The Spectator at war: Fortress Europe

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 13 March 1915:

The more the operations at the Dardanelles are considered the more clearly is their vast importance realized. If in co-operation with the Russian Fleet from the Black Sea we succeed in taking possession of what remains of Turkey in Europe, including the great fortress of Adrianople, and in holding securely both the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, the blow to Germany and Austria will be of the most tremendous kind. Apart, however, from the danger of counting your chickens before they are hatched, it would not be discreet to discuss the consequences in detail. Suffice it to say that whereas hitherto Germany and Austria have always felt perfectly at ease in regard to the south, they would, if Constantinople fell, feel the gravest anxiety in regard to that front. We have elsewhere pictured Germany as a partially besieged nation, but with the southern sector of her fortifications uninvested.