LAND AND WATEB 
August 22, 1914 
save tlie weaker force. Sooner or later the superior force F, 
hoMiii" B by an equal force, could detach a free portion of his 
men and throw a bridge over the river. The handicap which 
the river A— B lays upon F is solely a handicap of dday while G 
is coming up. The river is not something behind which E can 
defend himself indefinitely. It is something introducing the 
factor of titne to the advantage of what is, in one particular 
place and time, the weaker party. 
A good dejenske position, that is, a natural formation (such 
as a crest of rolling land with a long open space before it) from 
which the most efiective fire can be delivered upon an assault, 
is but a particular case of an obstacle. A position artificially 
fortified, all fortification, is but an obstacle rendered by human 
Art particularly difficult to pass. Given sufficient time any 
Pt«j>^EIt.^ 
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fortification can be reduced— if only by famine ; but fortification 
introduces, for the benefit of those holding it, the element of 
delay. 
A considerable space furnished, or fiirnishable, with lodgings 
for men and horses and with storehouses for ammunition and 
food and so fortified that it is defensible upon every side is 
termed a fortress, or, on the largest scale, an entrenched camp. 
And here a modern element of the utmost interest in the 
present campaign appears. 
The great range of modern heavy artillery involved a 
corresponding increase in the fortified circle that a complete 
enclosed defensive position would have to be surrounded by. 
To create a fortress under such conditions a wide ring of forts, 
each isolated and each designed to defend itself alone, was 
designed. Such a ring would be anything from six to ten miles 
across, and anything from twenty to thirty miles round or more. 
The French constructed many such after their disasters of forty 
odd years ago, notably the great chain or barrier of fortresses 
Bel fort, Epinal, Toul, and Yerdun, on the Eastern frontier. 
When it was first thought that Belgian neutrality was in 
danger Namur and Liege were added to continue the line. To 
some extent, and at wider intervals, the Germans copied this 
plan. But two schools arose with two opposite doctrines upon 
this hitherto untried system. 
The one school, largely German, would have it that with a 
sufficieiU sacrifice of men, some one — or more — of the forts on the 
ring could be " rushed," and the system broken. 
The other (mainly French) thought that such " rushing " 
was impossible. That, with a sufficient army to hold the spaces 
between the forts, the stores, etc., within the ring were safe for 
months, and that even with a small force the forts themselves 
could be held (though the ring might be pierced in the intervals) 
and would continue to bar any continuous supply. 
Supposing the second school to be right and such forts to 
be capable of long resistance, then a modern ring fortress would 
serve the follov;ing purposes : — 
(1) To delay, till its forts were reduced, the passage of 
eupplies past it or in its neighbourhood, whether by road or, 
much more important, by railway. Thus such a ring protecting 
a junction of lines or covering one main line of supply is of great 
importance. 
(2) When it was supported by other neighbouring fortresses 
and was strongly garrisoned, to prevent an Army passing between 
it and the next fortress. 
(3) To serve as a refuge within which a force no longer 
strong enough to hold the field could still maintain itself and 
detain a greater number of the enemy before it. 
(4) To act as the " pivot " upon which a turning movement 
could revolve. If (Plan XIV.) I want to move that end of 
my force A — B, marked as M to threaten the flank of my enemy 
C— -D, I may not be quite superior enough in numbers to do so 
without leaving a dangerous gap at X. But if at X I have a 
fortress F barring the passage for some twenty miles, I can use 
that fortress as a " pivot " for my projected movement. It will 
also supply me, or at least supplement my supply. 
(5) To threaten the flank of an Army which desires to 
pass it. 
If in the accompanying sketch (see Plan XV.) the area 
A B C is that commanded by the guns of a ring fortress, and if 
this ring fortress contains a large body of armed men with theii 
munitions ; then another army of the enemy's trying to pass by 
it along the line D — E will be exposed to a two-fold peril. It 
may be caught in the act of marching, when an army is unable to 
defend itself, or, having marched by, the communications which 
it unrolls behind it will be in danger of being cut at any moment, 
for the large force within the fortified area ABC can come out 
and attack the comparatively weak and highly extended forces 
which defend a line of communications. This junction in a 
fortress is greatly exposed when not one fortress but two, joined 
by a line of forts, presents a large concentration behind that line 
as in the lino 9 — P. 
So obvious is that that there is never any question of passing 
a fortress containing a considerable garrison without first 
" Masking " it. To MasJi a fortress is to leave over against it, 
and between it and the line of march of your own forces an Army 
(as at G — II) large enough to check any sally which the Army 
contained within the fortress might make against your 
communications. 
With this we nearly exhaust the terms technical to this 
kind of news, and the comprehension of them. There remain to 
be mentioned certain other terms requiring a brief mention : — 
All those operations which are subsequent to the general 
movements of an army and are concerned with its Lmmediato 
fate when it is at grips with the enemy, are called Tactical 
Operations as distinguished from strategical. They are so called 
because they take place after the opposing forces have come 
in touch with one another or, to use the common term, are 
In Contact. 
A number of other terms are too familiar to need more than 
a mention. We speak of the Defensive when we mean the 
expenditure of energy in the resisting of an attack and of 
the Oljensive when we mean the expenditure of energy in the 
delivering of it. Wellington, for instance, fought a defensive 
action at Waterloo because all the earlier part of that day 
and much the grcr.ter part of it was taken up in prevent- 
ing the French from 
Pl\n XT piercing his hne until 
Blucher should come 
up in flank and threaten 
them with envelopment. 
We say that a 
General has the Initia- 
tive or is " taking the 
initiative " not precisely 
when he is on the 
Offensive (though the 
two things usually go 
together), but when he 
is in a position to choose 
his point of eSort and when liis opponent is only in a posilon 
to meet such a movement after, and as soon as he has dis- 
covered it. 
There is in connection with military news not only the difficulty 
of following mihtary terms, but a certain confusion resulting 
from the way in which modern news is at once haphazard, far 
too quickly delivered, and dehberately and wisely starved by 
military censorship. I cannot do better in order to explain how 
I, at least, should read this news, and how in my comments I 
shall try to piece it together, than put down in a list certain 
rules which occur to me : 
Rule I. — This rule is, not to believe things physically 
impossible. Thus in one week we have had such statements as 
the presence of a German force upon the River Aisne in France, 
a Brigade (of 6,000 men) suSering a loss of 30,000 men (in front 
of Mulhouse), and French Cavalry East of Liege a week before 
there were any French troops near Namur. 
Rule II. — Pay attention only to reports which deal with 
definite results. Words like " havoc," " rout," " disorder," 
usually mean very little in military news. On the other hand 
a precise account of a number of guns taken, of places actually 
occupied, of the number of prisoners, etc., is information upon 
which you can base an estimate. 
Rule III. — Always believe the enemy's reports to be more 
accurate and sober than those from your own side. Thus, 
when Berlin let us know through Holland that Liege 
had fallen, the phrase was misleading and false, but verbal 
accuracy could be pleaded for it, for though Liege the fortress 
had not fallen, German troops had got into Liege the town. 
On the other hand, the statement that 25,000 Germans had been 
hit in the first assault was manifestly an impossible exagger- 
ation. 
Rule ZF.— Eemcmber that observers nearly always over- 
estimate the effect of their own fire, particularly in the case of 
Artillery. 
Rule F.^Follow, upon a large scale map, every movement 
of which you hear, and compare the scheme of those movements 
from day to day, noting the nature of the arm and the supposed 
numbers, ' 
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