battle, it is worth recalling their condition a few months ago, if only to emphasise the miracle of the regeneration of -their army. Mr Yfard Price retold the story when he saw the Serbs paraded at Salonika, and very naturally- he reverts to those terrible ■ days- of tho retreat through Albania and Montenegro. when , ■-British Army Service Corps units saved them by organising food depots along: the lines of march. So exhausted and dispirited were they, he says, that nothing but the sheer necessity, of making another day's march far their next supply of food kept them going. It is no shame to say this of •so gallant an army, for their retreat is an epic of terrible, sufferings, stoically borne. Between sixty and eighty thousand men had struggled through from Serbia to Scutari. Day after . day they had marched by goat tracks over precipitous mountains, - in heavy rain and snow, often literally with no food for days', together. Every few yards a man would sink down on to tho snow and die from sheer exhaustion. Noone could do anything, to help another along that deadly trail. Only the strongest came through. The track of the retreating army was marked by an ever-lengthening line of . corpses, whose haggard faces were stamped by bitter cold as a record of their suft'er- , ings. Civilians, too, refugees from Belgrade, were with the long column on this nightmare march. For weeks until dogs devoured them, bodies ' of men, women and children, dressed in town . clothes, in which they had fled from the capital, lay on the banks of the Skuinba River, where they had fallen | through lack of strength to ford the Btream. Men stumbled on. dazed and brutaiised by suffering. They were exposed., jon the march to attacks by Albanian, brigands, who laid wait for them in' the defiles of. the mountains. Thus it was that the Serbs reached Scutari, on the Adriatic—famished, Broken in spirit, misled by all the vague . talk of the Allies last autumn about "saving Serbia," until they were almost ready to believe they had been abandoned:- It was the moment or never—-to do something to help these, the most , war-worn of all cur Allies. So a party of British officers was sent out at the end of November to see what could be done. Of these the advance party pushed on to meet the Serbian General Staff at Scutari, while the rest established headquarters at Rome and a base for food •supplies at Brindisi. But for their . endeavours it is difficult to see how the Serbs could have done anything elso but collapse and die of sheer Hunger at Scutari. Bread cost from 10s to 16s a loaf. Serbian officers who were there tell how some of their men went for six days without tasting food at all. At considerable risk from mines the Italian Navy ensured tho transport, of food, but \; was not possible to embark the Ser-1 bians at Mcdua, as the Austrian fleet! lay at Cattaro, close by. ,on& mi "lit at i any moment make a sortie. £n the weary Serb; had to be rou?-,d again for another heartbreaking umr.i, southwards to Duiazr.o. through da-fe-mis marshes and in from Albanian or attack It was another fearful jountoy. 'hnidn-ds died of dysentery. It se«u U ed as '\i their - sufferings would never cease. At Dnrazso part of the. army c.-»dd b* taken on board ship. '1 ho ror-t "had yet .mother seven march to Valorta.. And nlnnr -ill ihi> }- : rt.-..- > V: .y.

the officials and the men of the Bri-ii.-h mhsion stood by their dispirited Allies. They improved roads, organised ferries across rivers, and arranged for the distribution of rations. It is ! certain that they saved thousands of I lives, r.nd the Serbian soldiers who j came through speak of their help with i deep gratitude.

From Valana tho French;-who had now taken in band: the direction of the reorganisation of th'o Serbian army, shipped them to Corfu with remarkable quickness. But oven at Corfu the troubles w;rc- not over. The eight thousand troops who had marches from Scutari had been increased by fifty thousand who had come straight from Elbassan to Valona ; and the difficulties of feeding and' lodging such an army in tho island, where no previous conveniences existed, were very great. The landing of troops began in ' wretched weather, and men were still so feeble that they went on dying of dysentery and exhaustion for weeks afterwards. But the French and English officers worked hard at these problems of supply, while the Serbians devoted themselves to the task of reforming their broken-down divisions into fresh units. Roads and jetties had to bo built, most of this work being entrusted to English engineers; clothing had to come from France and England; rifles were shipped to Corfu, with horses and machine guns; and so gradually order developed from chaos, and the confined multitude of men who had struggled across Albania became en army again. And then tho third and most difficult step in this wonderful process of preparing the Serbians to take tho field ones more had' to be confronted. Th?y were transported "u: Salonika, through seas where they rcere awaited by submarines, which were even sighted from shore by the Serbian troops at drill'. The French were responsible for organising this shipment, and they did it extremely well. Tho first shipload arrived here on April 15, and the last had been discharged by noon on May 13. And what is really extraordinary is that not one man was lost; on the wav. This greatly redounds to the' secrecy and efficiency with which the French made their plans. ' During the process of landing the French gendarmes, mounted and afoot, kept anyone without a permit from approaching tho* uier.

And now they aro all here—hardbitten, war-seasoned veterans, both young and old. What strikes one about them chiefly i s their gocd humour and simplicity— brawny, fifteeu-st-one men, with the heart and spirits of a child. Their uniforms are the j most literal expressions of their alliance ; with tho Entente, for some wear Eng. lisb tunics with Royal Anns and but tons, and others coats of French horizon blue. Only the Royal Guard have kept their old full-dress kit of blue coat and red trousers trimmed with gold braid. They must be almost tho only troops in the war.who have something of the soldiers' old picturesq lioness. Their camps, of which the generals visited one to-dny, stretch for miles in a 1-cnutiful setting of green plain and black mountain and shining r-ea. Here they are putting the lasttouches to their training, though ihey need little, for all are veterans. It is not only an army you see when you visit thorn, but a nation- That is the one melancholy thing about the Serbian force—that it should be all that is left- of tho manhood and vigour, bodily and intellectually, of so gallant a people. But tl:e Serbians are the last to court compassion. Separation from their families, and ignorance of what may have befallen them under tho rule of their racial enemies, their all they have undergone—none of these cau damp their ardour or quell their buoyant spirit. After days of work in the field they will join hands to dance the kolo, officers and men together. There was tho general of the division dancing it with his men to-day; and the guests from the Allied armies. exile on foreign soil, the prospect of still more lighting and suffering after whom they always hospitably welcome, became so infected with theii enthusiasm, that sooner or later they too must join hauds and skip round with the best imitation they can manage of the springy step that goes to the.old folk-tunes. Stout allies and stern foes are the Serbians. Tho fact that not a-/ square foot of their country remains to them has not dimmed for a moment their dream of a greater Serbia. They have even laid the foundations of a navy hy buying a. liny gunboat, manned by twenty men. to which they have given the name of ''Restored Kingdom <.f their llopes."