November 13, 1915. 
i-AND AND WATER. 
the main lines of railway as they were in the past 
b\- the great Roman roads. The first is the line 
ot road and railway Ethendsia-Belgrade-Nish- 
Soiia-Philippopolis-Adrianople, and so to Con- 
stantinople. The second is the road and railway 
Salonica-Uskub-Nish-Semendria-Belgrade. It is 
the possession of the first which forms the military 
objective of the enemy at this moment. He has 
probably at the moment of writing reached that 
objective, "and, though it will take some time to 
put the line into working order where the Serbians 
in their retirement have destroyed it, yet within 
no very great delay the Austro-Germans, their 
Bulgarian allies and the Turkish forces beyond, 
will be holding one continuous avenue of supply 
and movement from the Danube to the Bosphorus. 
Now let us see how that advantageous position 
suffers from the presence of an enemy who can 
only approach from the sea. 
In order to examine that problem we must 
first note that the reason those two avenues in the 
Balkans have the prime importance just noted, is 
that they are the sole continuous trenches to be 
discovered in an abominable tangle of mountains. 
To threaten the Nish-Sofia-Adrianople railway 
from the sea, that is, from the south, there are but 
three avenues of advance. First, the valley of the 
Vardar up from Salonica ; secondly, the valley 
of the Struma, which has no port at its mouth, 
but which may be reached from the port of 
Kavalla ; thirdly, the lower valley of the Maritza, 
which leads up from either Enos or Dedeagatch 
to Adrianople. Along some one of those three 
avenues alone can those holding the main line to 
Constantinople be menaced. 
The shortest of the three roads is that 
of the Maritza valley. It has a railway, it is 
flat open country, it is a distance of not more 
than a week's marching. It outflanks the great 
mass of mountains lying to the West. The dis- 
advantage under which that advance suffers is the 
neighbouring presence of considerable Turkish 
forces. There is here a political point of some 
importance. The Bulgarian population may be 
technically in alliance with the Turks, but they 
would probabh^ ill receive the presence of Turkish 
troops in the heart of their State. The Turks, 
acting in their own country, or just beyond it, 
in the Maritza \alley, would be very much more 
formidable. 
The second avenue, that by the Struma 
valley, leads directly to the heart of the Bulgarian 
State and menaces the capital, Sofia. Its grave 
disadvantages are that it possesses no railway, that 
it gets into more and more difficult land as you 
go northward tiU more than half the distance, 
and that even a road passable to the traffic neces- 
sary to a modem army appears to be lacking in the 
middle of the section between X and Y upon 
sketch I. 
On the latter point, the evidence of any 
traveller who has recently seen the district and is 
capable of judging the capacity of the road to 
carry guns and motor traffic would be valuable. 
I have not yet been able to obtain such evidence. 
I only know that the latest maps give a break 
in the road in the gorge of the Struma. They 
represent that break by a track onlv. 
Between the Maritza road and the Struma 
road you have, for 150 miles, the mass of the 
Rhodope mountains, with no single road, I believe, 
which will carry guns from one end to the other. 
Finally, there is the road of the Vardar up from 
Salonica, upon which all eyes are for the moment 
turned. This advance has the advantage of an 
existing railway, a continuous road beyond Veles 
and a good port for supplj- upon the sea at its 
base. But it has the disadvantage of coming right 
up against the mass of the enemy's forces and of 
striking him where his communications are easiest 
and shortest. 
With very large forces, forces considerably 
superior to those of our thi'ee enemies combined, 
the obvious strategy of an advance from the 
/Egean, would be a triple movement in which 
everything would depend upon preventing the 
enemy's knowing where the main force was 
thrown. There is a lateral railway along the 
/Egean from Salonica eastward to support such a 
plan, and the striking force when it reached the 
main railway would be certain of finding inferior 
numbers approaching. 
But the problem unfortunately is not of this 
kind. The problem is how, with forces which will 
necessarily remain inferior, to render the tenure of 
the main Constantinople railway uncertain, and 
to compel the Austro-Germans to send, or attempt 
to send out of depleted numbers, continual 
reinforcements into this new field. 
SITUATION OF THE SERBIAN ARMyI 
There can be no sensational developments in 
our fa\'our expected. All that can be asked for is 
the immobilisation of an increasing force of the 
enemy in the south-east of Europe — that is, 
supposing, of course, the present neutrals to remain 
neutral. 
The one leading fact, so far, in the Austro- 
German adventure is that it had to be made with 
an insufficient number of men because there were 
no more to send. It may be doubted whether, 
including the Austrian contingents, a quarter of 
a million men crossed the Danube. It is more 
probable the total number was little over 200,000, 
And the next point to notice, of equal import- 
ance with this, is that the Austro-German force 
coming from the north met with a great deal more 
resistance than it expected, suffered far more 
severely than the enemy's higher command had 
allowed for, and may, if a mountain warfare during 
the winter months is skilfully conducted, be com- 
pelled to call for continual reinforcements at the 
hazard of its remaining reserves. 
It has taken forty days to go an average of 
little over forty miles. It has lost enormously — 
perhaps a third of its original effectives. It has 
not yet begun to deal with that mountain country 
where there are no roads for its heavy artillery. 
It has taken hardly any prisoners — even adding 
civihan officials and auxiliaries (as the Germans 
always do) to their lists, and the wounded in 
captured hospitals. They do not count as prisoners 
4 per cent, of the Serbian Army. Its advance 
has only been able to follow a deliberate and well- 
organised retreat so far. Its human material 
is already markedly inferior. The best oppor- 
tunity of the Allies would seem to reside in the 
keeping perpetually open of a situation which 
Napoleon in similar circumstances called " an 
ulcer," but whether this can be done largely 
depends upon the fate of the Serbian Army, and its 
present position and opportunities for retirement 
and survival as a fighting force must be our next 
consideration. 
' If a contour map of the Serbian portion of the 
Balkans be considered we shall perceive one very 
IT 
