Evening star., 1915-11-21
|GERMANY'S THIRD OFFENSIVE MOVEMENT
is INTENDED AS A BLOW AGAINST BRITAIN
BY CAPTURE OF THE SUEZ CANAL AND CAIRO
Teutons Realize Asserts Frank H. Smond That Unless Eng
land Can Be Made to Want Peace War
May Be Indefinitely Prolonged.

her way through Serbia she has had
to abandon the offensive in Russia
and assume complete defensive in
the west. Austria. to help in the south
ern campaign, has been compelled to
weaken her armies facing Italy and
Russia The limit of Austrian and
German powers in the matter of num-
bers has been reached and passed:
Germany could not AFFORD to risk a
considerable army in an Egyptian
venture. This is the judgment OF allied
and neutral observers alike.
Turkeys Work.
The campaign against Egypt must be
in the main Turkeys work. She can
draw on Germany for officers and for
the great cannon which have proved SO
deadly in Russia and in Serbia, al
though the transport of these to the
Sinai peninsula must prove long ana
dlmcult job. The preparation of the
campaign must take time, even after
the kaiser enters Stamboul. Ofensives
OF the modern sort are not improvised
particularly at the remoter end of l,28o
miles of rail and road
BY spring, perhaps materially earlier
tne world may expect to hear OF
turkish army under German officers
approaching the SueZ canal. But it will
meet great British armies and not i'm
possibly Italian armies. 1t will have
many months the British have been
fortifyinS. portion of which about
the canal has already been flooded and
rendered impossible. 1t will have to
meet armies supplied by railroad lines
at their rear and with every advan-
tage for munitioning and feeding.
The outcome of such campaign .ls
OF course, to be decided on the battle
teld, but no one can mistake the fact
that out of every ten chances nine
rest with the British. even if they have
to face local insurrection in their
rear. for. heavily garrisoned as Egypt
is, an insurrection could not give much
trouble or last long.
Conceivably, Egypt might he con-
quered, the Turks might overflow into
Italian and French North Africa-for
all three Mediterranean powers this
would be terrible disaster; but would
1t bring them to their knees? This
seems unlikely.
England Cannot Stop.
The plain truth is that the German
idea is SO sound in its fundamental
conception that Great Britain cannot
make peace while any part of it re-
mains realizable. German supremacy
in Asia Minor and in Syria would mean
that sooner or later the fight for Suez
and India would have to be fought
If Germany held Constantinople, Bag
ded and Jerusalem. nothing is more
certain than that eventually she would
push over and attack Egypt. Two great
powers could not occupy these adjoin-
ing sections of the earth and not ul-
timately fight for supremacy.
In attacking Egypt Germany is strik-
empire. Success means. if not the end
of the empire, the constitution of a
permanent menace and not improbably
the beginning of the end. 1t means
the ruin of British prestige in the near
and far east. 1t means the supremacy
of Germany in the eastern Medite--
ranean.
The war has become a duel between
Germany and Great Britain, as 1t was
bound to become when Russia was de-
>feated last summer. Russia will come
back-nothing is surer. France Will
continue to hold the lines in the west.
and she can match man for man all
the Germans can now put on this front,
even if the British army is materially
reduced in Flanders. But she can do
no more She cannot win alone: she
cannot even free her own territory.
But if the war be protracted through
another summer the numbers OF tho
allies are bound to tell. At whatever
rate of exhaustion you choose to es-
Innate the casualties of the fighting
nations. Germany and her allies are out
numbered two to one. and are losing
almost at the same pace as their op-
ponents. Some time the supply must
give out If Germanys f4Es lose
courage or hope first they Will lose
the war. They may lose it by decisive
defeat, but this is now utterly unlikely.
A Dramatic Threat.
To the neutral observer the present
German offensive must seem in no
small part a dramatic, but. from mill
itary point of view, an unpromising,
venture 1t serves to fire the German
imagination; it may serve to discourage
and break the allies. But Germans
will not forever endure the extension
of their lines by invaslons that brinG
only casualties and no peace, and even
if they would, the numbers are lin
tied.
/ share the belief of many other
writer's that the arrival of the kaiser
at Constantinople will be the signal
for an outburSt of peace agitation
wherever German influence can operate.
believe that the terms proposed by
the Germans will include the evac-
uation of France and Belgium and OF
all Russia, save, perhaps, the Courland
hegemony of the Balkans. the right
to reorganize Turkey. and huge in
IDENTITIES; without these Germany 10
bankrupt.
L tneSe terms are TtJeCteu Dy tuo
allies there will probably be a cam
paign against Egypt, but I do not
believe the Germans now expect to
make such a campaign. Everything
points to a belief that they can achieve
peace with the success in the Balkans
realized.
Americans must see in this program
a complete repetition of the Japanese
course, which terminated at the peace
of Portsmouth-a peace in which the
victor agreed to all the things that
he had declared he would not accept,
because his internal condition made
peace necessary. But Japan kept what
she had won and won what she had
fought for. This is the German hope
and expectation. and Germans the
world over believe that with the Turk
ish armies leveled at Egypt and the
British empire threatened. Great Brit
ain will be ready to make peace, with
Or without her allies, who must follow
her course If she quits.
Just this is what the campaign in
the near east seems to mean. 1t is
third bid for a decision:
she is now striking at England as she
struck first at France and then at Rus
sia Can Great Britain endure the
shock as the French and Russians did?
This is the new problem.