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

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BULGARIA ENTERS THE WAR. 31

Balkans from the first. We did not enforce our

~ policy of conciliation strongly enough while there

was yet time. When the day for it had passed we did not recognize the changed situation, and adopt a different plan. History will record that our difhiculties were great, but that they were surmountable, and that they were not surmounted.

The question of military policy raises once again the old subject of divergent operations. The initial blunder, it will be generally admitted, was the landing in Gallipoli, which drained our men from more vital theatres for a hopeless task. Our preoccupation with that fateful peninsula blinded our eyes to what was happening farther west on the mainland. Had we been able to place a force of 300,000 men at Salonika early in September we should have been in a position to help Serbia effectually, and wage a campaign with some chance of success. That chance had gone utterly by 6th October. Why, then, was the expedition persisted in? It was idle to talk about our prestige in the East. That could not be served by a second disaster on the ZEgean shores, and it would be served by a defeat of the German main armies in the West. Nothing that could happen in the Near East would bring the end of the campaign closer. The Allies could only win by destroying the great German forces, and for that purpose they must seek them where they were to be found. Germany could not win by occupying Constantinople and annexing Serbia, but only by beating the main Allied armies. In any case a small force of 150,000 was of no value. To achieve anything we must send at least three times that number, and they could only be got by depleting