. Battlefields of the World War, western and southern fronts; a study in military geography . 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 pouri
. Battlefields of the World War, western and southern fronts; a study in military geography . 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 626 BATTLEFIELD OF THE BALKANS ~ 1. BATTLE OF MOGLENITSA 627 the tremendous task of building a new dam in the north severaltimes longer than the first, in case the southern one were this stage of the struggle such a task was utterly beyondthe power of Austria. Practically the whole strength of herrapidly decaying army had to be concentrated on the Italianfront, and only a few battalions were left to aid the Bulgarians byholding a short sector in Albania. Germany, suffering one dis-aster after another on the western front, could do little towardbuilding up a new line in the southeast; like Austria she had with-drawn her divisions from the Balkans and was herself askingAustria for help in the west. Such troops as she might spare in alast desperate effort to hold Bulgaria in line would merely advancethe date of German defeat on the western front. Bulgaria facedthe Allied Armies of the Orient practically alone; and it was ageographic certainty that if the Bulgarians could be elimina
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectworldwar19141918
