German strategists placed a margin of safety between their territory and an allied advance, and also made sure that at least some of the fighting shall be carried on on Greek soil.

Solid Results Accomplished

In the northeastern region of the Balkan battlefields German and Bulgarian arms have accomplished some solid results which evidently are destined to play an important part, not only in the operations of the Dobrudjan front, but in those of the Transylvanian region as well.

The seizure of the fortresses of Turtukai (or Tutrakan) and Silistria, on the Dobrudja bank of the Danube, with more than 20,000 Roumanian prisoners and 100 guns by the Bulgarians and their German. allies was a feat of some military importance. Turtukai and Silistria are in the territory which Roumania detached from Bulgaria in the second Balkan war. The acquisition was of strategic importance to Roumania beacuse it deprived Bulgaria of two possible bases for operations against the Roumanian capital, Bucharest, less than forty miles northwest of Turtukai. At the same time it gave the Roumanians a fortified defense for their capital.

The rapidity with which the Bulgaro-Germans struck their blow in this region of the Dobrudja, and the inability of the Roumanians to offer effective resistance to the invaders, were events of disastrous import to the Roumanians, who since have been compelled to modify their Transylvanian campaign to a great event. The transfer of Gen. Averescu, the Roumanian commander-inchief, from Transylvania to the Dobrudja gives some indication of the importance which the Roumanians

and their Russian allies attach to their reverses on the Danube.

Further progress by the Germans and Bulgarians in the Dobrudja is bound to lessen still more the Roumanian-Russian pressure in Transylvania. There is reason to believe that Austrian strategists counted on such an eventuality at the beginning of the Russo-Roumanian incursion into Transylvania. And the assumption by Austria of such an eventuality probably explains the perfunctory resistance which the Austrians offered to the Russo-Roumanians in their first rush over the Roumanian border.

Further Operations Likely

With a considerable part of the Dobrudja in their hands, the Germans and Bulgarians, under the supreme command of Field Marshal von Mackensen, are in a position to attempt further offensive operations against Roumania. It would be reasonable to assume that plans for such operations have been the subject of the discussions at the conference at German headquarters between the Kaiser and the Bulgarian Czar and Enver Bey, the Ottoman minister of war.

The purpose of this conference may well be a united offensive designed to solve the military problems presented by Roumania's entrance into the war and the events that have followed it.

There are two possible routes for an effective offensive against Roumania, from the Roumanian territory already won by the central powers and their ally. One is a march on the capital after a crossing of the Danube at Turtukai and Silistria, possibly supplemented by another expedition from Rustchuk.

The bank of the Danube opposite Silistria, as well as opposite Rustchuk, is connected by rail with Bucharest, and the crossing of the river in the face of opposing forces has been so frequently accomplished that its practicability is not open to question.

Such an operation, however, would leave the right flank of the advancing armies open to attacks from the east, by Russian forces landing at Kustendje (or Constanza). Constanza is the main Roumanian seaport. Through it the Russians have been forwarding men and supplies to their allies. The retention of this port by the Russo-Roumanians would always carry the danger of a strong attack in flank upon any army carrying out the offensive above indicated.

Must Take Constanza Constanza, therefore, must be taken by the central powers before they can develop their present movement into Roumania to its logical conclusion. To the defense of Constanza the Roumanians and their Russian allies are devoting much of their attention, and there is reason to believe that behind the veil of secrecy which has been drawn over the German-Bulgarian operations in the Dobrudja for the past week, Marshal von Mackensen is carrying on his disposition of forces and materials for a blow at Constanza.

With Constanza in their hands, the Bulgarians and their German allies would have an open road to Galatz, the great fortified place of Roumania. This is the second possible route for a great invasion of Roumania. In their march from Constanza the invaders would be protected on their left flank for prac

tically all the distance of a little more than eighty miles by the marshes which fringe the west bank of the Danube, and on their right for a part of the distance by lakes and marshes.

Galatz, is the apex of an inverted V which the Danube forms at the point of its confluence with the Pruth. On the north bank of the Danube after it breaks into a V, is another tangle of lakes and marshes which would protect an invading army from that direction.

The possibility of a successful demonstration against Constanza, and subsequently against Galatz, is an element with which the Roumanian general staff must reckon, especially if, as now appears likely, Germany and Austria decide to send considerable forces into Bulgaria to aid in the operations against Roumania through the Dobrudja.

Galatz, once in the enemy's hands, would be a grave menace in the rear of the Roumanian operations in Transylvania. This fortress is less than eighty miles from the Transylvanian border. An army moving westward from Galatz would have railroads at its command. But even if the invaders failed to take Galatz, the defense of that city, with its three consecutive lines of fortifications on the river Sereth, would require a force which would weaken to a great extent the striking power of the Russo-Roumanians.

And such a weakening of the Russo-Roumanian lines would furnish an opportunity for a counteroffensive by the Austrians from the west, which would place the Roumanians between two fires.

Is this the plan that is being considered at German headquarters? Developments in the next few days

may furnish an answer to that question.-Sept. 16, 1916.

SWIFT RETRIBUTION

The mills of the gods are grinding exceeding fine in the case of Roumania. And they are not grinding slowly. Roumania in the past three weeks lost about five thousand square miles in the Dobrudja She has lost all the territory which she took away from Bulgaria in 1913 and a good many square miles in addition.

The circumstances under which Roumania took that territory from Bulgaria in 1913 are interesting. Roumania had no quarrel with her neighbor. She had no racial claim to the soil upon which she had cast a covetous eye. She simply wanted.

And when Bulgaria was hard beset by her former allies and Turkey-four nations against oneRoumania marched across her neighbor's frontiers and occupied the land she wanted. While she was occupying it she committed acts of violence against a peaceful civilian population which have left their mark upon the Roumanian army.

The Bulgarians remember the events of 1913 vividly. The Sofia official bulletins announcing the recovery of lost territory in the present operations apply a simple, short word to this territory. They designate it as "stolen by Roumania in 1913."

When Roumania three weeks ago reached the conclusion that the central powers were beaten and that her help was urgently needed by the victors, the Bulgarian people saw their opportunity. The swiftness of their blow at the despoiler took him completely by surprise.

Tutrakan the Bulgarian fell with more than 20,000 Roumanian officers and soldiers and large quantities of artillery and supplies. Then fell Silistria-the Bulgarian-which Roumania had picked for her stronghold against her neighbor. And now Mangalia, beyond the former frontier between Roumania and Bulgaria, is also in the hands of the Bulgarians under Von Mackensen. The next great battle of the Dobrudja campaign will be fought on a line twenty good miles beyond the frontier which Roumania violated in 1913.

Whether the decree of war as now written shall stand or shall be reversed by superior force as the campaign develops, the Roumanians already have reason to regret bitterly the wrong which they did in 1913 to a brave neighbor with whom they were at peace.-Sept. 20, 1916.

THE WAR MOVE IN THE
BALKANS

The seizure by Bulgarian troops, with German co-operation, of three forts on the Greek side of the frontier, in the valley of the Strouma, need not necessarily imply the beginning of an offensive movement against the Franco-British stronghold at Salonica. By occupying the fortresses of Dragotin, Rupel and Spatovo, however, the Bulgarian commanders have carried out an operation which would be of great strategic value in the event of an offensive by their opponents.

All three positions are in close proximity to the railroad line between Salonica and the Bulgarian frontier at Xanthi. With this line under their control the Franco

British strategists could have transported a considerable force eastward to the left wing of the Bulgaro-German positions and thus menaced them with a turning movement. Now that this line is in Bulgarian hands this danger to their left is greatly lessened, if not altogether removed.

Simultaneously with the operations in the Strouma valley the Bulgarians are evidently preparing for a movement into Greece from ⚫ Xanthi, on the Mesta, in the direction of Kavalla, the Greek port which the Bulgarians wrested from Turkey in the war of 1912 and which was in turn taken from them under the terms of the treaty of Bucharest in the following year. This movement from Xanthi makes Kavalla the objective of two distinct lines of advance, one along the Strouma valley and the other from the east.

The possession of Xanthi would be an important strategic advantage to the central powers in any attempt by the Franco forces in Salonica, reinforced by the 80,000 Serbians who have just been landed there, to flank the Bulgarians in order to strike at Germany's "bridge" to the Orient. It has been reported repeatedly that the Anglo-French strategists had landed or were about to land troops at Kavalla for such an enterprise.

By fortifying themselves on Greek soil northwest of Kavalla, and within striking distance of that port, the Bulgarians have taken a reasonable precaution against the success of such an expedition. It is too early to say, however, that the movements on the Mesta and the Strouma are the beginning of an offensive by the central powers against Salonica and the 400,000 allied troops who have been fortifying themselves there all winter.

TROJAN WAR A STRUGGLE FOR THE DARDANELLES Contest Between Agamemnon and Priam for Mastery of Straits Recalled by Events of To-day

By SVETOZAR TONJOROFF One of the earliest sea powers in history-the mastery of Troy over the commerce between the east and

The road between the treasurehouse of the Euxine, now the Black sea, and the Mediterranean, the center of civilization and of the Greek race, was difficult to traverse owing to the presence of the current, which in the Narrows reaches a maximum velocity of six miles an hour.

This condition, in the infancy of maritime science, constituted an element of extreme importance, and

The situation at that misty phase of the story of the human race parallels strikingly that of to-day. Just as the Turks in 1915 are exerting a powerful influence upon world-affairs by keeping the straits closed in the face of half of Christendom, so Priam in about the year 1200 B. C. kept an iron hand upon his world— the Mediterranean world-by the same expedient, though applied by different means.

Troy dominated the straits by the combination of two accidental circumstances the presence of a current in the straits which ran from the Aegean northeastward, and the control of the river Scamander, which constituted the only appreciable water supply for ships sailing into or out of the mouth of the straits, then known as the Hellespont.

Euxine were obliged to await at the mouth of the straits a favorable moment for an attempt to make the passage. Sometimes this period of waiting extended into weeks.

Troy's Control of Trade

The point where navigators marked time for winds and currents was off the coast of Troy, where Priam and his predecessors had established a profitable victualling and watering place. In order to increase the profits of the enterprise the king of Troy devised the scheme of preventing through passages either into the Aegean or into the Hellespont.

All ships coming into the offing of Troy from the Hellespont had to transship their cargoes at that point, and all vessels coming from the Aegean had to transship for the voyage through the straits.

Thus Troy levied cess and toll upon the entire commerce of the Euxine-Mediterranean, which at

that time constituted the extent of the commercial world.