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Show NEW OFFENSIVE TO BE LAUNCHED li THEMLKflNS Large Italian Contingents Arriving Every Few Days in Saloniki to Reinforce Entente Armies. MOVEMENT WILL BEGIN IN SPRING Half a Million Men Being Gathered by General Sar-rail Sar-rail for the Attempt to Push Through. LONDON, Feb. 22, 8:35 p. m. A Esuter dispatch from Saloniki says that the entente allies cut postal communication between Athens and the central powers when they established es-tablished contact yesterday between the French and Italian troops and cleared the enemy forces from the road between Goritza, In southern Albania, and Leakovie. The central powers are now restricted to wireless wire-less and airplane communication. SALONIKI, Jan. 26 (staff correspondence corre-spondence of tbe Associated Preea), Xew troops, especially largo Italian contingents, are arriving every few days in Saloniki to reinforce the entente en-tente allied armies. Tbe tak here is general of pushing through this spring the offensive planned for last spring, which the German attack on Verdun prevented. No well-informed allied officer in the Macedonian theater of war expects any serious attack upon Saloniki by the Germans. Danger of attack from the south by Greeks never was taken seriously se-riously by tbe military experts. As the Greek army now is in tbe Pelopon-esus, Pelopon-esus, where the entente fleet guards the Isthmus of Corinth the only means by which the Greek forces could march northward an attack by King Constantino's Con-stantino's soldiers is removed from the list of possibilities. Tn view of these circumstances, the continued arrival ot important reinforcements in Macedonia Mace-donia is taken throughout Greece to indicate preparation tor an early offensive of-fensive designed to cut the German line of communications from Berlin to Constantinople. Troops in Macedonia. In Macedonia today there are. roughly, rough-ly, about SO,OU0 French, 100,000 British, Brit-ish, 10,000 Russians, some SO.OuO Serbians and perhaps 80,0'X) Italians, counting the latest arrivals, a total of about u.iO.UUU fighting men. To this numher may be added three regiments of Greek?, constituting the Venixelist army. Many of the latter, howeer, are recruited from refugees from Thrace and Asia Minor and have not yet completed com-pleted their training in arms. General Sarrail has frequently stated stat-ed that he considers 500?000 men" would be required before active operations can begin in M acedonia. There are, therefore, 150,000 bayonets still to come before aD offensive can be undertaken. Officers of the allied transportation staff assert that this number of men can bo lauded in Saloniki in six weeks at, a pinch. For a period it was thought in Saloniki Sa-loniki that, volunteers to the Venizelist army might make up the required minimum mini-mum of 000,000 men, Venizelos declaring declar-ing he would be able to induce 100. 000 Greeks to follow him against the Bulgarians. Bul-garians. Today the entente military attaches in Athens stated that thev have no further hope of securing military mili-tary aid of any value from the Veni-zelists. Veni-zelists. Many Invalided. Of the original French and English contingents accumulated in Saloniki for a spring offensive a year ago between 20 and 30 pr cent bad to be invalided home, mostly suffering from the mala ma-la ria whi'-h ravages t ho swamp lands around the mouth of the Axios river the Vardar. To replace these French, the men who were sent were principally principal-ly Ihnse who had been fighting in the Snmme or at Verdun, where thev had become exhausted by the long struggle and were in need of rest. It was "to S;iloniki they were sent, to recuperate. The Brit Nil rein forcoments were in good physical trim, but the Greeks used to Macedon in n f ih ting consider the British equipment both heavy and complicated for mountain work. The Serbs, who resemble the (J reeks in equipment, training and wtyle of fighting, fight-ing, are rega riled as capable, of making mak-ing the best comparative showing. Their numbers, however, are limited, and their field of operations is confined con-fined t o tho recfinquont of their own conn try. Much is expected of the new Italian troops, with their Alpine training and their knowledge of mountain warfare. Not only are large contingents being Innded in Saloniki, but tho forces accumulating ac-cumulating in A vlona and Greek Kpi t ua a re adva ncing eastwa nl to ef-icct ef-icct a juncture with General Sarrail's lines before any offensive is undertaken. |