DEFENSIVE, NOT OFFENSIVE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15130, 26 January 1917, Page 4

DEFENSIVE, NOT OFFENSIVE.

arc people who see in this British advance across the upper edge of the Desert of Sinai the beginnings of, or at least the prelude to an expedition that shall clear the enemy right out of Syria. It has even been suggested that it might travel so far as to Hilk up with the Russian forces in Armenia under Yudenitch and the British in Mesopotamia, and the anticipation ends in a bright vision of three great armies advancing in concert upon Constantinople from the east and the south, at about the same time that a recovered Russia and a heavily reinforced Sarrail move downy upon that city from the west. It is a splendid dream, and if Britain were a military nation in the sense that Germany is, if she had been able to raise great Indian and African armies to wjiom she could entrust’ this task, she might .be able to carry out her share. But in that case the probability da that there would have been no war, And as things are, seeing that all the white troops that erfn be spared are needed on the Western, front, that, so far as we know, no black armies are being raised

by Britain, and that though India has yielded far more men than was expected,' circumstances have hitherto her from playing really any considerable part in the war. Since all these things are so, a big British offensive tnrough and beyond Syria would seem to be out of the question. In any case, the British military authorities have probably had enough 'of subsidiary expeditions of this kind. The probability is j that the El-Arish and Rafa expedition has no connection whatever with any idea of an offensive upon such a scale. It may be taken to represent, on the contrary, part of a big defensive scheme, directed at making the againthreatened Turco-Teutonic attempt on Egypt impossible. Perhaps this scheme may involve the smashing up of the Beersheba base and part, of the railway between Beersheba and Jerusalem; but we shall not know about that until later.