LAND AND WATEE 
October 3, 1914 
BcpanvU^ battlefields will aetemine tbe immediate 
future of tlie campaign m Poland ^ 
I say Poland, because we must never forget that 
ihe country where all this fighting is go'ng on. from 
e Baltic to the Carpathians, though hitherto artifi- 
cially divided under the rule of Gennany, Eussia, and 
lustria, is reaUy one country w^th an intense and 
Uving national soul. This soul it is largely tie 
pun^se of our Allies to release, arid certainly the 
pmpose of the Prussian Power to maintain in 
subjoction.^^^^ to the two battlefields. There is one 
northern one upon the Frontiers of East Prussia, 
another southern one in Galicia. . i i 
Uiwn the north the German armies have invaded 
Pussia They have crossed the Pussian frontier in 
the Government of Suwalki, and have approached the 
line of the Niemen. They have attempted and 
hitherto failed to force this line at the jwrnt of 
Druskiuiki, somewhat below Grodno. A little above 
this point, the Pussian forces which are defending the 
line of the Niemen and opposing the invasion, cros.s 
the river and extend through the forest district of 
AuoTistoff. almost to the Prussian frontier. All this 
is, by the way, the theatre of the first ojierations m 
Napoleon's great campaign of 1812. 
Now this considerable but hithei-to not decisive 
German pressure against the Russian armies in the 
nortb, this invasion of Eussian temtory, and this 
struggle for the crossing of a Eussian 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 German ofEensive possessed of the 
initiative ; and though we should not in the case of 
Eussia presuppose the German objective to be either 
a mai-ch upon the Eussian capital, or any other 
serious form of invasion, yet we should not be 
discounting the chances of a Eussian 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 driven another body of them 
])ack through Lombardy and were approaching 
Milan, which was for them a point of capital 
importance — a point where our " pressure " upon 
them and the anxiety they would feel for their safety 
would become acut«. 
For the Eussian armies Avhich have invaded the 
Austrian Empii-e 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 are pointing directly at that first part 
of the German territory 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 Eussian detachments sent across the Car- 
pathians towards the Hungarian plain are but flanking 
bodies. The march of the mass of the Eussian Annies 
is this field is directly along the main railv.ay line from 
Lemberg (which wiis carried exactly a month ago) 
through Jaroslav to Cracow. The Eiissians have 
already isolated and contained Przemysl. Their van 
has reached Dembitza, sixty miles we.st of Jaroslav. 
They arc well within a fortnight of Cracow unless 
a retarding action is fought against them by the 
retreating Austro-Prussian forces. They are suih- 
ciently niunerous to mask Cracow as they have masked 
Przemysl and this done, if their advance contmues at 
it present rate, the "pressure" of which w-e have 
heard so much, the " pressure " which Eussia has to 
exercise upon the German Empire will begin For 
the head of the invading troops will be in the industrial 
]n-ovince of Silesia, le\7ing ransom and doing all those 
things which incline one's enemy to peace. 
"Now it is a principle universal in strategics that 
vou 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 
Eussian Ai-my Corps in East Prussia a month ago, 
when they were cut up by the Gennans round 
Tannenbei^. 
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 German forces, until, that is, the fortified 
line Thorn — Dantzig on the lower Vistula was passed 
by the Eussian armies invading by the north, as theii- 
fellows were in^'ading by the south. 
This principle would stUl hold if the Germans in 
East Prassia 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 fellow^s and AUies in the south. Each 
advance may be regarded as being "off-side." The 
Eussians advancing and attacking in Galicia are 
far ahead of the Eussian defence and retreat on to 
the Niemen. The Germans advancing on the Niemen 
are far ahead of the Austro-German retreat in Galicia. 
Two considerations, however, enable us to make 
something of this 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 gi-eat 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 threat from the north upon the Eussian 
communications in the south, in spite of the Gei-man 
advance in the north. There is no threat from the 
south upon the German communications in the north, 
in spite of the Eussian advance in the south. lu 
other words, tbe paradox of a German force content 
to advance on the right of a great field while its fellows 
and allies are in full retreat on tbe 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 o?ie of these two advances — 
either the German in the north or the Eussian 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 Eussian armies in Galicia to halt 
and retu-e, or the advance of the Eussian annies in 
Galicia wiU 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. The 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 
