September 26, 1918 
LAND &> WATER 
THE WAR: By HILAIRE BELLOC 
The Victory in Macedonia 
The Triumph in Palestine 
THE situation in Macedonia is mainly political. 
The proof of this lies, if it were needed, in the 
nature of the success. One of the strongest 
defensive positions in the \vorl,d has been carried 
with surprising ease. One of the best military 
organisations in the world (what was one of the best military 
organisations quite a few months ago) has suffered collapse 
upon at least one portion of its line. That line has been 
breached and the advance following upon 'the breach has 
been astonishingly rapid and successful, for if the problem 
were merely a military problem that breach and that advance 
would in themselves be perilous. You have a line from the 
Adriatic to the Mgean running through mountainous coun- 
try, i6o miles long. It has been broken upon one of its 
strongest sectors. Those who have broken it have advanced 
within a week a full 50 miles. But the sector which they 
have broken is narrow ; (it is but 25 miles broad) ; the 
pocket formed is by all mihtary standards far too deep, 
and therefore far too vulnerable'. Why, then, has its bold 
experiment succeeded ? Because the Bulgarian people and 
afmy are not what they were in this war. The essential of 
the situation is the attitude of the Bulgarian people towards 
the continuation of their alliance with Prussia and their Central 
European system. It is clear that they are fatigued of this 
alhance, and that their fatigue has affected the moral of their 
forces. The bl6w has been struck in order to shake yet 
further an already shaken State, and to convince its people 
that their advantage lies in abandoning an Alliance which 
promises them nothing more than they can have, whose 
main objects of European domination are lost, which is 
everywhere in defeat, and whose goal in entering the war 
had nothing to do with Bulgarifein feeling. The Government 
of Bulgaria, that is fhe crafty and unpleasant man who 
owes his cunning and most of his character to that contractor 
forbear of his, entered the war with a dynastic purpose. 
But the Government could not have entered the war without 
some strong support from the people, and this popular support 
was well founded. After the first Balkan War,. Austrian 
diplomacy succeeded in forbidding Serbia her natural outlet 
to the Adriatic. Serbia was compensated by the acquisition 
of lands, not very large, in part of which the Bulgarian element 
was predominant. It was an injustice. The Second Balkan 
War was fought because this injustice had inflamed the Bul- 
garians to an extreme of anger. They failed against superior 
forces, and in their worst difficulty the Rumanian Govern- 
ment levied upon them a toll of what was also partly Bulgarian 
land in the North. The Bulgarian people burned to recover 
whatever was Bulgarian in Macedonia and whatever was 
Bulgarian along the Danube. This the alliance with Prussia 
gave them. But they had no other interest in fhe war, 
and the war goes on and on, and 'the farms of a purely agri- 
cultural people are falling into ruin, and the men are away 
from home year after year, and now their support, Prussia, 
is clearly threatened with defeat. 
To act upon the niQod created by such a state of affairs 
is the whole meaning of the recent offensive. The story of 
that offensive is simple. 
Between the great bend of the Cerna and the Gorge of the 
Vardar, which gorge is followed by the road and railway 
supplying all the left or eastern end of the Bulgarian line 
in front of Salonica up to the point where it is supported by 
the Struma road and communications, there runs a range of 
O ^ 10 Tutiles 20 
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