one on which a serious defeat to the enemy necessarily
threatened that enemy with a grave, if not an irretrievable, disaster.
It is true that for the comparatively short period during which Russia
really counted, that is to say during the early months before Russian
munitions gave out, the Eastern Front--the Poland Front--was a weak
point for the Germans. But the Russian bubble had been pricked in the
eyes of those behind the scenes long before the great advance of the
German and Austro-Hungarian armies over the Vistula and into the heart
of the Tsar's dominions began in the early summer of 1915.

Scarcely had the Salonika venture been mooted than the Dardanelles
venture cropped up and was actually embarked on; so that for the nonce
the advocates of an advance through Serbia--I am not sure that there
was more than one at the time--abandoned that project. But although
the Serbs had succeeded early in the winter of 1914-15 in driving the
Austro-Hungarian invading columns ignominiously back over the Save and
the Danube, the position of this isolated Ally of ours was giving
grounds for anxiety from an early period in 1915, and it always
presented a serious problem for the Entente. Colonel Basil Buckley, my
right-hand man with regard to the Near East, had it constantly in
mind.

It is always easy to be wise after the event; what in the world would
become of the noble army of critics if it were not so? Still, looking
back in the light of the sequel upon the political and strategical
situation that existed in the Near East early in 1915, it does look as
if the right course for the Western Powers to have adopted then (so
soon as there were troops available for another theatre without
hopelessly queering the Entente pitch on the Western Front) would have
been to use those troops for lending Serbia a hand instead of
despatching them to the Dardanelles. Even a weaker force than that
with which Sir I. Hamilton embarked on the Gallipoli venture
(nominally five Anglo-Australasian and two French divisions) would
have proved an invaluable moral, and an effective actual, support to
the Serbs; and its arrival on the Morava and the Save could hardly
have failed to influence to some extent the attitude of Bulgaria and
Roumania, and assuredly would have caused the Austro-Hungarian
monarchy some heart-burnings. It has been said that M. Briand (who did
not assume the premiership in France until a somewhat later date)
advocated the despatch