been plain. Everybody realised what the breaking of the front at Amiens (March 1918) would have meant. After Caporetto (October 1917) Italy was saved by reinforcements rushed from France. If Russia's isolation had been ended early in the war, the Allies might have been saved from many anxieties and sacrifices. It was the factor in the general situation which most favoured the Central Alliance, contending, as it was, against forces which, in the aggregate, were much superior. The moral effect, dominant in war, would have been great. Free intercourse, and the interchange even of small bodies of troops, would have done much to frustrate the aims of German propaganda among the Russian people and armies, by vindicating the sincerity of the Western Allies, and dispelling the belief that they were using Russia as their catspaw. Other considerations, which need only be mentioned, were the supply of munitions to Russia and Rumania; the export of corn which ultimately went to relieve the rigour of the blockade; and the menace which a possible revival of the Balkan bloc would have implied to Austria. At the least, there would have been a good prospect of preventing the defeat of Serbia and Rumania, which, by the end of 1916, had cost the Allies more than half a million men; and it may be that a shortening of the war would have averted the ruin of Russia.

Great as was the importance of opening the Straits, there were, of course, other considerations of hardly less moment, which made the defeat of Turkey a matter of urgency. The Turks were Germany's instrument for weakening the Allies on the main fronts, by obliging them to detach forces for the protection of vital interests in remote regions; while Turkish influence and propaganda were expected to cause further dispersion of force by exciting disorder throughout Islam. Some people, wise after the event, think that the danger was exaggerated. How great it was, no one can now say; for the effect of the measures taken to counteract it-which, indeed, made no small demand on the Allies' resourcesis not, nor can be, known. That the Turks had to be fought is, at least, quite plain; the only question was whether they, or the Allies, should choose the place and time. In such circumstances the best course is to strike

at the enemy's vital centre, the loss of which, if it should not paralyse him, will at least weaken any further effort. Falkenhayn, plainly in compliment to the Turks (on the value of whose aid he is, at the moment, enlarging), pretends to believe that the fall of Constantinople would not have caused them to yield. However this may be, they would have ceased to be of much account in the field; and their prestige and influence in the Mahommedan world would probably have declined. To the Central Powers the defeat of Turkey would have involved not only the loss of an ally valuable out of proportion to his military power, but the downfall of the Balkan and eastern policy for which they provoked the war; and the moral effect would have been commensurate with the magnitude of their aspirations.

We have now ample means of knowing how the Germans regarded the situation in the Near East. Falkenhayn tells us, in reviewing the general situation as it existed when he became Chief of the General Staff, that he 'considered it indispensable that this [the Turkish] alliance should materialise.' (A secret alliance had, in fact, been concluded on Aug. 2, 1914; but this had not been made public when he wrote.)

'If,' he continues, the Straits between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea were not permanently closed to Entente traffic, all hopes of a successful course of the war would be very considerably diminished. Russia would have been freed from her significant isolation. It was just this isolation, however, which offered a safer guarantee than military successes were able to give, that sooner or later a crippling of the forces of this Titan must take place, to a certain extent automatically.' *

Such being his view, he began, so early as January 1915, to urge on the Austrian Command the importance of crushing Serbia-a course which, by 'opening up the communications with the south-east, held more promise than did any local successes in the Carpathians, or on the East-Prussian frontier.'t The project was again considered in April, May, June, and August; the chief object being to join hands with the Turks, in order to ensure

*Falkenhayn, p. 19.

† Ibid., p. 57.

the isolation of Russia. But action had to be postponed because the Bulgarians refused to join till after the harvest; and without their aid success would be uncertain.

It is evident that the attitude of Bulgaria was, for Germany, the ruling factor in the problem of relieving the Turks. It was, moreover, an uncertain factor. If we may believe Falkenhayn, Bulgaria's enthusiasm for the German cause waxed and waned in harmony with the changes of fortune on the eastern front; and the certainty that it would be finally extinguished if America should join th› Allies led to the suspension of the 'unrestricted' submarine campaign. Had the Allies made no move against Turkey until July 1915, and then employed suitable forces, Bulgaria would probably have become deaf to German persuasion. Still, Falkenhayn had to be prepared for an effort to save Turkey, with or without Bulgaria's aid, if Constantinople should be really endangered. Accordingly, he so arranged the operations against Russia after the fall of Lemberg (June 22) that, without relaxing the pressure on Russia, forces could be provided to open communications through the Balkans, and to meet the Allied offensive in Artois and Champagne, where preparations were observed in July. This problem had to be solved 'at any moment in which it might suddenly become urgent'; for he was 'convinced that it was more important than the question of bringing the Russians to their knees.' He considered the advisability of seeking a way through Rumania, instead of through Serbiaa course which would have freed Austria-Hungary from anxiety on that side, besides securing a rich corn country. But the idea was abandoned because it was not advisable to give Germany another open enemy.' Hence he decided to attack Serbia; but how he proposed to deal with a neutral Bulgaria he does not say. Negotiations were re-opened at Sofia in July, when, possibly, Bulgaria agreed to allow passage to German troops under the plea of force majeure. The conquest of Serbia singlehanded would, however, have been a serious undertaking; and, with the front in Russia longer by 170 miles than it was in the following October, it is hard to see how he

* Falkenhayn, p. 159.

could have hoped to bring timely and effective aid to the Turks 'without relaxing the pressure on Russia.' He would also have had to provide for the possible hostility of Rumania, which would have placed the Austrian armies on the Galician front in a critical position.

The conquest of Serbia three months later satisfied, for the moment, the needs of German war-policy in the east. By freeing Turkey from danger in the only quarter where defeat would have been decisive, it made Russia's isolation permanent. It enabled the Germans, so far as their resources permitted, to supply the munitions and railway-material which the Turks needed for their campaigns in the secondary theatres of war. The Allies were thenceforward committed to costly and indecisive operations, which, though offensive in form, were imposed by the necessity of defending regions and interests which could not be neglected. Thus nearly half a million men were dispersed in Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Caucasus, while as many were locked up in Salonika. The British forces engaged on outlying fronts throughout the war numbered from three to four hundred thousand at different periods. These were consequences of the failure to restrict the area of the war by disposing of Turkey at the outset. The presence of a hostile force at Salonika was not, indeed, welcome to the Germans; but Falkenhayn, for reasons which need not detain us, decided, after repeated consideration, to tolerate it, finding consolation in the thought that the Allied troops would be immobilised by the Bulgarian army, which could not be drafted to the main fronts, whereas the expulsion of the Allies would free them for employment in other theatres of war.

(To be continued.)

W. P. BLOOD.

Art. 13.-THE ECONOMICS OF THE PEACE.

1. The Economic Consequences of the Peace. By John Maynard Keynes, C.B. Macmillan, 1919.

2. The Peace Treaty and the Economic Chaos of Europe. By Norman Angell. Swarthmore Press, 1919.

3. The New Germany. By George Young. Constable, 1920.

FEW, if any, writers on public finance or on the dismal science of Political Economy have leaped so rapidly into fashion and celebrity as Mr Keynes. Half a century after Adam Smith's death, when Sir Robert Peel's Cabinet was converted from Protection to Free Trade, not a single member of it had read The Wealth of Nations.' Neither Malthus, Ricardo, Karl Marx, Bastiat, Friedrich List, Bagehot, Jevons, Henry George, nor any other economists who have disclosed unsuspected truths, exposed popular fallacies, or invented potent fictions, ever took the City and the West End by storm Mr Keynes has done with a single stroke.

Various explanations may be offered for the success of the book. The subject was not new or attractive. Publishers tell one that English readers are sick of the war and want to forget all about it. Pleasure, sport, love stories with happy endings-these are eagerly bought, or borrowed from the lending libraries. But, if people want to forget the carnage, they are immensely curious and anxious about the economic consequences of the struggle. War, like a tree, is judged by its fruits. Men and women, who had never dreamt of inquiring into the mysteries of the currency, are now eager to learn about the Bradbury,' the franc or the mark; why dollars are dear, and lire cheap; why the peseta is at a premium; why Russian roubles and Austrian crowns barely pay for printing, and, above all, why everything is dear. Here in England the intoxication which greeted the Armistice has been followed by the customary headache. The promises and pledges of the General Election were incapable of fulfilment; and, as time advances, the Georgian Eldorado, with its plentiful supply of cheap houses for all, low taxes and abundance, seems to be fading away. Above all, the German indemnity, which was to pay for the war, is not forthcoming.