New Britain herald., 1916-07-29

garians and opened the route to Con- stantinople
 l New difficulties continued to devel- 1 op for the allies however. In Meso- 1 potam1a the Turks stopped the ad- l vance of General Townshend's forces 1 within twenty miles of Bagdad and | drove him back to Kut-el-Amara,
 besieging him there. In Persia the
 gendarmerie revolted against the gov
 ernment, creating fresh embarrass- | ments for the Russians. In the 1 Balkans, after the complete conquest l of Serbia and the occupation of a con-
 siderable portion of Albania, the ] Austrians invaded Montenegro, and ! before the end of January all the l Balkan peninsula with the exception 1 of Greece, Rumania and a little corner 1 Ot Albania was in the hands of the group of central empires.
 That marked the limit ftheir suc- cesses. The advantage that time had gained for the Allies began to tell. General Ivanoff, commanding the Rus sian armies in Volhynia and Bessara- bia, continued their offensive in Janu- ary with the occupation of CzartOrysk Itself unlmpOrtant, the significance of l this operation lay in the revelation it furnished of a refreshed and rein l ~ OONe AeeeA'ShS'1h l new cannon abundant supplies of
 projectiles and sufficient power to blow up German field defenses.
 Campaign in Caucasus.
 | Of far greater significance was the | advance in the Caucasus by Grand | Duke Nicholas, forcing the fall of Err l zerum accomplishing the occupation l of kermanshah and, in the military l view here, virtually eliminating Tur- 1 key as a factor in the European war l beside re-esta blishing the prestige of 1 the allies in Persia. Instead of | reservoir of men upon which they might draw to fill the void caused by
 eighteen months of heavy wastage, the l Central powers found at Constantino- l pie only an additional drain upon their l resources. The Russian advance not | only meant the recall of Turkish di- | visions that were expected to help the l Germans, Austrians and Bulgarians l against the allies at SalOniki but Ger l man and Austrian troops were sent
 with them to aid the defeated Otto-
 man forces in Armenia. Yet Trebi- zond fell after Erzerum; Mush was
 occupied, and the conquest of Armenia
 was nearly complete. The diversion
 in the East had failed to break the COIuOI Ol SleS1, ana Tn F6DTu3rY the
 coalition of the Central empires was
 facing the crisis of greater gravity
 than any that had threatened the
 Entente allies. The Bulgarian army
 was almost barefoot the Turks, ex- 1 cepting at ut-el-Amara, were every-
 where defeated, and the wastage of
 the long and unsuccessful effort to
 take DVlnsk had weakened vOn Hin | denDurg so that he was incapable of l unCertallng general offensive on the
 Russian front. The Austrians, left to l themselves, had never succeeded and
 the maintenance of a large force be-
 fore Saloniki was required to hold Serbia and prevent the invasion of Bull garia. The interior situation of Ger
 many was officially admitted to be
 grave.
 In this mbarrassment, as the l French observers view it, the Central
 powers ardently desiring peace, and
 urgently needing success to raise the spirits of the German people, de-
 pressed as they were by prolonged | privations looked to the French front
 and decided upon the adventure of
 Verdun.
 The German plan seems originally
 to have been to concentrate artillery,
 munitions and men in such force over
 limited length of front that the on-
 rush would be irresistible. They choose | Verdun because the position of the
 ancient fortress was such that the de- ! lenders had their backs to the River
 Muese on two sides and because suc-
 cess there would give the greatest 1 possible prestige with neutral powers
 and the maximum comfort to their
 own people. It was also possible they
 knew what subsequent political
 events in France disclosed-that the
 defenses of Verdun were not, in view
 of the field tactics of this war, as
 strong as other parts of the f,tesa&. It