LAND 6? WATER 
Sq)tember 26, 19l8 
LAND&WATER 
5 Chancery Lane, London, fF.C.2. Td. mlbom 2828 
The Balkan Advance 
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1918 
Contents 
PAGE 
The Failure of the Peace Offen- 
sive. (Cartoon) 
Raemaekers 
I 
Current Events 
2 
The Eastern Operations.. 
Hilairc Bclloc 
3 
An Invasion of England. . 
Arthur Pollen 
7 
The Unrealised Victory of the 
Allied Fleets 
Henry Morgenthau 
8 
Punishment before Peace 
Harold Cox 
10 
Ammunition 
D. F. B. 
II 
Some Aspects of the Balkan 
-Front 
H. Collinson Owen 
12 
Surnames ' 
J. C. Squire 
13 
The War and the Novelists . . 
Edward Shanks 
14 
The Theatre 
W. J. Turner 
15 
The Reader's Diary 
Peter Bell 
16 
Profiteering 
Hartley Withers 
18 
Household Notes 
20 
Notes on Kit 
" 
22 
The Victory in Palestine 
ENERAL ALLENBY has won a remarkable 
victory. His troops broke the Turkish line 
'between Rafat and the sea. Cavalry — British, 
Colonial, and Indian — poured through the gap 
to the north and north-east, occupying El Afuleh 
and (to the north of this) Nazareth, and skirting the Haifa- 
Damascus Railway at Mesamie and Beisan. They reached 
Beisan on Friday before the retreating Turks ; meanwhile, 
the British infantry had got to Samaria. The enemy found 
cavalry to the north of them and infantry to the south and 
west, between them and the sea. Their northward retreat was 
cut off, and they had their backs to the Jordan. Turks 
between the Jerusalem-Shechem (Nablus) road and the 
Jordan retired on to the river to find our troops at Jesr-ed- 
Dameh. Surrounded, short (we take it) of supplies, and 
harassed daily by aeroplanes to which they can offer no 
resistance, the Turks were virtually helpless before our attack. 
As we write, 25,000 men have surrendered, and 260 guns and 
much other booty has been captured. The 7th and 8th 
Turkish Armies no longer exist. The 4th Army, which is 
east of the Jordan, is in a most unenviable position, threatened 
by General Allenby's troops and harassed day and night by 
the Arabs of the Hedjaz. With great opportunities open 
for brilliant work by the cavalry and a chance, finely 
seized, of cutting the enemy's communications. General 
Allenby has been able to display what our commanders 
have had few opportunities of displaying in this war : a 
talent for warfare of movement. The results of the victory 
must not be exaggerated. Germany remains the prime 
enemy, and the Western Front the prime front. But every 
front, in some degree, reacts on every front. So long as we 
keep the Turks busy they cannot divert their attention to 
the Balkans ; so long as we keep the enemy on the alert in 
the Balkans, the Austrians cannot put their whole strength 
on the Italian Front ; so long as the Italian Front is power- 
fully held, there can be little release of forces thence for the 
front in France and Flanders. But the effect on the Moslem 
and Jewish populations of the world will be profound ; and, 
from a "sentimental" point of view, no Christian man can 
help feeling stirred by the rescue of the last of our Holy 
Places. 
Simultaneously with our victory in Palestine, we have 
achieved great successes in the Balkans. Th6 public had 
become accustomed to regard "the Salonika Front" as a 
place where we kept a considerable precautionary force, the 
job of which was to keep the enemy from the Mediterranean 
and to put up with a considerable amount of disease in the 
process. An offensive in the Balkans has been so often 
discussed and so often rejected, and what fighting there has 
been there has had so little obvious result, that it had become 
a commonplace with the ordinary citizen that nothing was 
to be expected there. Now the stroke has come, its success 
has been so great that we must assume that the enemy was 
either very unprepared or very demoralised. The large 
initial sweep secured only a few thousand Bulgarian prisoners, 
which suggests that the front line at least was very insuffi- 
cientl}' manned. As we write, the Allies have recaptured a 
considerable area of Serbian soil ; Prilep is threatened ; and 
Serbian troops — who in their own country are displaying 
magnificent dash — have occupied Kavadar and Demirkapu, 
and are menacing the Babuna Pass which is on the Prilep- 
Kuprulu road. The occupation of Demirkapu cuts the 
main line of communications with the Doiran front, and it 
is probable that there will be further important developments 
in the next few days. On a front of almost a hundred miles 
from Monastir to Lake Doiran the Allies are advancing and 
the enemy is retiring with a haste which must mean very 
great confusion. British, French, Serbian and Greek troops 
are all taking part. The enemy are mostly Bulgars ; corre- 
spondents report thern to be a very dispirited lot ; this 
squares with recent accounts of domestic events in Bulgaria, 
where the population (divided at the very outset) is said to 
be thoroughly sick both of the war and of "King Fox." 
Bulgaria, we may add, is the one member of the hostile 
alliance which is really fighting for (comparatively) so little, 
that an accommodation with her is conceivable. With 
neither Turkey nor Austria could we make peace save oh 
terms which would mean the end of the Turkish and Austrian 
Empires as we have known them. ( 
The Blue Hungarian Band 
The members of the Royal Air Force are now to be seen in 
numbers in their new uniform. The colour is, we believe, 
described as "sky blue" : it depends upon the kind of sky 
— but we suppose this appellation is meant to be symbolic 
of aerial activity. The colour is sky blue ; the cut is (as a 
rule) waspish ; there are rings of gold braid around the 
sleeve ; there is a stiff peaked cap. Two reasons have been 
advanced, not so much publicly as privately, for the change. 
One is that those members of the Air Force who used to be 
in the Navy objected to a purely khaki, i.e., military uniform. 
The other is that the cloth, for reasons which we need not 
discuss, happened to be available. Neither of these reasons 
is in itself sufficient justification. The cloth, if it was going 
begging, might easily have been used for civilian purposes. 
And as for the sailors, their grievance, since the service is 
continually recruiting, would have disappeared automatically 
in a very short space of time. The change must be judged 
on its merits, and should have been justified on its merits. 
And thus far we have not heard, either from members of the 
Air Force or from the general public, a single word in favour 
of the change. The old uniform of the Flying Corps was 
attractive ; the khaki tunics and jaunty caps of the R.F.C. 
were at once smart and dashing, sportsmanlike, and airman- 
like. The new uniform is feebly vivid and preciously precise. 
The comparisons that leap to the mind are with the uniforms 
of German bandsmen and those of New York express messen- 
gers. It is quite impossible when contemplating even the 
most gallant of men in this uniform to escape from thoughts 
of the restaurant and the commissionaire's box. We believe 
that if the Force as a whole were consulted it would elect 
for a return to the old imiform, and we hope that when the 
existing stocks of cloth have been exhausted the matter will 
be reconsidered. We like English soldiers to look like English 
soldiers. 
