of British
statesmanship must be to hold the Allies together at any expense and
keep Germany from breaking the siege. If more nations could be
brought in against Germany, that would strengthen the siege lines
and lengthen the front the Central Powers were building.

Through the winter of 1914-15 the diplomats of the Allies and the
Central Powers in Rome fought for Italy's hand with all the skill
and resources of trained European diplomacy. Responding to the
sentiment for the recovery of Trentino and Trieste which she
considered ethnologically and geographically a part of her domain
she was to throw in her fortunes with the Allies against her old
enemy, Austria.

Serbia had her troops still on the boundary of the Danube and the
Save. Rumania, facing Austria with Russia on her flank, also much
courted, was even more coy than Italy. Bulgaria, with her excellent
army, was on the flank of Serbia and blocked the road to Turkey.
Little Greece was another state watching the conflict with the
selfish interest of a small spectator, trying to judge which side
would be the victor.

Russia of the steppes and the multitudes of men was short of
munitions; her plants were incapable of making sufficient supplies.
The Baltic was closed to her by the German navy, Archangel was
frozen in and the closing of the passage of the Dardanelles shut her
off from the Mediterranean. She was in touch with the sea only in
the Far East, with the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains between
her and the manufacturing regions of the United States. Her crop of
wheat, which she exchanged for manufactured goods in time of peace
was no less interned than the manufactured products of Germany. If
the Dardanelles were opened she could empty her granaries and
receive arms and munitions in return. Therefore, the first winter of
the war, while their main armies were intrenched in colder climes,
both sides turned their attention to the southeast. In November the
Turks had joined the Central Powers, thus flying in the face of the
historical Turkish policy, so cleverly applied by Abdul Hamid, in
playing one European power against another and profiting by their
international differences.

For many years German diplomacy, capital and enterprise had been
busy building up German influence in Asia Minor. Abdul Hamid had
been overthrown under the leadership of Enver Pasha and other
officers who had been trained in Germany according to German
military methods and wh