LAND AND WATER. 
October 16, 1915. 
sea power of Great Britain there would be no 
obstacle at all in the way of Germany. The 
landing at Salonic<a took place, it is true, at what 
in a military soase is a friendly port. Had the 
pomniand of the Mediterranean been in dispute, 
however, the trooi)s that made the landing could 
not have been dispatclied. And what has been 
done at Salonica, at a friendly port, can be done 
v.ith adequate prepaiation and, apparently, in 
spite of the best defences, on hostile shores. But 
if the force sent to Salonica is not adequate to 
block the road of the German advance to Con- 
stantinople it is diflicult to see where else France 
and Great Britain can strike with the hope of 
relieving any now presure on our armies at the 
Dardanelles. And if they are really inadequate 
it is possible that a second problem may arise 
which would be a great deal more disagreeable 
than the discovery that a further diversion to 
check Germany's advance in the East is out of 
the question. It is this. Supposing the expedi- 
tionary force, having landed, fails in its main 
purpose, is it possible to withdraw it by the way 
that it came? The question has been put to me 
Dften in the case of the Dardanelles expedition. 
" Tf," the question runs, " we ever have to recog- 
nise that the Dardanelles expedition is a hopeless 
failure — viz., that the attempt to get the Fleet 
through the Narrows has to be abandoned, will 
it be possible to withdraw the troops? " In the 
?.ase of the Salonica force the question would arise 
if we suppose the Allied Force driven back to port 
out of Serbia and Bulgaria, and, assuming Greece 
still to remain neutral, that Germany and Bul- 
garia would not respect that neutrality. I think 
it cannot be doubted that the difficulties of with- 
drawing an invading force either from the Dar- 
danelles as things are, or from Salonica if it was 
under German attack, would present quite extra- 
ordinary difficulties; difficulties, indeed, so great 
as to make it quite certain that anything from 
15 to 25 per cent, of the total force might have 
to be sacrificed to save the rest. And the propor- 
tion of guns and material lost would quite pos- 
sibly be greater than the proportion of men. But 
It is a far-fetched assumption that any such 
operation will be necessary. It is perfectly incon- 
ceivable to me that a compulsorv withdrawino- of 
the Dardanelles force could, under any circum- 
stances, be imposed on us, no matter what the re- 
inforcements of the enemy might be either in men 
or in material. Few people, I imagine, suppose 
that, whatever the upshot, the war could last more 
than a further eighteen months or two years and 
tor that period at least we should have no diffl- 
cu ty in so adding to our strength in the Darda- 
nelles as to make defeat impossible, even thout^h 
the attainment of our objective remained bevoSd 
our strength. -^ 
If the Germans got to Constantinople, and 
instead of attempting to drive us out of the Galli- 
poh Peninsula, were to renew the effort to drive 
us out of Egypt, a far wider opportunity for co- 
operation would be given to the Fleet. The line 
o± communication from Constantinople to tho 
Holy Land runs along the main Asia Minor rail- 
AdLnT/\'l'^''" /^ Alexandretta. Between 
4nstn,PHnn ^^^^^"^^^^^"'-^ there is a line, under 
Medina. From Aleppo to Deraa, a distance of 
between 250 and 300 miles, the line runs, roughly, 
parallel with the coast, and at no point further 
than fifty miles from it. Rayak, from which the 
branch line runs to Beirut, is hardly more than 
twenty-five miles from that port. From Horns to 
Tripolis, the most northerly of the ports that have 
railway communication with the Aleppo and 
Deraa line, is ])erhaps fifty miles, and from Haifa 
to Deraa is perhaps sixty. From Jaffa to Jeru- 
salem is little more than half this distance. The 
whole coast line from Alexandretta to the 
Egyptian boundary is over 400 miles long, and 
the belt of desert between El Arish and Kantara 
is another hundred. A blow might be struck at 
the communications of an army invading Egypt 
at almost any point along this line. 
THE BLACK SEA. 
The new situation in the East is undoubtedly 
a highly complex one. It would be greatly simpli- 
fied if the Russian command of the Black Sea, 
adequate as it has been up to now, had been 
established by the possession of a really powerful 
fleet instead of by one of no great material 
strength, though of sufficient strength to forbid 
the Turks from using these waters from the 
moment that the Goeben ceased to be effective. 
Had the Dreadnoughts building in the Black Sea 
yards been finished it might have been possible 
for Russia to have accompanied a diplomatic pro- 
test bv the bombardment of Varna and the land- 
ing of a military force. Indeed, for all we know 
to the contrary, such an operation may still be 
possible. The military value of such a diversion 
it successfully carried out, could hardly be exag- 
gerated. It would at once bring to a head the 
innate neluctance of the Bulgarian peasants to 
take arms against their Russian liberators. On 
the other hand, it may not be possible, and for the 
sufficient reason that Russia has never contem- 
plate^ the possibility of such a necessity arising 
The Russian Foreign Office, like the rest of these 
august institutions, entirely failed to foresee how 
effective the bullying methods of German diplo- 
macy would be. We say " bullying " because in 
the supreme hour of national peril Germany does 
not hesitate to add threats to persuasion It was 
the threat of the Goeherts guns off the Golden 
Horn that brought Turkey into the war If 
It were legitimate for us to learn from the enemy 
our diplomatists might remember that Greece 
alone of the Balkan States already has great 
maritime interests, and has always envisaoed a 
greater future on the sea. ° 
f^lofo,! ^ o "'"^ "'^^^ prouaojy c 
fiom thirn'''?^,''"^"^^^^^^^^ ^^^tJ^ Aleppo, 
tionfhr no-F'^u' '■^^'''^ '^ ^^il"-^>' communica- 
Deraa frfm ^< ^"^^^"^^' ^^^ Damascus to 
Ueraa, iiom whJth runs the pilgrim line to 
12 
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE 
"KOENIGSBERG." 
I have been so fortunate as to receive a very 
considerable number of letters referring to a 
recent article on this subject. The problem of 
using aeroplanes to correct the fire of ships' guns 
IS evidently one that excites as much interest as 
that of finding— and, what is more to the point 
keeping— the range on Zeppelins and aircraft on 
shore guns. My correspondents deal with many 
ot these problems, and I shall hope to refer to 
their letters at a future date. Two writers send 
me a great deal of new and most interesting in- 
formation relating both to the work of the moni- 
tors and of the pilots and spotters that made that 
work possible. I am informed that the pilot in 
