Sqjtember 12, 1914 
LAND AND WATER 
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M N O P 
the rear, as at M N 0, etc. Day after day the 
superior numbers of the invaders permitted them to 
extend beyond the western extreme of the Allies and 
coiTCspondingly forced the Allies to retreat. They 
were happy to be able to retreat — even at so great an 
expense in guns, munitions, and men — and to escape 
encirclement and annihilation. For such encirclement 
and annihilation German strateg}^ presupposes, and in 
superior numbers — acting rapidly and lavishly spent- 
all that over- simple strategy depends. 
An effort undertaken at such an enormous 
expense of energy with so clear an object, cannot for 
a moment be regarded as intended to dupe its enemy. 
The immense cost in numbers alone by Mhich the 
(xennans hoped to purchase an immediate success, 
proves that this success — an envelopment — was really 
attempted, and attempted in a fashion easily recog- 
nisable. The extraordinary pace at which the 
manoeuvre was forced jwints to exactly the same 
conclusion. 
Suddenly, when the Allied line had been pushed 
back so far that its left rejwse upon Paris, its right 
upon Verdun, the German scheme changed in one 
day — September 4th. The attempted envelopment 
ceases. Quite a new mananivi-e, the attempt to break 
the Allied line, succeeds to it. 
Not only does this attempt to break the Allied 
line take the place of the earlier attempt at envelop- 
ment, but the breaking of that line has suddenly 
become an immediate neces.sity for the invaders. 
Their main game has failed. They have not got 
round their inferior enemy. He ■will now never be 
suiTounded, and the master-idea of the German Staff 
has missed its goal. But if they succeed in pushing 
back the French lines or breaking their centre the 
Germans have at least saved themselves, and possibly 
destroyed a large body of their opjwnents ; if they 
fail in this last attempt not to turn but to break the 
French lines there is nothing open to them but retreat. 
Why is this? 
Upon the accomj)anying diagram which, though 
giving only the barest elements of the position, is 
di-awn to scale, the necessity under which the Gcrma,ns 
now are of breaking tlie Allied line or retreating 
wiU be clear. 
From positions near Meaux, twenty-five miles 
east of the forts of Paris, the Gferman armies which 
had hitherto been achieving the immensely rapid 
invasion of northern France, after the check, extended 
in a great convex arc to "S^erdun. 
They were fed, as to projectiles and everything 
else, by lines of communication coming from Belgium 
and Luxembourg in the direction of the arrows (1) — (1). 
Their right wing at M., Meaux, having come up against 
unexpectedly large reserves (there gathered to await 
them by the French) was bent back. It has had to 
turn back eastward. On their left is the great fortress 
of Verdun, which is stiU holding out ; another great 
fortress to the south is Toiil, and between these two 
a chain of forts at a a a is, if not impassable, at least 
only to be j^assed at an immense expense in men and 
at some considerable expense in time. 
But south of Toul, and covering the gap between 
that fortress and the fortress of Epinal, sundry French 
forces at L.L.L. (which may be called the French 
ai-my of Lon-aiue) are confronted by further Gennan 
forces, K.lv.Iv., stretched along the frontier between 
France and Gennan^* in this region. 
Now observe that if the considerable numerical 
superiority of the French near M. permits them there 
to march round, and push back, the German right 
wing, the existing communications (1) (1) of the main 
German armies in the north are at once threatened. 
Should this considerable body of the Allies in the 
neighbourhood of M. continue the pressure which it 
has been exercising during the last four days, the 
German forces between Verdun and Paris, if they 
cannot break through to the south, would have no 
choice but to retreat. The initiative wiU have passed 
from them to their enemies, and it is even possible 
tliat, unless the retreat is conducted as precipitately as 
was the advance, their supplies might be cut and they 
might suffer disaster. 
But if the Germans break the centre of the French 
line towards the east, say at some such point as V. 
(which stands roughly for Vitry-le-Fran9ois) or even 
if, without breaking it, they push it back to such a 
line as the positions W. W. W. (corresponding roughly 
to a line passing through Troyes), then the Gennans, 
ScU. .f M.I 
DiAoaAic saoimro thb likbs or thj two aruibs o:f and aiteb seftsusszi 'Vro. 
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