LAND AND WATEE 
November 14, 1914 
across the Luxembourg biglilands down to tbe Upper 
Moselle. Another, but longer one, would be the 
Ehinc Before this last one is reached one outlier ot 
the western industrial field, that in Lorraine, would 
be lost. But at any rate, from the very beginning ot 
the setback, something upon which modem Germany 
immediately depends for existence, moral and physical, 
is in perU. The ruin of Westphaha would mean a 
hundred times more in this war than the occupation 
of Berlin ; and it is possible that the near future will 
see Berlin occupied and yet the war not at its 
conclusion. 
But if this "pressure" threatens ah-eady upon 
the West, far more does it threaten upon the East. 
Silesia is actually adjacent to, coterminous with, the 
enemy's frontier. The thickest knot of manufactories 
lies just on that point where the three Empires meet ; 
not a day's march from, nor half a day's march from, 
the frontier of Eussian Poland, but actually on that 
frontier. And behind this most vulnerable belt lies 
belt after belt back on to the mountains, making up 
the whole industrial region of the Upper Oder valley. 
It is true that a blow at SUesia would not be the 
same thing as a blow at Westphaha. To take but 
one point ; armament is manufactured wholly in the 
western field. There only is found the plant required. 
Krupp is in the West, and so is Erhard and Sehmer 
(who, by the way, make not only for Germany, but for 
Austria, and forge gun-baiTcls for Elrupp as well). 
The Gennan output of heavy guns, the plant for wliich 
is about equal to that of France and England combined, 
proceeds from, and can only proceed from, this vulner- 
able centre in the West. The French centres of such 
production ai-e very far removed from the advance of 
armies : The English ones are defended by the sea 
and by the Fleet. 
To sum up : defeating the German armies in the 
field, disarming them, is indeed the principal business of 
the Allied strategy ; but a secondary and allied object is 
the destruction of the manufacturing provinces. And 
these centres are not in the heart of Germany, but on 
its borders, so far as this war is concerned. The two 
German battle-lines in East and West are di-awn up to 
cover as long as may be — and are already perilously 
close to ! — the vital parts. 
This, coupled with the importance to the German 
Government of keeping the war off Gennan soil, gives 
all its meaning in particular to the present Eussian 
advance and to the Eastern campaign. 
As the Eussian advance, right up to the Silesian 
frontiers, has been the feature of the past week, and 
as the Eastern field of war is stiU (as I have constantly 
insisted in these notes) the determining field of the 
war, I will deal first again this week with the opera- 
tions in Poland. 
II. 
THE OPERATIONS IN POLAND. 
Three things are requu-cd for an appreciation of 
the operations in Poland during the last week. First, 
some clear conception of the rate and positions of the 
Eussian advance. Secondl}"-, the nature and extent of 
the Austro-German reverse. Thirdly, some estimate 
of the chances the Germans have of entrenching and 
standing upon this side of their frontier. 
As to the first of these points, we have accurate 
information, and that information concerns, as througli- 
out this Eastern campaign, two main fields of war : A, 
the East Prussian frontier, and B, the basin of the 
Vistula ; while the kitter is naturally subdivided into 
the Eussian effort in front of Warsaw and on tlie 
middle Vistula (B-1) where it luvs prLucipally to 
.^*^. FRONTIER. 
n 
THE BATTLE FP.ONT IN THE BiSTBEN ABBA, 
meet German troops; and (B-2) the Eussian effort 
in front of Sandomir and on the Eiver San, where it 
has principally to meet Austrian troops. 
THE OPERATIONS IN EAST PRUSSIA. 
As to the first of these, the East Prussian 
frontier : 
The struggle between the comparatively small 
bodies engaged (comparatively small in relation to 
such a war as this : they are larger than anything 
that Napoleon met in any one field before 1812) is 
still almost coincident with the frontier between the 
two nations, and the reason of this coincidence I 
explained last week. It lies in the all-important 
political necessity under which the Prussians are of 
keeping the war as long as possible off German soil. 
Both the Eussian communiqufes, though they only 
give one side of the story, and the map (which is 
more impartial), show some slight retrocession in the 
German defensive line. When Bakalarshewo was 
a* 
