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

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won. A descent in force into Syria might increase it, but prestige is an incalculable thing, and the approach of Germany to the Holy Land of Islam might have an effect contrary to her anticipations. It was hard to resist the conclusion that at its inception the Teutonic Drang nach Osten had for its principal aim to raise doubt and hesitation in the Allies about the future developments of the war, and in particular to complicate for them the already difficult situation in the ZEgean. It was also true that certain elements in Germany, which still believed that a crushing victory was possible, desired to ““ peg out claims ” in the Near East against the day of peace. The Allies were rarely clear about their general plan, and there is no reason to believe that the German objective was always simple, luminous, and precisely calculated. There was another factor in the situationRussia. Apart from her main Eastern front, she ~ had an army in Transcaucasia, and, till the unfortunate reappearance of the Goeben at the end of October, she had a virtual control of the Black Sea. We last saw her Caucasian army in the spring faced with the remnants of three Turkish corps. Throughout the summer this wardenship of the marches continued, and there were many battles of which no news came to the West. In especial a brilliant action was fought in the beginning of May at Dilman, north-west of Lake Urmia, and inside the borders of the Persian province of Azerbaijan, which Russia had been compelled to occupy. The better part of the 12th (Mosul) Corps, under Halil Bey—15,000 regular infantry and 5,000 Kurdish cavalry—attacked a weak Russian force of 3,000,