October 16, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER. 
so that it is a liiik in a clear avenue of communica- 
tion. It further represents the mouth of the broad 
and flat Morava Valley. Ram is similarly situated 
opposite the Hungarian railhead, while Graditze 
is the junction of two roads, one coming from the 
Morava Valley, which would make a lateral com- 
munication for the advance, and the other going 
up into the hill country, of which I must next 
speak. 
Very roughly speaking, an invasion of Serbia 
from the north passes first over flat and undulat- 
ing country south of the Danube, and next comes 
upon high lands, bare uplands, which rapidly 
grow mountainous in character and which by 
December fire snow-covered and make very difficult 
going. It is not easy to establish the exact bound- 
ary lines betv.-een the undulating and flat country 
and the hill country, but some such boundary as 
that upon Sketch 11. will suffice, though with the 
proviso that the valley of the jMorava makes a deep 
indentation into the hill country, to which in- 
dentation of easy country it is difficult to set a 
limit because isolated flats succeed one another 
even in the hills. 
Perhaps the really open part of the Morava 
Valley may be regarded as ending at, say, about 
Paratchin — though there are narrows below that 
point. 
Now all this advance from the mouth when it 
strikes the mountain country finds a quadrilateral 
defined by the four points, Orsava, Zaietchar, 
Paratchin, and a vague corner of the hills roughly 
corresponding to the point marked x upon Sketch 
II. A railwry has been projected, but I am told 
not 3'et completed, across the district. There are 
no roads save the system on the extreme eastern 
boundary and the two main roads up the valley of 
the Marava, one on either side of that stream, 
which roads join just above Paratchin and go on 
to Nish. 
Two roads in the north, one from Semendria, 
the other from Graditze, go up into the foothills 
of the mountains and then stop. On the south of 
this mountain mass you have the road and the new • 
railway from Zaietchar to Paratchin. This dis- 
trict is the size of a large English county. It is at 
its greatest length and greatest width over fifty 
miles. The mountain heights which it contains are 
not remarkable. The passes average only 1,500 
feet, the summits somewhat over 3,000. But it is 
wild land, bare, save the north-east, where the 
Hungarian forests overflow the Danube, as it 
were, at its gorge. The Highland is provided with 
nothing more than tracks for the crossing of it. 
We might further predicate that an attack 
upon Serbia from the north, even if it were made 
with the full force which was calculated as neces- 
sary (not less than 500,000 men), would have a 
very difficult task before it with winter 
approaching. 
It has one line of easy advance, the lower 
Valley of the Morava, with its railways, for the 
first few days, after which the road grows 
narrow, and after the first week's march becomes 
mountainous; while on the rest of the front diffi- 
cult mountain country with no roads begins 
almost at once. 
Now the enemy is attacking with much less 
than the minimum number required for success. 
He has not half a million. He has at the utmost 
a quarter on that Belgrade-Orsava front. He is 
attacking at a moment when his reserves of men 
are very near exhaustion. He is creating a ne^vi 
front in what will be a desperate fashion did he 
not securely calculate upon a new element. 
Whether his calculation is just or no the future 
Avill determine. But he has quite certainly cal- 
culated upon a new element, and that new element' 
is, of course, the Bulgarian Army. 
The Bulgarian Army can mass forces upon 
this north Serbian frontier alone and immediately] 
of over 150,000 men. It has a frontier exactl^J 
flanking the whole of the Serbian positions. Suc- 
cessful advance across that frontier renders all 
the north-eastern corner of Serbia, where resist-* 
ance would be otherwise feasible, untenable. It' 
turns that stronghold, and, as will be quite clear 
from Sketch II. above, a stroke at or near tha 
capital point of Zaietchar would be decisive. 
Zaietchar is the junction of the two roads 
from the north and of the road and railway going 
westward to the Morava Valley and the main line. 
It is, further, the junction to a high road through 
the mountains from Nish. It is the junction of 
the road and tramway to Kniajevatz. 
The whole of that frontier from Kniajevat;^ 
to Zaietchar, running parallel to the Bulgarian 
frontier, nowhere ten miles from it and in nianyi 
places not five, just at the foot of the ridge which 
separates the two countries, is, when Bulgaria 
moves, the critical point for the Serbians. And il( 
does not seem possible that with roads and rail- 
ways such as they are and with numbers of this 
sort opposed to them the quarter of a million 
armed Serbians can hold against the forces coming 
against them both from the north across tha 
Danube and from the east and Bulgaria. It' 
would, in other words, appear unquestionable that' 
under this pressure of forces not only double their 
own, but converging from two rectangular fronts, 
the defence of north-eastern Serbia and therefore 
of the all-important line from Nish to Sofia and 
Constantinople must crumble. 
THE CHANCES OF AID. 
It is here that there comes in the unknown 
and capital element of external aid. And wa 
have to ask ourselves at this point certain ques- 
tions, none of which can receive a complet«( 
answer as things are, and many of which can 
receive no answer at all, but all of which w« 
must keep in mind if we are to judge the situa- 
tion rightly as it develops in the immediate 
future. The principal of these questions are aa 
follows : 
1. What does the political, as compared witK 
the purely military, problem involve? In other 
words, to what extent is the diversion of troops to 
the new Balkan front a military sacrifice war^* 
ranted by political considerations ? 
2. Supposing it be warranted, in what num- 
bers would it be effectual ? 
3. Within what delay of time can such aid 
arrive so as to be useful ? 
4. What are the opportunities for munition- 
ment and for supply of the force under considera- 
tion ? 
I repeat that all these four questions will re- 
main unsolved for some time to come, even in the 
minds of those who have the amplest information 
and to whom every known element of the problem 
is present. 
In examining these questions, therefore, I am 
examining questions alone. I am not proposing 
