November 14, 1914 
LAND AND WATEE 
We may sum up and say that the German retreat 
through Eussian Poland, from the middle Vistula — 
Warsaw — Sandomir, has been conducted by the enemy 
in perfect order and with success. 
When we ask ourselves the second question, 
where the stand wiU we made — and a stand must be 
made if industiial Silesia is not to be immediately 
invaded — we are, of course, on more doubtful ground, 
and we can only put the matter hypotheticaUy and in 
the shape of alternatives. 
At first it was taken for granted that the Germans 
would stand, where they had entrenched, on the line of 
the Eiver Warta, carrying the entrenchments from 
Kolo northward to the Vistula at the fortress of Thorn 
by a series of ditches across country. We know from 
our experience in the West that it is the German habit 
in this w^ar to send back forces behind a retirement to 
prepare a position, and there at the end of the retire- 
ment to stand. This is what they did upon the Aisne 
after their retreat had fallen back from the line Paris- 
Verdun to its present line. But there are certain 
factors in this case which might modify such a 
scheme. 
In the first place there is no series of heights 
dominating the Warta (in its middle part at least) as 
there is a series dominating the course of the Aisne. 
In the second place the conditions of soil and of season 
are not so favourable as they were in northern France 
two months ago. The trenches along the Aisne and 
across Champagne were made through chalky soU. 
A g^eat part of western Poland is marshy. In the 
third place — and this is much the most important point 
— the Germans have before them in western Poland 
an enemy already superior in numbers and growing 
more numerous witii every week. 
That last is really the capital difference of all. 
What the Germans could do in Champagne against 
numbers which were still inferior to their own, they 
cannot hope to do in Poland against superior forces. 
To stand on the Warta — which they still may do, 
but which seems increasingly unlikely — would mean 
the holding of a very long line any part of which (and 
particularly the pai-t north of Kolo) might be pierced 
by determined Eussian effort. 
Next let us note that there is no railway facility 
just behind the Warta. Tliere is only one transverse 
line leadmg to Kalisch, whereas there is a strategic 
railway running all along behind and parallel to the 
frontier from the fortress of Posen, to the point 
where the three Empires meet. This line could 
feed aU the frontier position. Now heavy artillery 
needs a railway for its constant and prolonged 
supply. Further, this frontier is from the point 
marked D upon the map to the point marked E, 
a river (the Eiver Prosna). What opportunities it 
offers for defence I do not know, for I have neither 
seen it nor read any work upon it, but it is at any rate 
a continuous water-course suggesting a line of defence. 
And I now cannot but believe that the most likely 
place for the Germans to make a stand wUl rather be 
near, or upon, their own political frontier than along 
the Eiver Warta. 
There is further evidence of tliis in the fact that 
though the Germans tell us that the Eussian cavaliy 
attempting to cross the Warta at Kolo was thro^vn 
back across tlie stream, yet tico days later the Eussian 
ofHcial commnniqud tells us that a body of their cavaby 
was another forty miles on raiding across the Gcnnan 
frontier as far as the railway station of Ploeschcn, 
which is situated upon that very strategic railway, 
iust behind and along the frontier, to which reference 
has been made. 
That a stand will be made somewhere in thia 
neighbourhood — if not along the Wai'ta, then at any 
rate somewhere near the frontier — is, as I have 
repeated, a certainty ; because it is absolutely essential 
to the Prussian scheme to save Silesia. 
I have already pointed out how Prussian strategy 
win inevitably be fettered in the later phases of this 
campaign by the poHtical necessity of keeping the war, 
if possible, off German soil. The moment you interfere 
with the purely strategic elements of a problem by 
any political consideration, to that extent you weaken 
yourself. But the German Government has here no 
choice. After the behaviour of the German armies in 
the West the reprisals that would inevitably begin 
upon an occupation of German soil by an enemy would 
have a quite incalculable effect upon the temper of the 
nation, and the rich industrial district of Silesia would 
offer opportunities as great for the exercising of this 
" pressure " as any part of the Empire. 
There would be less anxiety at first for the non- 
German districts to the north. Posen and aU its 
province are Polish; and it is almost certain that, 
what with the strength of the fortress of Posen itself 
and with the all-importance of keeping the Eussians 
out of Silesia, a great battle must be fought to cover 
that district even at the risk of abandoning the provinces 
of Posen to the north. 
It is on this account that we should be very chary 
of accepting stories about the immediate intention of 
the Germans to despatch men to the Western field of 
war from the East. If they weaken their Eastern 
frontier and if Silesia is invaded nothing that happens 
in the West can compensate them for the effects that 
wiU immediately follow. Let it be further remem- 
bered that if SUesia is once invaded, the line of the 
Oder (a shallow stream in any case) is t\imed, and the 
Oder runs so far westward that in its low^er reaches it 
is but four days' march from Berlin. It is true to 
say that the German defensive plan has never allowed 
for the turning from the South of the Eastern defen- 
sive river lines of Germany, and it is now precisely 
from the South that these lines are in danger of 
being turned. 
B (2) 
THE OPERATIONS UPON THE SAN. 
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a 10 40 60 too "'^'^"='"^9^: '^^ 
Miles 
VI 
Meanwhile, as we have seen, the remaining 
Austrian operations in the valley of the San have 
great importance because it seems certain that thq 
enemy here has hung on too long. 
In the above sketch map the position wiU be 
apparent. The Austrians made a veiy vigorous 
effort to carry the line of the San, to relievo Przemysl, 
and to advance upon Lemberg. It was theii* counter- 
