. Battlefields of the World War, western and southern fronts; a study in military geography . nguish-able with field glasses, some distance up the slope, and a third, ap-parently less continuous, along the crest. This remarkably steepscarp, which stared the British in the face for so many drearymonths, was commonly described by the British soldier, with repre-hensible irreverence but commendable accuracy, as a hell of aposition. From the Adriatic to the Aegean the front was nowhereelse so nearly impregnable on both sides as along the Struma moat. The Battle of Moglenitsa The battle front acros
. Battlefields of the World War, western and southern fronts; a study in military geography . nguish-able with field glasses, some distance up the slope, and a third, ap-parently less continuous, along the crest. This remarkably steepscarp, which stared the British in the face for so many drearymonths, was commonly described by the British soldier, with repre-hensible irreverence but commendable accuracy, as a hell of aposition. From the Adriatic to the Aegean the front was nowhereelse so nearly impregnable on both sides as along the Struma moat. The Battle of Moglenitsa The battle front across the comparatively narrow portion ofthe Balkan Peninsula described in the preceding paragraphs was akey position of the utmost importance. So long as the Allies were BATTLE OF MOGLENITSA 625 weaker than their opponents, there was always the danger thata Teuton-Bulgar attack might break the Allied center betweenthe entrenched camps of Saloniki and Valona, overrun OldGreece, precipitate her withdrawal from her half-hearted alliancewith the Entente Powers, and open the Greek coast to German. Fig. 163—The Voyussa River north of Valona, showing the steeper southernbank, along which the Italians long had their front, and the more gently slopingnorthern bank, where they held bridgehead positions. Part of the inner defensesprotecting the temporary bridge are shown in the right foreground. submarines—a possible catastrophe of the first magnitude to theAllied cause. On the other hand, when the Allies waxed strongerthe Teuton-Bulgar line was the only dam which prevented theAllied flood from pouring northward along the Morava-Vardarcorridor and subsidiary basin routes to debouch into the Hun-garian plain behind the Austrian armies facing the Italiansalong the Piave-Trentino front. If this dam broke, irreparabledisaster must follow. As we have seen on an earlier page,the geographic form of the peninsula, broad at the north andnarrowing toward the south, would impose on the Austrians 62
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectworldwar19141918
