Every one expected the order for fresh advance so soon as the new Generals had thoroughly re-established confidence and the IXth Corps Staff had recovered a more sanguine temper. As is usual in times of inaction, rumours flew. The French, it was stated, were sending out new Divisions under General Sarrail. Another landing was to be made on the Asiatic coast, perhaps at Kum Kali, perhaps at Smyrna, more likely at Adramyti Bay, a scheme much favoured by authorities in Mitylene. Another very persistent rumour was for sending the fleet up the Dardanelles again, and hope rose high in the Navy, tired and irritated at their effective but subsidiary service to the military force. Meantime, the actual fighting was limited to the stationary trench warfare of bombing, casual bombardments, and local assault or defence on either side. It gradually became evident that the fate of the expedition depended no longer upon itself, but upon events and speculations far removed from the scene.[217] [Sidenote: EFFECT OF EUROPEAN EVENTS] On the Western Front, the Allied armies were occupied through September in preparing for the combined effort which culminated during the last week of the month in the prolonged battles known by the names of Loos and Champagne. As I before noticed, it was mainly for fear of weakening this effort that British reinforcements were refused to Sir Ian, and that the scheme of advancing on the Asiatic side of the Straits with new French Divisions was abandoned, if ever seriously intended by the High Command in France. The efforts so carefully prepared and gallantly carried out succeeded in gaining valuable positions for future advance, but were not sufficiently successful to break through the German line or to diminish the increasing peril of Near Eastern complications. It would be difficult to compute the exact proportion of the men and explosives thus expended without definite result in France which might have effected a decisive and permanent victory in the Dardanelles; but the proportion would not have been high, and how beneficent the issue for the world’s history! Successive disasters upon the Russian Front continued to encourage the military parties in the Balkan States which trusted to German victory for the furtherance of their national aggrandisement. In August the Russian armies were driven from Warsaw, Kovno, and Brest-Litovsk; in September from Grodno and Vilna. Although their skilful retirement won military praise, and although the exhausted German forces were unable to break the lines beyond their points of advance, or even to occupy Riga, it was evident that from Russia neither danger to her enemies nor assistance to her friends could be expected, even though her unmilitary and vacillating Autocrat assumed command. The encouraging effect of such events as the fall of Warsaw upon the Turkish _moral_ was distinctly marked.