Again, there came immediately forecasts of another Turkish thrust at Suez, under German direction, a first attack having failed in the previous winter. Whether Germany actually obtained any considerable stock of provisions or foodstuffs may be doubted by her succor, but it is clear that her campaign had enabled her to make use of many thousands of Turkish troops, who were waiting only for arms, it had given her control of the Bulgarian army, a small but efficient force, and it had provided an eventual means of attacking the British Empire by land, once the advance upon Egypt could be organized.
This last circumstance is worth noting, for the time had now arrived when the Germans perceived that Great Britain had so far escaped injury, was the single one of the larger powers who had drawn profit without terrible loss from the war and was becoming the determining force in the allied camp, because its resources were still unexhausted and its armies only just coming into the field, while German numbers were approaching a positive decline. If Germany could reach Suez, conquer Egypt, using Turkish armies and German genius and munitions, she would deal a heavy blow to the British Empire, and she might compel the British to listen to proposals for peace, which were now contemptuously thrust aside by London.
In sum, the Serbian campaign saved Turkey, disposed of Serbia, enlisted Bulgaria, opened the road to the Near East and to subsequent attacks upon Egypt and perhaps upon India, but it did not bring peace, and it did not inflict any immediate injury upon any one of Germany's larger foes, only Serbia and Montenegro actually suffered serious loss, and the destruction of their armies was but a detail in a world war.
For the purposes of a summary it is unnecessary to review in detail the Italian operations. They have no distinctive challenge to the reader. Italian statesmanship imposed upon the Italian high command a task which made immediate victory impossible, and assigned to Italy the useful but inglorious rôle of occupying some 400,000 Austrian troops, and thus contributing to the strain imposed upon the Central Powers and to the hastening of the moment when exhaustion might be expected to set in.