TOPICS OF THE DAY
RUMANIA AND THE WAR.
IT would be easy to exaggerate the immediate effects of Rumania's entry into the military and political field on the side of the Allies. It would be difficult indeed to exag- gerate the ultimate importance of her action. Rumania has done well for herself and well for the world. The action she took last Sunday has laid the foundations, as- we have de- scribed elsewhere, of a great Latin State-in the Near East, and it may well be that out of her vigorous and freedom-loving population and her great natural resources she will in the future produce a kingdom of the second, or even in the end of the first, magnitude. - It is true, no doubt, that even if Rumania had not come in the Allies would stand to win the war, and beat Germany and Austria and -their allies to the ground ; but unquestionably we shall do the good work a great deal sooner with the addition of a new and fresh Army of from seven to eight hundred thousand men—a fresh Army located almost exactly where the Allies would have liked it located if they had been asked to name the place. To begin with, Rumania's eight hundred thousand soldiers come into action 0.11 the Russian left flank, and thus prevent any danger of that flank during an advance being left in the air. Again, if we look at the matter from the Rumanian point of view, Rumania does not start the war in isolation, but in firm touch with the Russians, and, thanks to Russian predominance in the Black Sea, with her ports secured from Turkish designs. Next, the weight of the Rumanian armies is thrown against the weakest spot in the enceinte of the Central Powers. The southern flank of Austria- Hungary has always been exceed- ingly vulnerable, but hitherto we have not been able to take advantage• of this vulnerability owing to the clever way in which Germany, by enlisting Bulgaria and Turkey, has covered this weak spot. Now, thanks to the geographical position of Rumania, the weakest side of the Central combination is uncovered, and -South-East Hungary left open to invasion. To add to this, the majority of the inhabitants of the provinces of South-Eastern Hungary sympathize, not with their cruel masters at Budapest, but with the Powers of the Entente. Fifty-five per cent. of the population of Transylvania are of Rumanian blood and speech.
The list we have just given by no means exhausts all the military advantages derivable from Rumania's entrance into the Grand Alliance. With Rumania's Army mobilized on our side, and with a very large force, how large we are not per- mitted to speculate, of French, British, Italian, Russian, and Serbian soldiers at Salonika, the Bulgarian Army has auto- matically been placed in the position of the nut between the two jaws of the nutcracker. Whenever it is thought con- venient to give the order, one movement directed from Salonika and the other from Bucharest can crack the nut. And here, we may remark, comes in the justification for the maintenance of the great Allied force at Salonika. No 'doubt it has involved very great sacrifices from all the Powers concerned, but it is now proved that they were sacri- fices well worth making. But for the existence of the great mixed force at Salonika it is very doubtful whether the Rumanian Government would ever have thought themselves justified, as prudent statesmen, in joining the Entente. Be this as it may, the adhesion of Rumania is practically quad- rupled in value owing to the presence of the Allied Army at Salonika, and the possibility, whenever it is thought wise to do so, of joining hands with the military forces of our new Ally.
When we have dealt, as we shall have dealt before long, with Bulgaria, we shall be able to turn our atten- tion to Turkey. The " peasant Republic," as Bulgaria has been called, will be compelled by the force of circum- stances either to commit suicide by a hopeless struggle against overwhelming odds—an act of self-destruction which, as former friends• of Bulgaria, we sincerely hope will not take place—or else to find her senses and her soul by freeing herself from the emasculating and fatal rule of Ferdinand. By so doing she might re-establish both her liberty and her safety. Her fault has been a grave one—that of allowing her treacherous and incompetent rulers to sell her into slavery to the tyrants of the Central Powers ; but she may yet, we trust, make amends for her ill deeds. In either event, Turkey will find herself face to-face with a situation of extreme peril. The lands from which she has been drawing supplies of all kinds will be separated from her by a barricade of steel, and she will have to live both as regards money and munitions on her own resources—a regimen which we can hardly think will be found to the liking -of either Talaat •Bey or Enver Pasha. And tore we must interject a caveat. " Our readers must remember that we -are (dealing, as we laid :before, not with immediate but with ultimate results. The public must not expect the good results which we have enumerated to come to pass in a week or a month. They will doubtless take a great deal longer to materialize than most people anticipate. But even if they seem somewhat long in coming, they will come for all that. Another factor must be mentioned, though here a decision can hardly be very long delayed. The Greeks have reached a point where it would be very difficult, and certainly not very safe, for them to procrastinate and hedge any longer. The Entente Powers have always sympathized with the better element in the Greek State, and with the difficulties which have had to be faced by men like M. Venizelos, and we may be sure that even though the new developments have :made Greek action a factor of minor importance in the great game, the statesmen of Paris, Rome, and London will not want to do anything -which may seem, unduly harsh or vin- dictive. Still, it is impossible to deny thatin the last resort no one will be able to save the Greeks but themselves. If they are determined to let other Powers step in before them, no one can prevent them- from doing so. There is however, no need to labour this point. We can only say that we shall be greatly surprised if it turns out that there is in the proverbial philosophy of Greece no counterpart to " He that will not when he may."
We have left ourselves little space to .speak of what are likely to be the first results in the field of Rumania's military action. It would seem that-the first thing that theRumanian Commander-in-Chief is going to do is to occupy, if indeed that has not already been accomplished, the thief passes through the Carpathians; and then to execute an encircling movement- which will at-once give Rumania possession of that portion of Transylvania which runs like a wedge into Rumania. Troops have only to march from those portions of Rumania which.stick out like two arms to encircle at once a large piece of Austrian territory, and so make it absolutely necessary for the Austrian forces to retire therefrom. Such encirclement accomplished, Rumania will no- doubt press on further, for the encircled territory by no means includes all that portion of Transylvania in which there is a predominant Rumanian population. The Rumanians, very naturally and rightly, will brook no delay in occupying those parts of the• Banat and of Southern Hungary in which men of their nationality live. To leave them even for a few weeks to the mercies of the Hungarian Government might have the most terrible results. But though we fully realize the need for promptness, and the strong temptation under which the Rumanians will be to hurry, we must not expect miracles from them. All we can feel sure of is that if she can help it Rumania will not pause in the work of freeing from the yoke of her enemy those -portions of the realm of the Hapsburgs which are inhabited by her blood-brethren. That task accomplished, the future military action of Rumania will no doubt be decided in consultation with her Allies, and with a view to the quickest and most thorough achievement of the common- object —the de- struction of the military forces of the Central Powers and their allies. After all, as- we have again and again stated in these pages, politics, high strategy, ultimate results; and indeed all considerations of an abstract kind, must in war be dominated bythe overmastering, the essential need of meeting the enemy's forces in the field and annihilating them. Unless and until that is accomplished nothing counts. " Engage the enemy more closely ! " Bring him to action and beat him. It sounds simple, but, curiously enough, it is a fact often forgotten not only by statesmen but by soldiers.
We have alluded elsewhere to the profound effect produced in Germany by Rumania's action. We may quote here some of the comments made by the saner and more responsible of the German papers. For example, the Neue Post of Munich says "There is not to-day among all the German people a single man who does not understand that in this terrible war the very mistence of the Empire is at stake."
Another Munich paper, the Neueste Nachrichten, is even more depressed :- "The life-and-death struggle is now commencing in the Balkan Peninsula. It is possible that here the die will be cast which will ;definitely decide the whole war. To-day Rumania marches against us. To-morrow, perhaps, it will be Greece."
The well-known Vossische Zeitung speaks of the tremendous character of the task before Germany in words which we confess we did. not expect to have heard from such a source :- "We find ourselves confronting a military task such as no people "In the whole world has ever had to face."
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