October 3, 1914 
LAND AND WATER 
the south, have jjushed as far as Apreinont and 
occupied it. They arc confined so far to the use 
of the smaller side road Avhich goes round through 
Spiula and Vigneulles. It is along the line of this 
side road that they have been operating the whole 
time from their headquaiiers and rail-head at Thiau- 
court. They took the heights, as we shall see, at 
Hatton Chatel, but the French troojis coming south 
from Verdun have got past the level of the Fort of 
Troyon, just as those coming up from Toul have got 
past the Fort of Liouville and up to Apremont. The 
enemy, therefore, has but a very narrow entry, 
threatened on both sides, and he cannot use it save 
with very considerable forces protecting his flanks. 
The Fort " Camp des Eomains," enfilading the 
Eiver Meuse all above St. Mihiel town and bridge, 
fell into the hands of the enemy, so did the work of 
Les Parodies opposite. It was the fall of these works 
which gave them then* bridge head and their crossing 
at St. Mihiel ; but a week has passed, and they have 
not attempted to enlarge the breach either southwards 
towards Toul or northwards towards Verdun. It is 
very narrow — not eight miles ; while its one line of 
supply, the side road from Sjjada and Vigneulles, is 
continually threatened from the north. 
It was about eight days ago that the Germans 
began to bombaixi the permanent works round 
St. Mihiel. By last week-end they had silenced 
these two permanent works. Parodies and the Camp 
des Eomains, proving once more the accuracy of the 
German forecast that modem howitzer fire would 
dominate modern fortification. 
The Meuse was crossed by the Germans at 
St. Mihiel at the week-end. But after ^this crossing 
there was no advance. None (apparently) for days ! 
An action took place upon the left bank which forced 
the invaders back towaixls the stream. They were 
not compelled to recross the Meuse, but their advance 
was checked. Since then there has been nothing to 
show us whether a great movement were intended 
or no. 
The whole thing is of a piece with what the 
war has shoA\Ti us elsewhere, to wit, that modem 
pennanent works have not the resisting power which 
was expected of them, but that troops in the open 
npon the defensive have a greater resisting power 
than was exjiected of them. The whole of last 
Sunday the movement still remained hung up, 
perhaps on accovmt of losses, perhaps because the 
German advance was not in great force after all. The 
whole of the Monday it still remained hung up ; the 
lack of movement being ascribed upon that day to a 
dense fog which covered the Woeuvre country. The 
whole of Tuesday it remained hung up. I write this 
on Wednesday evening, and of AVednesday we have 
no news. 
AleanwhUe, one indication that the Gennan 
advance was not as yet being conducted in greater 
force was afforded by the news that the garrison of 
Toid had been able to get north against the Hank of 
that advance as far as Beaumont, This jjoint had 
been reached by the columns marching north from 
Toul very shortly after the moment when the first 
crossing of the ileuse by the Germans at St. JMihiel 
Avas effected. If the French have been able to maintain 
those positions at Beaumont they seriously threaten 
tlie supply of the Gennan columns crossing at St. 
Mihiel. . There is another indication in the same 
sense : The troops acting from Verdun and marching 
south advanced in the com-se of Sunday and Monday. 
How far they advanced an official Froudi coinninniqiK'. 
has told us. They reached the work at Troyon, and 
that work stands. Coupled with the advance of the 
Toul garrison to the north, this corresponding move- 
ment from Verdim southwards points to the presence 
of smaller rather than greater nimibers in the German 
advance upon St. Mihiel and across the Meuse there. 
On the other hand, we must note that, whether for 
purposes of distraction and of making the French 
command take the thing too seriously, or as a piece of 
real news, the German Government has put into the 
German Press strong statements to the effect that 
this German advance across the Meuse at St. Mihiel 
is being made in force and may prove decisive. 
So much at the moment of writing (Wednesday 
evening) is all we know upon this important and 
perhaps critical development of the campaign. 
The line of forts, hitherto a wall, between Toul 
and Verdun is broken. The enemy may or may not 
intend to use that advantage seriously. They may 
or may not be able. But the hole is there. 
With this I conclude the review of operations in 
the western field of war. One very important develop- 
ment in that field, the siege of Antwerp, has opened 
as these lines go to press, but this operation has not 
at the moment of writing proceeded far enough to 
permit of any useful summary of its progress being 
made this week. 
THE OPERATIONS IN THE EAST. 
^ O s T R 
I.- ._> 
utarcliijiq •*-* 
R E 
What has happened in the eastern theatre of 
war this week may be put into two sentences. The 
Gemian invasion of Russia is still at a deadlock upon 
the Niemen. The Russian invasion of Galicia is still 
moving westward towards Cracow, and still at the 
pace to which Ave have now grown accustomed dm'ing 
the whole month of September. It is a slow but a 
regular advance, which it has been said here more 
than once cannot be of effect in exercising " pressure " 
on industrial Germany before, at earliest, the third 
Aveek of October. 
But the interest of the position in the eastern 
theatre of Avar does not consist in these expected and, 
as it Avero, regular developments. It consists in this 
much larger question ; which of two great and widely 
