iSovember 13, 1915. 
LAND AM D \V A 1 E K . 
licart of the Highlands from Uskiib, turns the 
Serbian position in the hills on which they have 
lallen back. There is not only a railway, but a 
good road down the \'alley as far as Metro vitza, 
and there is a road— though rather worse — on as 
far as Novi Bazar. With the enemy in jwssession 
of this Novi Bazar road, the Serbian army is 
enveloped— or within a few days of envelopment. 
The Bulgarians would be across, or nearly across, 
the remaining space open for retreat and supply. 
% 
Now the power of the Bulgarians to pursue 
this plan entirely depends upon Uskub. When 
they can no longer hold Uskub, their control of the 
Novi Bazar road, and their chance of pushing up it, 
is lost. For Uskub is the entry to the line and 
the sole entry. It is the door at the end of a 
passage. But the holding of Uskub depends, as 
we saw last week, upon the fate of Veles. 
Uskub, as we saw in the sketch which I now- 
here reproduce, stands at the head of a triangle 
of fairly open plain, such that anyone pressing 
on from Veles northward towards Kumano\o 
would compel the evacuation of Uskub. Indeed, 
it is probable that upon the occupation of Veles 
by an enemy in strength, the Bulgarian troops 
already engaged beyond Uskub, in the Katchanik 
valley, would have to be recalled, and that the 
Bulgarians would fight in the Plain of Ovitch, 
keeping the opportunity to retire if necessary upon 
Kumanovo. It would be extremely risky to 
remain at Uskub with a strong force advancing 
against them from Veles. 
There is therefore a ver>- high interest 
attaching to the present operations of the French, 
British and Serbians in this district and, though 
we have no opportunity for judging the chief 
factor of all— that of the numbers here present 
on either side, with the date of arrival of the Allies 
— yet we shall do well to pay the most particular 
attention this week to the Allied effort South of 
Veles. The nature of these operations we can 
appreciate from such a sketch as Sketch IV. here 
appended, the scale of which is a fairly large one. 
Some ten days ago the Serbians, with not 
more than five or six thousand men, were holding 
the Babouna Pass. This pass covers Prilep, and 
beyond Prilep Monastir. Tne mere occupation 
of either of these places was not for the moment of 
vast importance, but the thrusting of the enemy 
back down the road towards Veles was of consider- 
able moment. The French at the same time, had 
pushed up the Vardar from Salonica as far as the 
station of Krivolak. The Bulgarians had tried 
to stop them some days before, and had been 
thrown back. 
Now when the Bulgarians attacked the 
Babouna Pass in strength (perhaps somewhat 
less than a division) , the Serbians not only main- 
tained their position on the height (which is not 
quite 3,000 feet above Veles, and some 16 miles 
ofl, but broke and pursued the Bulgarians as 
far as the neighbourhood of Isvor at the bottom 
of the pass on the Veles road, an operation in 
which they were assisted by the timely arrival of 
a British contingent of cavalry. It is clear 
that the Bulgarians had massed on this road the 
greater part of their locally available forces, 
because the French were able simultaneously to 
push up to Krivolak. There is no road up the 
Vardar valley here, only a track. The railway 
was presumably intact up to the Tsrna river, which 
formed the lirst obstacle in their advance. The 
French carried this obstacle, and occupied, when 
the last despatch was sent in, the station and 
hamlet of Gradsko. The whole front here, there- 
fore, runs as does the broken line on Sketch IV., 
with the centre bent back by a mass of moun- 
tains 4,000 feet high, or about 3,500 feet above 
the river. Communication was maintained 
between the left and the right over a pass of 2,000 
feet. It will be clear that with further forces 
Veles, now only one day's march away from either 
end of the line in this neighbourhood, will be 
seriously threatened. We do not know in what 
force the allies are acting, but it is clear that a 
thrust here, if it is to be maintained., threatens 
VelesWT 
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Veles, through Veles Uskub, through Uskub the 
Bulgarian hold of the Katchnik, through that the 
whole of the enemy's plan for surrounding the 
Serbian army. 
AN EPISODE NEAR RIGA. 
Our readers will remember the momentous 
headline, " Germans nearer Riga," quoted from 
the Times in these columns the other day. 
The allusion was to a point very far dis- 
tant from the main attacks on the city and, 
13 
