LAND AND WATER 
October 3, 1914 
separated battlefields wiU detemiiue the immediate 
future of the campaign in Poland ? 
I say Poland, because Ave must never forget that 
the country where all this lighting is going on, from 
the Baltic to the Cai-pathians, though hithorio artifi- 
cially divided under the rule of Gennany, llussiii, and 
Austria, is really one country with an intense and 
living national soid. This soul it is largely the 
purpose of our Allies to release, and certainly the 
purpose of the Prussian Power to maintain in 
subjection. 
To return to the two battlefields. There is one 
northern one u|X)n the Frontiers of East Prussia, 
another southern one in Galicia. 
lIl)on the north the German armies have in\aded 
Russia. Tliey have crossed the Russian frontier in 
the Government of Suwalki, and have approached the 
line of the Niemen. Tliey have attempted and 
hitherto failed to force this line at the point of 
Druskiniki, somewhat below Grodno. A little above 
tliis point, the Russian forces wliich are defending the 
line of the Niemen and opposing the invasion, ci-oss 
the river and extend through the fore.it district of 
Augustoff, almost to the Prussian frontier. All this 
is, by the way, the theatfe of the first operations in 
Napoleon's gi-eat campaign of 1812. 
Now this considerable but hitherto not decisive 
German pressure against the Russian armies in the 
north, this invasion of Russian temtory, and this 
struggle for the crossing of a Russian river, would, 
if it stood alone, be comparable to the struggle in the 
western theatre of war for the line of the Upper 
Meuse and of the Aisne. More, we should be 
considering a Gennan offensive possessed of the 
initiative ; and though we should not in the case of 
Russia presuppose the German objective to be either 
a march upon the Russian capital, or any other 
serious form of invasion, yet we should not be 
discounting the chances of a Russian retreat. It is 
the Germans who are advancing here as they were 
until recently in the "West. 
But the great difference between the eastern 
theatre of war and the western, is that this Niemen 
battlefield is balanced by a very different state of 
affairs between 200 and 300 miles off to the south 
in Galicia. To continue the parallel with the 
west : the whole thing is as though, while our 
enemies were fighting to force the Aisne and the 
Upper Meuse, we had di-iven another body of them 
back through Lombardy and were ap2)roaching 
Milan, which was for them a point of capital 
importance — a point wdiere our " pressure " upon 
them and the anxiety they would feel for their safety 
woidd become acute. 
For the Russian armies which have invaded the 
Austrian Empire so successfully in Galicia are now 
not only proceeding at a regular rate (including all 
that they carry or mask by the way) of about eight 
miles in a day, but a.re pointing directly at that first part 
of the Gennan temtoiy upon which they can exercise 
severe pressure when they reach it — the rich industrial 
district of Silesia, with its chief centre and fortress 
at Breslau. 
The Russian detachments sent across the Car- 
pathians towards the Hungarian plain are but flanking 
Iwdies. The mai-ch of the mass of the Russian Annies 
is this field is directly along the main railway line from 
Lembcrg (which was carried exactly a month ago) 
through Jaroslav to Cracow. The Russians have 
already isolated and contained Przemysl. Their van 
has reached Dembitza, si.\ty miles west of Jaroslav. 
They are well within a fortnight of Cracow unless 
a retai-ding action is fought against them by the 
retreating Austro-Prussian forces. They are sulfi- 
ciently numerous to mask Cracow as they have ma.sked 
Przemysl, and this done, if their advance continues at 
it present rate, the " jiressm-e " of which we have 
heard so much, the "pressure" which Russia has to 
exercise upon the German Empire will begin. For 
the head of the invading troops will be in the industrial 
province of SUesia, levying ransom and doing all those 
things which incline one's enemy to peace. 
Now it is a principle universal in strategics that 
you must not get "off-side." That is, you must not 
be so far beyond your general line that your enemy, 
or a portion of his forces, can get upon your communi- 
cations behind the too forward position which you 
occupy. Even a salient in a line is dangerous if it is 
too pronounced. To put it simply, a body which has 
got in front of its fellows is in danger of being cut off. 
That, by the way, is what happened to the two 
Russian Ai-my Corps in East Prussia a month ago, 
when they were cut up by the Germans round 
Tannenberg. 
In conformity with this principle, it was a sound 
deduction to presume that there would be no serious 
advance through Silesia until East Prussia was cleared 
of any large Gennan forces, until, that is, the fortified 
line Thorn— Dantzig on the lower Vistula was passed 
by the Russian annies invading by the north, as their 
fellows were invading by the south. 
This principle would still hold if the Germans in 
East Prussia had remained upon the defensive ; but 
with the present paradoxical situation this principle 
does not hold. The Prussian forces advancing upon 
the Niemen are very far from being abreast of their 
defeated fellows and Allies in the south. Each 
advance may be regarded as being "off -.side." The 
Russians advancing and attacking in Galicia are 
far ahead of the Russian defence and retreat on to 
the Niemen. The Germans advancing on the Niemen 
are far aliead of the Austro-Gemian retreat in Galicia. 
Two considerations, however, enable us to make 
something of tliis topsy-turvy double plan of campaign. 
The first is the distance between the two main fields 
of battle in this eastern theatre of war ; the second is 
the comparative size of the forces involved. 
The great distance of the fighting on the Niemen. 
from the fighting in Galicia renders the operations 
independent of each other, at least for many weeks. 
There is no tkreat from the north upon the Russian 
communications in the south, in spite of the German 
advance in the north. There is no threat from the 
south upon the German communications in the north, 
in spite of the Russian advance in the south. In 
other words, the paradox of a Gei-man force content 
to advance on the right of a great field v/hUe its fellows 
and allies are in fuU retreat on the left of the same is 
tolerable for some little time because that field is so 
vast that many days would be required before success 
or failure at one extremity could be felt at the other. 
It remains true that one of these two advances — 
either the German in the north or the Russian in the 
south — will ultimately compel even a distant enemy 
to retrace his steps. Sooner or later the German 
advance from East Prussia, if it is continued, will 
compel the southern Russian armies in Galicia to halt 
and retire, or the advance of the Russian ai-mies in 
Galicia will compel the advance of the German armies 
upon the Niemen to halt and retire. 
And it is here that the factor of numbers comes 
in. Tlie operations in the south — that is, in Galicia — 
have been so decisive and so continuous as from this 
cause alone to give them a preponderance over the 
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