Nelson's history of the war. Vol. XI., The struggle for the Dvina, and the great invasion of Serbia

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26 HISTORY OF THE WAR.

Serbia. On 15th October Britain declared war Oct. 1c. pon Bulgaria. The situation at this © °° date was that 200,000 Austro-Germans under von Mackensen were pressing southward from the Save and the Danube against the Serbian front ; a quarter of a million Bulgarians were moving eastwards against Serbia’s exposed right flank ; far to the south 13,000 French and British troops in the vicinity of Salonika were preparing to march inland against the Bulgarian left ; while Greece and Rumania, fully mobilized, were watching their frontiers and waiting upon fortune. The curtain had rung up on the tragic drama of Serbia.

Such is the summary of the events which preceded the new Balkan campaign. Two questions deserve further consideration, though at present the data are too scanty for a full understanding. One is the attitude of Greece, and the other the policy of the Western Allies. It is the duty of the historian to look behind the facile condemnations and criticisms of the man in the street, and attempt to envisage the difficulties which faced the Governments concerned. That most of these difficulties were due to prior blunders did not make them the easier to surmount. Men of the most undoubted honour and goodwill may find themselves faced by a puzzle to which there is literally no solution, a quandary from which there is no outlet except by way of some kind of disaster.

The dominant motive in Greek policy was fear. On a broad survey of the situation there was no answer to the arguments adduced by M. Venizelos in his speech in the Chamber on 10th October after