The Russian menace to India removed by the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1908 is transferred to Germany.

Unless the situation in the Middle East is allowed to go from bad to worse, prompt measures are necessary to counteract this new German movement. It is often said that the fate of the war will be decided in the West, and that a decisive victory in France and Belgium will restore equilibrium in the East. It may be so; but we must not count on it. Conquest is conquest all the world over, and it does not necessarily follow that victory in one theatre of war will wholly, or even partially, neutralise the effects of defeat in another. Beati possidentes. It was well said by Lord Curzon that a victory on the Western front would not have delivered Jerusalem into our hands had General Allenby failed to capture it. It is important to lose no time in consolidating our position in Persia by reinforcing the South Persia Rifles, who now number some 5,000 to 7,000 men, under the command of Sir Percy Sykes, whose headquarters are at Shiraz. Since the withdrawal of Russian troops from Northern Persia, this is the only organised force at the disposal of the young Shah for the purpose of safeguarding the neutrality of his country. The original plan approved by the Shah's Government after the withdrawal of the Swedish officers was that the South Persia Rifles should be recruited up to a strength of 11,000, and this no doubt is now being done. Sir Percy Sykes has had at his disposal a reliable nucleus of seventy British officers and warrant officers, who have converted a mutinous rabble of Persian gendarmes into a well-disciplined armed force. With the Amir of Afghanistan the circumstances are different. He is strong enough to take charge of his own country, and, provided we give his people free access to Indian markets and do nothing to make him suspect our disinterestedness, we may count on his loyal neutrality.

MOVEMENT UP THE EUPHRATES.

Meanwhile, after considerable delay, chiefly owing to hesitation in the Operations department at home, Generals Marshall and Allenby are once more on the move. Abandoning the Tigris route for the time being, General Marshall started on his way up the Euphrates in the middle of February, and on the 20th of that month General Brooking occupied Khan Abu Rayat, fifteen miles up stream from Ramadieh. Continuing his movement along the river valley, his troops reached Hit without opposition on March 9th, the Turkish garrison retiring to Khan Baghdadi, twenty-two miles further north. General Marshall's objective is no doubt Abu Kemal, a town of some importance 150 miles above Hit, and the starting-off place for the caravan and post road to Damascus. This road, which passes through the ancient Palmyra, traverses a fairly well watered region north of the Syrian desert, and reaches Damascus at a distance of 250 miles from Abu Kemal. It was along this route that Sir William Willcocks (1) See sketch, FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW, February, 1918.

proposed to take the projected railway from Baghdad to Damascus, a distance of 550 miles. Whether General Marshall will make use of the caravan route to join hands with General Allenby, or continue his march up the Euphrates, remains to be seen. His difficulty is not with the Turks, who are no longer in force anywhere in Mesopotamia, but with supplies, and this difficulty will increase as his line of communications lengthens out. Above Hit the Euphrates begins to be unnavigable, except for small craft and rafts, and unless General Marshall lays a light railway as he advances, it will become very difficult to keep his troops adequately supplied with food and munitions. Water transport is insufficient for the purpose of rapid movement, and laying a railway so far from the base absorbs time and labour.

PALESTINE FRONT.

Turning now to the Palestine front, after marking time for two months since Jerusalem fell into his hands, General Allenby began to show signs of renewed activity about the middle of February, when he sent his troops in an easterly direction towards the Jordan, and northwards in the direction of Shechem. On the morning of February 21st the Australian mounted troops occupied Jericho, and subsequently secured the line of the Jordan down to the Dead Sea, as well as that of the Auja, a tributary of the Jordan, which takes its rise in the watershed along which the road to Shechem goes. On the night of March 6th, fearing lest British troops would cross the Jordan, the Turks destroyed the bridge over the river at Ghovaniyeh, east of Jericho. So far General Allenby has confined his operations to the west of the Jordan valley without attempting to cross the river and strike at the Hedjaz railway. His troops are advancing on a fifteen- to eighteen-mile front astride of the Jerusalem-Shechem road, and on March 9th the dominating position of Tel Asur, 3,318 ft. above sea level, was occupied. As this article goes to press on March 20th, the British Army has reached a point about twenty miles north of Jerusalem and ten south of Shechem. The country, as described by General Allenby, is "precipitous and difficult," being better adapted for defensive than offensive operations, but if progress is slow it is continuous, and the Turks seem to be incapable of checking our advance.

There are rumours of an impending Turco-German offensive in Palestine under the direction of General Liman von Sanders, who has again appeared on the Palestine front, but so far there are no indications of any preparations being made to justify these unverified reports. The Germans are too much occupied for the time being. in consolidating their conquests in Russia and strengthening their position on the Western front to be able to send help to the Turks, who will have to do the best they can by their unaided efforts to check the advance of the two British commanders operating respec(1) See sketch, FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW, February, 1918.

tively from Mesopotamia and Palestine. Should the menace to the railway junction at Aleppo become more pronounced, German help will no doubt be forthcoming, but there is no immediate necessity for sending troops across the Bosphorus, and any movement of the kind indicated will be delayed as long as possible. Meanwhile the Turks are following up the Russians as they retreat from Armenia in accordance with their treaty engagements. Baiburt was occupied on February 20th, Trebizond on the 26th, and Erzerum on March 11th. Whether the Turks will be able to occupy the ceded districts in the Caucasus remains to be seen. The position in that out-of-theway corner of the Russian Empire is very obscure, little news having come through from Tiflis since telegraphic communication with Persia was cut off. The members of a British Military Mission who tried to reach Tiflis from Persia were stopped at Baku by the Bolsheviks, with the assistance of German and Turkish agents. What is known is that a Republic has been set up in the Caucasus with M. Cheidze as President, and that the new Government refuses to recognise the right of the Soviet Government to dispose of Caucasus territory. The Germans, however, who have occupied Odessa, will doubtless bring pressure to bear on the Caucasus Government to compel adherence to the terms of the Brest treaty, for there is no doubt of their intention to insist on the enforcement of the treaty if necessary at the point of the bayonet.

THE JAPANESE ARMY.

A new situation has been created by the prospective entry of the Japanese Army into the Far Eastern theatre of war. In the House of Representatives at Tokyo on February 24th Viscount Motono, the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs, said that he was not perfectly acquainted with the terms of the peace treaty between Germany and Russia, but that if peace was actually concluded "it went without saying that Japan would take steps of the most decided and adequate character to meet the occasion." From this statement, as well as from a previous declaration of Count Terauchi, the Prime Minister, there is no doubt of the intention of the Mikado's Government to safeguard Japanese interests, which are obviously menaced by the signature of the treaty of peace which has been forced on Russia. From the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean the whole of Russia is at the mercy of the conqueror. This being so, Germany, thwarted in the West, will be sure to seize the opportunity, which conquest has given her, of obtaining control over the Trans-Siberian and Manchurian railways, and securing an outlet into the Pacific. Whatever view the Allied Powers may take of this new development, Japan can only take one view. The control of the railway and its terminus at Vladivostok must never be allowed to pass into German hands.

Negotiations are going on between Japan and her Allies in regard to the action which she proposes to take in her own interests and

in those of the Alliance. The Western Powers of Europe, trusting to Japan's assurances of disinterestedness, are, it is understood, prepared to give an unconditional free hand to her Government to adopt whatever military measures appear best to accomplish the purpose for which the Allies have taken up arms. Their interests and those of Japan are bound together by the common desire to destroy the power of Germany to disturb again the peace of the world. President Wilson, on the other hand, who is taking so prominent a part in shaping the post-bellum policy of the Allied Powers, is reported to be doubtful about the expediency of Japanese intervention in Siberia, lest it should complicate the political situation in Russia and cause alarm among the Russian people. America, it must be borne in mind, has always been opposed to the encroachments of both Japan and Russia in Manchuria, and it will be within the recollection of all who have followed the course of political events in the Far East that in 1910 Mr. Knox entered a protest against the claim of the Japanese and Russian Governments to the sovereignty of those parts of the South Manchurian and Chinese Eastern railways which the Treaty of Portsmouth allocated to each of the two contracting Powers. Mr. Knox proposed that the Manchurian railways should be neutralised under international control, and though the proposal fell through, the American Foreign Office still retains its objection to the Japanese and Russian monopoly. It is not intended to discuss this question from the political side beyond expressing the hope that President Wilson will waive his objections to Japan's intervention in the face of the perilous position with which the Allies are confronted by Germany's bid for hegemony in the East. When the whole world is in the melting pot it is not possible to prescribe solutions for all the problems which will come. up for discussion when the peace conference ultimately takes place. What the Americans, ourselves, and the other Allies are fighting for is to get rid of this frightful nightmare of German military aggression, and for this purpose it is necessary to sink all feeling of international jealousy in the face of the common danger. Japan, as will presently be shown, can help us, and will do so, if we accept her help in the same spirit of frank friendship with which it is offered.

The Japanese Army of to-day is a far more formidable machine than it was twelve years ago when Japan and Russia fought for supremacy in Manchuria. In 1906 there were only 13 Divisions, including the Imperial Guard, mobilised for the war, and though these Divisions were raised by fresh formations up to the strength of an army corps, there were never more than 500,000 men at a time at the seat of war in Manchuria. To-day the Japanese General Staff have at their disposal approximately two millions of fully-trained men of military age, the picked manhood of the country, while behind these first line troops are nearly a million of men for whom there was no room in the peace cadres of the Active Army, but who are just as physically fit for military service as those taken for