TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE EASTERN SUCCESSES.
T"glorious news from Palestine and Macedonia has exceeded all expectations. The annihilating victory of Sir Edmund Allenby in Palestine, and the rapid advance of the Allies against the apparently demoralized Bulgarian Army, will help very powerfully towards weakening the unity and breaking the heart of our enemies. Though it would be impossible to praise too highly these splendid achievements, it is necessary to judge them in their proper relation to the strategy of the whole war, and upon this subject there seems to be a good. deal of confusion in the public mind. People are apt to ask : " Are not these successes, which promise, if not to put Turkey and Bulgaria immediately out of the war, at all events to reduce them to impotence as allies of Germany, a complete justification of the strategical doctrine .which is known as Easternism ? Those who continually urge us to shut our eyes to every part of the world except the front in Flanders and France, and possibly the Italian front, seem to have overlooked the possibility that the collapse of Bulgaria and Turkey, which was really always worth aiming at defi- nitely, may have tremendous political results in Germany. Those political results, which must mean a weakening resolu- tion in Germany, will be indi&inguishable from military results." Such arguments, plausible though they may seem at first sight, show a complete misunderstanding of what is really meant by Westernism. There is always deceit in generalizations, and no reasonable believer in Westernism has ever excluded from his vision the valuable results which might flow from what we may call inevitable operations outside Europe. The word " inevitable " gives us the right clue to the problem, for, so far as any dispersion of our efforts is valuable, that dispersion must be confined to the discharge of military obligations and not to a kind of wanton knight- errantry. The vast majority of our most capable soldiers are Westerners for the simple reason that they know that no war can be ended until the enemy is crushed. In other words, it is useless to send forces to march over vast vacant spaces, to paint the map red where they man long lines of communica- tion, and then to pretend that they have won huge victories. The Germans themselves have proved that they are under no illusions on this subject. In spite of having brought the whole of Russia to her knees and opened up routes to the shores of the Pacific in the Far East, the Germans knew that they could not call the war won unless they disposed of the British, French, and American Armies. They had to meet those Armies where they were—that is to say, in France and in Flanders.
Now to apply more closely to the problem before us the word " inevitable." No one will need to be told that when the fate of the whole British Empire is at issue Egypt, lying as it does on the shortest sea route to the East, is an inevitable country for military operations. Palestine is inevitable in one sense but not in another. It is generally agreed that the principal defences of Egypt lie not in Egypt itself but on the other side of the Suez Canal as far east as El-Arish. But when once El-Arish had been reached there was no doubt something to be said for striking a blow at Turkish prestige in Palestine, since prestige counts for so much in the East. It was all a question of the number of troops that might be necessary. If a few troops could do the job, or rather if it could be done by troops that could not in any case be employed in Europe, then a Palestine operation was defensible. To the degree in which it materially weakened our power of defence In Europe it was not defensible. Of course native troops require to be stiffened, and to a large extent managed, by British soldiers, and no Westerner would be so pedantic as to refuse the British officers and men necessary to perform these essential services if the proposed operation held out a considerable prospect of success. Then again, in the case of Salonika, there were arguments, half political and half military, for establishing an Allied force at Salonika which were extremely difficult to answer. If the Allies had not gone there, the Germans would have reached the sea at that point, and would have established a large and very effective base for submarines. Moreover, the Allies would not have had any local standing for applying their long and anxious but ultimately successful diplomatic pressure upon Oreece. The treachery of King Constantine would have held full sway. Whether the Allied force at Salonika was for a long time of a wasteful nature in its magnitude, when there was not much 'rope of effective military operations, is a matter upon which discussion would be useless, for the numbers engaged cannot be mentioned. We are concerned for the moment only with the principle of going to Salonika, and it will be seen that no Westerner could condemn the decision of the Allies out of hand.
Other operations have by no means come under the classi- fication of inevitable." The Dardanelles campaign was not inevitable, and by the dissipation of our strength we ran risks in Europe which will never be fully appreciated till the history of the Wilk is examined in the light of complete information. At the present moment there are other side- shows which occupy the attention of the nation and deserve careful watching. It is one thing to send. comparatively small forces to Russia as rallying-point3 for those Russians who earnestly wish to redeem their fortunes. It is quite another matter to divert to Russia large numbers of men, who of course would have to be supplied by a correspondingly large number of ships,, which unfortunately we have not got to spare: when all the time those troops ought to be on the Western Front, where the great decision of the war will be reached, and those ships ought to be bringing American troops and food and all the material of war across the Atlantic. We hope that the adventures in Murmansk and at Archangel are being conducted with the closest circumspection. If military help of a formidable nature is to be supplied to Russia, it must of course come from the Japanese. The employment of Japanese troops means no weakening of the Western Front.
The recent unhappy adventure at Baku is a sufficient proof that the Government are capable of rushing in where they ought most devoutly to fear to tread. In Aut the nation was astonished to learn that a British force had been sent to the great oil city of Baku, on the western shore of the Caspian Sea. It was announced that our troops had gone in answer to an appeal for help from the Provisional Government at Baku. The theory was that some seven thciusand Armenians and about three thousand Russians at Baku would co-operate with the British force. So the British force, without the remotest hope of being able to satisfy the proper military stipulation that lines of communication should be kept open, reached Balm, and shut itself up there with no lines of com- munication at all. The British Government have blamed the Armenians of Balm for not helping our troops, and have accused them of treachery. But surely this is just the kind of treachery, if treachery it can be called, which careful managers ought to have foreseen and reckoned upon. The truth was that the Armenian town-dwellers of Baku were not fighting men, and they were in the dispiriting possession of the knowledge that their countrymen across the border had already come to terms with the Turks. In an attack upon the Turks the British force had to do all the fighting, with what gallantry we can well imagine. The Royal WarwiCks set themselves to cover the Armenian retreat, and we fear that they lost heavily. On September 14th, after an exhausting fight lasting sixteen hours, the British and Russians evacuated Baku, and apparently escaped in Russian vessels. To have escaped at all was a remarkable military performance. It was not one which the small British force should ever have been required to carry out. Now, in the light of the principles we have stated, we can say that the glory of Sir Edmund Allenby's great victory in Palestine is that it has been achieved without any further draft upon our Western resources. It will be remembered that during the crisis of the spring some British divisions were recalled from Palestine to France. We now know that the place of these divisions was taken by Indian troops. That was the right way to manage the situation, and so long as Sir Edmund Allenby can go on winning victories 'without depleting our strength in the theatre where the great decision must be won or lost, one can only say : " More power to his elbow I " Military history has shown over and over again that there may be great danger in unexpected victories in secondary theatres of the war when a successful General is led on, in a state of exaltation, to commit himself more and more deeply. At length he reaches a point where he must either abandon ground gained, with a consequent loss of prestige, or demand reinforcements if he is to hold on. Sir Edmund Allenby is so skilful a soldier that he may be completely trusted never to run into this danger. He is the very best type of cavalry leader, extraordinarily cautious during the period of preparation, and as quick as: a flash of lightning when he moves. It is certain that the danger of weakening our striking strength in- the West will never be accepted by him ; but frankly we cannot feel quite so sure of the Government at home, who from time to time have shown a disconcerting enthusiasm for brilliant short-cuts rather than for dogged plodding in the particular field of action where alone decisive victories are won. The victories 'in Macedonia are as gratifying as those in Palestine, and for the same reasons. The spear-head of our advance is formed by the Serbians, and these amazing fighting men have just won more laurels than they ever gained before, though in the Bulgarian War they were by common consent the bravest and most skilful soldiers among all the armies engaged. Among the steep and complicated hills of Macedonia they are fighting in a country they understand as well as goats understand mountains. Any one who has ever accompanied a Serbian during a day's walk in the hills, and has marvelled at the physical energy he maintains upon, say, pieces of hard bread and a few olives, will understand that fighting in Macedonia is the Serbian game much more than the British. So long as successes can come, on those terms, may they continue, even into the heart of Bulgaria ! The present enmity between the Bulgars and the Turks will become a wild and ferocious hostility, and nothing but good can come of it for the Allies. • The principal thing the nation ought to remember in enjoying the glorious news which comes daily from the East is that, however much these victories may help us—and, as we have said, we think they will help greatly—we shall never win the war without a crushing decision in the West. The most brilliant success in the East will not shorten the war as much as weakness in the West will prolong it. We cannot be certain of winning a decision without maintaining the full strength of our Army in France and Flanders. Even when the calls upon our man-power were less than they are now, that is to say in the winter of 1917-1918, the strength of our divisions was reduced on the average by about a quarter. This is a process which cannot possibly be allowed to continue if we are to finish the war, as every self-respecting Power must earnestly wish to do, with a powerful Army still on the field of victory.
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