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Show i LINE -OF RETREAT OF i TURKISH ARMY CUT BY ENGLISH FORCES All Avenues of Escape Gone; Possible Surrender of Bulgaria May Have a Far-reaching Far-reaching Hffect. i By THE NEW YORK TIMES MILITARY EXPERT. Co,' rU-'-t. New York Times. Special ;o The TrlMine. NtW YOHK. to;t. :.-Tho .Tor-dun .Tor-dun dividos Vrtlcstine into to sepamte ur.d iltitvt milltnry theater', between w hich communication com-munication is difricuit and co-operAt-on all but impossible, except In particular instances. When Geiu ral A Men by be can his operations t he main Turkish army as opposl:-. h'.m on the west bank of the Jordan. The v lire extended from the co?t to the J .inian, lust north cf Jerusalem. ' The British army was. naturally, also on the est bank. On the east bank were the Arab:?, operating largely ecainst large Turkish guerilla ba.n'10. After furious righting against the Turks' lr.treni.-hed pitlons along the seacoast. ttu line was broken. A heavy force of cavalry h.n.d been rVld 'n read:r.ess. and the morcent t'.e bre:ik cvx-urred the cavalry poured '.rouh. sk:r::r.jj close to trie coa:. w here the grour.d s'oped down from the n.ountains. A ery rapid march P'aued this cava.ry beyond Nazirt-th, where It turnei first east and then south, encirclir the entire Turkish army and reaching the Jordan near the lake of Gnt-sare'.h. The Arabs, on the other bank of the Jordan, who had but little opposition, moved north and practically completed the circle. Every line of retreat of the Turkish arn: was thus cut. One day they were In perfect tafety. Two days Later their entire army was either captured or broken up. Just how great this victory will prove to be, we do not yet know. Up to the present time over 40.0?0 out of a total force of only K"OC-0 have surrendered, and prisoners are straggling in every day. The Turkish army in Palestine has cea5eJ to exist. FALL OF TURKEY PROBABLE SOON. Tt Is vitally important that Germany Ger-many should biock the allied path, first- to- Damascus and thenre to AVp;--. Where will she pet fie men, anj cu:i they net there befjre General Gen-eral Allen'jy has liad time to profU by Ins success? As matters appear at piesent. there docs not seem to be anything to prevent a rapid march to Damascus and beyond Damascus, a loris stride taken toward Aleppo. With the fall of Aleppo the fall of Turk"y as a belllKorenl !s not only poss'.ie, but highly proMe. Tle Turkish army In the Mesopol.iinl.ir theater Is entirely dependent for Its supplies upon the r:U!road through Alep;o. This road is also the line of retreat for that army. If Aleppo can be taken the Turks are. for all pra-tk-al purposes, shut up behind the wail of the Taurus mountains, with nothing of value left In Asia, everything every-thing being in the hands of Great PrlU.'n or her alllea. Turkey'a only hope then will be In a peace with :!.e entente. K'jually notab'e ha e been the allied al-lied successes in Ma.-edor.la. These bejan by the Serbians a::ncl:ing the Ru'drian front h.tween the C'erna and the Yardar rivers. Almost Immediately Im-mediately the Bulgarian army began to slve way.- The allied cavalry pressed on through the break which was effected In the Bulgarian line, the Infantry following without opposition. BULGARIANS FAIL TO HOLD ITALIANS. The only resistance which was mt with was on the flanks, where the Bulcarifins tried for a time to hold the British and Italians In check. But the advance In the center, wii.-h carried car-ried the allies beyond the Prilep-Krivolak Prilep-Krivolak road, soon uncovered the Bult-'iirian flunks, and, once this v.os accomplished. siicht pressure on either aide was sufiicient Vo shake the hold the Bulgarians still had on their Hank positions. After an attempted defense of the country around Lake To!ran, the Bulcarian left startej to fall back, at iirst slowly and then as If In a pani. The British advanced rapidly toward t he Bulgarian frontier and entered the valley of the Strum! tza, taking I (Continued on Pago Two.) lineTf retreat of " turkish ii! cut (Continued from Page One.) the fortified town of that name well Inside of the Bulgarian frontier. The Serbs, in the center, meantime had not halted for a moment. Pressing Press-ing their advantage, they spread northward, at the same time reaching out laterally to widen the point of advance. Ishtlb wos reached and taken, as was also Veles. the two most important towns before Uskub Is reached. What has hurt most, however, is the fact that In taking l'rilep the Bulgarian army was completely com-pletely broken, split so that the army in the western part of the theater toward to-ward Albania was completely cut away from the army groups to the east, except bv the roundanout road to Uskub. Even so, however, this road through Uskub Is but a poor substitute for what the Bulgarians have lost. RETREAT BECOMES DISORDERLY FLIGHT. The main connecting link is the road from Veles to Prilep, by means of which there was an excellent north and south connection, as well as a connection running eastward, tying -the entire front together. It ceased to be a retreat; It became a disorderly flight, and continues so as this review is being written. The allied cavalry is even having a dlfn-cult dlfn-cult time following the retreat closely, close-ly, so rapidly are the Bulbars fleeing back. Once the road fromVeles to Ishtib was taken and held, the allies had before them the alternative of invading in-vading Bulgaria or of turning westward west-ward against the other wing of the Bulgarian army and defeating It in detail. Thev have apparently followed the former plan and have advanced in a single day twenty-five miles from Ishtib on the road from that place to Chfrevo. This move Is encircling the entire Bulgarians to the south and w-ill force them either to retreat towards Sofia or to surrender. In a word, the entire en-tire miiitarv force which was opposed to the allies on the Macedonian front appears to be in a state of complete r.nd unqualified collapse. The panic which has seized the Bulgarian Bul-garian forces has already forced the Bulgarian premier to ask for an armistice. arm-istice. Needless to say, the French commander's reply was not indicative of a great deal of confidence as to the sincerity of Bulgaria's intentions. He made the onlv possible proposal he would keep on fighting but would be glad to receive the Bu.sarian delegates. dele-gates. IN MIDST OF GREAT ARMY SUCCESSES. We are in the midst of the mo?t successful series of operations of the war. Turkey is beaten. Bulgaria is beaten, and to save their jreiJous skins and get out of the wreck with as little damage as po$?:b!e they rr.u?t swing- to the allies. The rats have begun to abandon the sinking ship. We must now reach Austria throut-h her back door, ue must use Eu ear.a by which to do so. Anything1 whi- h prevents this, anythirg which adds a single element of danger to our rar while we are engaged on this enterprise enter-prise must be crushed out. If Bulgaria will surrender her arms and ammunitions; will str pe her?- if ciean of ail war supplies eo that cannot strike us aKin if she would; if she will authorize u$ to wage w;r on Austria from her f ronti'-rs, and f:ght Germany from Rumania 0:1 th-j north, then we ca.n consider pea. e. "While these destructive forces were going ahead in the r.fct. the ain-r-s m the west delivered two sharp sudn-ii b.ows. both of whimay h'tv far-reaching far-reaching effects. The first up.h bv a combined French and American force, the front of attack extend:!;!? rrom the house north of Veniun byni-.j the Argonne for 0 ft into Chnmp.iffnt almost to the Suippe river. This I a particularly vuln-.-rabl p-irt of -ht German line. It is a sert.on with i ut a few good supply lines. In fact there is but one lln wN-h coming from tie east pne'.rates the Arsronne the r-.ilroad fiT,m ch.i'.W-enge ch.i'.W-enge to Baae Anacourt. whih comes through the pass al Grandpr-. ST. MIHIEL ATTACK PURELY LOCAL. This does not apr-ar to be such an attack an that at St. Mihlel. Taut attack was purely lo.-al, but it was a necessary' preparation for the attack at-tack which w-a.H made or. Thut.- lay. In order thaw thre might b absolute abso-lute freedom of movement, un-harassed un-harassed by fire from the riar and without danger on the flank. The st. Mihlel sailent had to h removed as other and the main 0!'len:ve was out of the way, the p . t ii v.-.', v q another an-other and th" main nfteniv. wan cleared, and what we have se-n In Ihe past week appears lo h" but the be- ginning of a grand offensive, tiie object ob-ject of which is to get tho (iermans out of Franre. The main attack scorns to have be.n delivered ast of the Argonne be. -... in- .i.;iju.5 rivers. The altat k did extend wr st of th.-Argonne th.-Argonne Into the Champagne country, coun-try, it is true, but this probably had no other object than to protect tho flank of the main olfenslve army as It went forward. The country over which the attack was made Is a generally rollit g , nun-try, nun-try, not unlike eastern otinecf icut . It hf'i one great advantage. Krnni the front of atta"k all the ,,v to Sedan, thirty ml.:s .may. there Is no defensive obstacle, no barrier behind which the 'Jermans can take r-fue This Is not true of the bampagi,..' since but a few mile,- advance wi bring you to th Al.i. the r,.ac, of which would he extremely difficult The light flank of the, Amrrcat, was protected In their advance by the Meuse river. Apparently the onilln un either very lightly held or eb,, t, (.ermans. antic ipating the nlt.o l- had withdrawn In the first ru-h, and before be-fore night came ndv.-inio had reached seven miles. The nurnbr of prisoners .aptured Is remarkable for Its Inck of size llril.. r,r"o men were taken In .,,.ri, t which was over a front of j,e-, ry twenty rnlles ,nd win. h bad peri... trate.l the Herman positions for a distance of seven miles. The objective ahead of the Americans Ameri-cans In this section l Se.lan, throurh which pass practically of t, rn. roads upon which the southern sections sec-tions of the Herman ,. ,p pe,,, They are still far away, but b, the, the present condition or ib.rm.iny It Is neither Impossible nor lmbr-ic-tl' nblc to reach t. 'hi tho French ldo or the Ai.-ont.e that Is, went of the Abne, the depth of advance we s not so great orly three miles being g.,, ,,.,1. 1,,;, ,,, run. t.er or prisoners lake,, .., j;,r.,r Indicating a suffer i r-sp.ia nee, ' ' |