8 
LAND & WATER 
September 14, 1916 
stream at Turtukai, but withdrew in time, and the place 
which, though of less stragetical. is of far more historn-al 
and political importance than Turtukai was occupied at 
the end of last week. There was clearly no effective 
resistance offered to the enemy's march between the 
two places. 
What will follow ? • x u 
At the moment of writing (Tuesday evenmg), the 
Bulgarian progress down the Danube would appear to 
be halted. Contact was certainly taken as early as last 
Sunday evening between the Roumanian and Russian 
forces "upon the south and the main Bulgarian advance. 
We have even heard of Russian patrols in the extreme 
south having crossed the new border towards Varna, 
while it is fairly established that the civilian population 
has been leaving Varna for some days past. But nothmg 
more definite than this is in our possession at the moment 
of writing. 
THE SALONIKA FRONT 
Meanwhile, a week away to the south, upon the 
Salonika front there has been movement. There agam 
we are not told in what force, nor whether we are here 
dealing with purely local objectives, or whether we have 
the beginning of a general offensive. The despatch 
received upon Tuesday infonns us that the British, upon 
the extreme right of the Salonika front, attacked the 
Struma line, crossed that river, apparently upon Sunday 
last, and during the course of Monday, and established 
themselves upon the further bank. The attack was in 
two clearly defined groups, the one just above the mouth 
of the Struma below the shallow and marshy lake Tahinos 
at the point where the road along the west bank and the 
road on the east towards Drama and Ka\alla are united 
by a ferry. Here the British established themselves 
in and beyond the village of Neohori. The Tahinos 
Lake itself forbids operations during all its length of 
over 20 miles, because its further bank, and indeed a 
great part of its own shallow waters, are marshy, but it 
was important to clear the road leading down the western 
shore of the lake. 
The British forced the villages of Gudeli and of Barak- 
tar, which stands upon this track leading down along 
the west of the lake, but we have no evidence of the 
seizure of the main bridge at A (in Map VI.) upon the 
Seres road— nor even, for that matter, any evidence of 
its ever having fallen into the hands of the enemy. Upon 
that important point there is simply silence, which has 
been maintained for many weeks past, indeed, since the 
Bulgarians advanced towards the Struma line. Yet 
it may be presumed that the bridge is already in British 
hands because the despatch speaks of the British having 
seized the Nevoljen, which is well beyond the left or 
western bank towards Seres and north of the bridge. 
While this successful British attack on the Struma was 
concluding, the French, in the centre on the Vardar, 
made a sharp local attack on a front of a couple of miles 
or so, carrying all the Bulgarian first hne of trenches 
there. 
FIGHTING AT HALICZ 
The fighting round Halicz needs no special illustra- 
tion. The fine of the Gnila Lipa, and the importance 
, of the two bridges here, the road bridge of Halicz and the 
railway bridge of Jezupol, have been insisted upon over 
and over again in these columns during the past few 
weeks. Although the bulletin sent out on Monday and 
dealing with the fighting of Sunday, received in London 
on Tuesday, did not record the taking of Halicz itself, 
it is perfectly clear that they are one of them destroyed 
and the other, it not destroyed, unusable. The capture 
of Halicz, the full occupation of all this river meeting 
where the Neva-Dnieper falls into the Dniester, will mean 
that the extremely advanced centre of Botlimer near 
Brezan will be in peril. The enemy, who are there heavily 
massed, are probably fighting a rearguard action pre- 
paratory to a further retirement towards the Neva- 
Dnieper line, but the occupation of Halicz would mean 
more than another few miles advance along the Bothmer 
right flank. It would also mean the breakdown of any 
of those successive points of resistance which the enemy 
has established upon the- way up the Dniester valley 
STANISLi 
[Q 20 30 ^ MUes 
to Lemberg. There must necessarily have been at Halicz 
or in its neighbourhood a great concentration of munition- 
merit, material and men. and when any one of these 
nuclei fails, it means another stretch in advance, usually 
rather rapid, till the next advance " backing " point is 
reached, just as Kolomea and the occupation of the 
country up to the entry of Stanislau meant the fall of 
Stanislau and the immediate advance against the Hahcz 
bridges : the advance unfortunately checked in the 
necessary attack of August 14th— a check now retrieved. 
Certain commentators upon the situation have pointed 
out that above Halicz there is no bridge until we get to 
Martino\', quite two days' march further up the river. 
But the problem of Halicz is not one of bridges. The 
enemy can throw a pontoon bridge where he chooses, 
and now that the railway approaching Halicz is lost there 
is lost with it all the enemy's power of using the third line 
of retreat of which we have already spoken. The real 
value of the capture of Halicz is comparable rather dis- 
tantly to the value of what has been" happening upon the 
Somme front. It means that the enemy cannot perma- 
nently check or permanently stand up. It means that 
the offensive, after each interval of preparation, strikes 
and succeeds. But it means much more than this. It 
means that the body struck is losing all equality at a rate 
which cannot fully be replaced. 
THE WESTERN FRONT 
That Guillemont should be followed by Ginchy, that 
we may expect Ginchy to be followed by further blows 
of just the same character, French and English, that 
Combles will be their victim in the near future, that 
the British line now threatens that last very strong 
bastion heavily from the north, all these successes, which 
have been the proper subject of minute description of the 
press during the past week, need no special analysis in 
the notes of this journal, because their charatrter is widely 
and generally understood, and the right the Allies have 
to rely upon that character for the future is equally 
understood. 
What we have rather to guard ourselves against is 
the recurrent doubt which follows upon each of these 
recurrent successes, and seems to be a sort of chronic 
accompaniment to the regularly succeeding periods of 
preparation. 
We have to remember continually what the Somme 
