aps
ultimately in India by the Bagdad and Mecca railways.

Such a threat, coupled with one more successful campaign, might
exercise a decisive influence upon the minds of the people of the
allied countries, and in opening a road to the Golden Horn, Germany
might find the path to peace. Already there was apparent willingness
in Berlin to evacuate Belgium and northern France, only from Russia
did Germany now insist upon tribute in the form of conquered
provinces. But until the road to Constantinople was open, until the
Serbian nuisance was abolished, peace could not be considered.

Turkey, too, was calling for aid. Early in the year the Anglo-French
fleets had tried to force the Dardanelles. Their failure had been
followed by a land attack at Gallipoli, which had so far failed, but
Turkish ammunition and artillery was inadequate for a sustained
fight, and there was needed German aid. To lose the Dardanelles was
to see Turkey conquered, Russia provided with munitions, and the
whole German dream of expansion to Asia Minor destroyed.

It was necessary, too, to provide the German people with a new
victory. They had been bitterly disappointed that the Russian
campaign had not brought peace, or, at the least, the elimination of
Russia. A new and relatively cheap success, the conquest of the
Balkans, would fire their imagination and again stimulate their
hopes for a victorious peace. In addition, Bulgaria now beckoned to
the Germans. Her army was at the disposition of the two kaisers, but
there was plain peril that if the coming were too long delayed, the
Allies might succeed in persuading Ferdinand to cast his lot with
the camp that now offered him Serbian Macedonia and Turkish Thrace,
and were suggesting the further _pourboire_ of Greek Kavala.

Accordingly Germany decided to go south, having gone west and east
without finding peace or decisive victory. She had available for
this operation troops no longer needed against Russia since the
campaign on this front had died out, and she had to command it, the
great Mackensen, whose fame now rivaled that of Hindenburg, whose
victories had regained Galicia. "Constantinople and Peace" became
the new German watchword, just as "Paris and Peace" and "Warsaw and
Peace" had been in preceding months.

And at the outset of this third campaign it is perhaps appropriate
to point out that Germany was now to achieve that complete military
success that had been denied to her in France and R