The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-06-20
WONDERS OF THE
 EUROPEAN WAR
Sending of Russians to Mar seilles Emphasizes Mar
 vels of Transportation

The recent debarkation of Russian troops at Marseilles after a remark able voyage at first reported to have begun at Archangel, the port on the White Sea which is supposed to have been icebound at the time when the expedition weighed anchor, emphasizes the fact that the present war in Flu rope has presented greater problems in the transportation of troops than any other conflict id history.
 The manner in which troops have been transported from the four cor ners of the earth to be 1ured into battle on the fields of France, Serbia, Mesopotan1ia and Ga11ipOH Quickens the imagination and commands the ad- niration of the observer ass no sim liar series of military enterprises in world history. While lacking the spectacular elements of Caesars voy age to Britain; of HannibaPs conquest of the Alps; of the march of the 10, Greeks inmorta1ized in xenophon' Anabasis; of the amazing march of Napoleon's 1egions into the heart of Russia and their ca1amitous retreat before ''the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wo1d blast, the problems involved in bringing millions of fighting men across vast ocean wastes, during the last 8 months, are almost staggering in their complexity Because her colonies are far more widely scattered and because her com mand of the high seas has carried with it greater responsibilities in this direction, England has been the chief ilong-distance carrier of human food for the mighty rnaw of the modern god of war. She has brought her South African colonial from Cape Town to Calais. her troop ships have senni-cir- cled the globe, a distance of nearly Ill., | 900 miles, to bring Australians from l Melbourne to Marsei1Ies, by way of | hou brought from Bombay to Bruges; her Indian garrisons from Calcutta to 1 Constantinople; her Canadians from Montreal to the Marne, and her volun- teers from New Zealand to Salonica. From her own shores in the meantime | there has gone forth a stream of
 Scotch Irish and British troops to i France, to Serbia, to Gallipo1i, to Suez, and to Alden. The distance between
 these points aggregate more than 50,- l 900 miles, equal to twice the circun- l ference of the earth. Travelling for
 a, single day during it's voyage in 1911, when a, new record for transatlantic
 speed was established the Maureta-
 mia would require two and <one-half
 months to complete the aggregate voy- age.
 France, too, has sent her soldiers | thousands of miles by sea-, Marsei1les 1 being the chief port of authorization for troops bound for Sa.1onica, Gallipo- Ii, Albania, and Serbia, while her Fur
 cos, brought from colonial Algeria,
 have served to swell the ranks of the men under Gen. Joffre in northern France.
 A voyage of the Russians from Arch
 angel to Marseilles would not be a distance record for this war. If her transports were to take the shortest Icourse, through the English Channel
 the trip would be less than 4, 500 miles,
 while the arc of the circle described 1 beyond the British Isles in order to | avoid the German submarines, would
 make the actual length of such voy-
 age a matter of speculation. What
 ever the distance travelled, however,
 it would seem pupy compared with the historic voyage of Rozhestvenski' s T fleet from Libau, on the Baltic, around the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits
 of Tsushima during the Russo-Japan-
 ese war, a trip of more than 15s0OO miles. Less fraught with danger. but more than twice as long as the Archangel- Marsei1les route, has been the voyage
 of the Russian troops who landed in France a few weeks ago from Da1ny.
 the Manchurian port. By way of the
 Suez Canal. this is a 1o,OO0-rni1e trip. l-Nationa1 Geographic Society Bulle- fin