/uigust 24, 
I9IG 
LAND & WATER 
political importance of the movement. We are almost 
entirely dependent upon the enemy's version, and what 
we are now watching is something very like manctuv- 
ring for position before a main action. 
Meanwhile a sketch map may be useful to help the 
reader to see what this manieuvring for position has been. 
Hitherto what has taken place is a preliminar}' move 
straight up northward at A on Map HI. towards' Uoiran 
by the Allies, and an inmaediate counter-move upon each 
of the distant wings by the Bulgarians at B, B, and 
C C on Map III. 
The Allies had already thrown outposts as far west as 
Fiorina and eastward nearly to the Struma, where they 
moved for the hrst time in some strength a week ago and 
seized the height above Doiran in the centre. The Bul- 
garian counter-offensive in this region is still struggling 
velopment here on the right ot the Allies, came down on 
to the plain of Kavalla to the east of that Greek town, 
which was the very test of Greek political success in the 
last war and the occupation of which was — after Monas- 
tir — the chief politico 1 object of the Bulgarians in join- 
ing the Central Powers. 
West of the \'ardar upon the other wing, there is 
another corresponding move southward by the enemy 
again attempting envelopment, and the Allied advanced 
posts (which were confided to the Serbians and had been 
thrcnvn as far as Fiorina upon the Monastir railway), 
have fallen back behind Banit/.a and have also lost from 
the heights just north of the Ostrova Lake to tlu; north- 
east of Banitza. The front last Saturday ran approxi- 
mately as does the thick black line on Map 111. 
With the exception of noting these movements no 
to recover the points seized and in particular the village 
of Doljeli, just south-west of Doiran itself and between 
two and three miles from the shore of the lake. It is a 
point held by the British. But this enemy work upon 
the centre is so far only containing. His main strength 
he has put into the tw-o extremities of his Hne, which are 
in rapid movement. 
To the east he has advanced down and across the 
Struma in front of Demir Hissar and Seres. The Greek 
forces garrisoning certain fortified fronts commanding the 
issue of the Struma from the mountain gorge of Roupel 
into the plain retired by order. Further to the east 
again the Bulgarians, who are clearly attempting en- 
■ comment can yet be made. The main plan has not yet 
appeared upon the Allied side, and all that can be said of 
the counter-move of the enemy is that he has thrown his 
main force upon the two wings 100 miles apart. We shall 
not be able to see the " shape " of the opening campaign 
until a further stage has been reached. 
Slight and confused as are these opening steps of the 
campaign, and deliberately reticent as the Allied Com- 
mand is with regard to its development, we mnst never 
forget that it is of the highest possible political import- 
ance at this moment, and that on its conduct very largely 
depends not only the Balkan situation but other matters 
further to the north. 
German Propaganda 
THE control of all the enemy forces having now- 
fallen under Berlin for a long time past, we 
must pay special attention to the form which 
the German propaganda has taken. 
The general plan is this : 
To create a universal sentiment that the war can now 
no longer reach a definite conclusion one way or the other 
and that therefore a prolongation of hostihties is a useless 
expense of life and wealth. An expense which can 
only end by exhausting all Europe to no purpose, and 
perliaps permanently lowering our civilisation. 
The spreading of such an idea has been the whole 
business of the enemy's agents for a long time past. 
We have had it in their domestic publications, in their 
communiques, official and half oificial, in their sugges- 
tions to the neutral press and in the speeches of their 
public men. 
If such a general sentiment could be diffused it would, 
of course, exactly suit the enemy's book. We are arrived 
at that point in the war where the future belongs to 
us and not to him. On that there is no doubt whatso- 
ever. It is because he knows it just as well as we do 
that he has striven so industriously (and particularly in 
'the last few weeks) to propagate the idea of a stalemate. 
He probably saw the present phase coming, although, 
during the hottest of the Verdun offensive, he called off 
for a moment the agents of this propaganda in the hope 
of some striking success in the \Vest. Since Brussiloff s 
advance and the grave preoccupation of the Somme 
offensive he has renewed their activities with peculiar 
vigour. 
The statements have taken all sorts of forms. They 
have varied with the audiences to which they were ad- 
dressed ; with the friendliness of those who were asked 
to accept them ; with their capacity for being duped, 
and with the kind of statement upon which they were 
likely to be duped. 
In the American Press, for instance, I have seen over 
and over again paragraphs alluding to some mysterious 
" liigh military authority at Washington " who comes to 
some perfectly childish conclusion pointing in this direc- 
tion. Let hie take, for instance, a very important organ of 
the Pacific slope. The Los Angeles Times of July 25th : 
It is not a paper particularly inimical to the Allies or 
favourable to Germany. It professes to present a can- 
did and impartial view' upon the war. I think upon the 
whole it is the least inimical to our cause of all the press 
in that region. But I see that it publishes (as usual from 
" high military authority in Washington ") the truly 
remarkable statement that l/ie total losses of the German 
army in a year are only half a million and that therefore 
the normal rate of German recruitment amply makes up 
for casualties ! Compared with this enormity the flaring 
headline in another part of the paper that a great fortress 
now besieged, called \'erdun, will certainly " fall " on 
August I St is almost negligible ; especially as the latter 
