LAND AND WATER 
October 17, 1914 
mnch proloiitrcd tlmt fisfuro miglit be increased 
indetinik'ly. Tlie iiussian thirty or fifty increases to 
100, to 150, and, at a pinch, to 250. The French 
forty cannot increase. It Avas, at the beginning of 
the war, at its maximum. 
(2) As to the moral factor of claim, no one, even 
a student considering mere strategics, can neglect it. 
The Prussians chiim rule, the Allies freedom. It is 
true that the (rermanic Powers, and particularly the 
modern tlonnan Empire, are fighting for their life ; but 
then so is everybody else — except, possibly, Eussia ; 
and even Russia would cea.se to be liussia without her 
family of kindred states. But there is this indisput- 
able difference between the fight for life of the Allies 
and the fight for life of their enemy : that the enemy 
is claiming as part of his fight for life something 
which no European will ever accept. No Western 
Eurojiean, at least, has ever accepted contentedly, or 
ever will accept -without ceaseless revolt, an alien 
government. The conception that he would do so is 
the great strategic miscalculation modern Prussia 
made a generation ago. She is too stupid to learn. 
It is, in truth, a strategic miscalculation and one 
has a right to allude to it in a strategic commentary, 
for there is one gi*eat principle underlying all 
strategics, which is this : " 'f/ic anccess of a campaign 
can only be iiieanitred in terms of its jjoUiical object." 
For instance; Napoleon succeeded in 1790-97 
because his object was to clear the Austrians out of 
the Lombai-d Plain. If his object had been to turn 
the men of the Lombard Plain into Mahommedans 
the campaign would have been an infinitely more 
difficult task and he would have failed. 
Here is an impoi-tant concrete note upon what I 
mean. Germany by her action in Belgium has not, 
as a plain matter of fact, saved any appreciable 
number of men upon her communications. Those 
communications are not 103 miles in length. She 
thought by one miscalculation that they would run 
through Belgium, as they do through Luxemburg, in 
territory free from peril. She has produced a state of 
affaire in which those few miles require a larger 
gan-ison than they w^ould have required had she done 
no more than civilised Europeans in the past have 
done, to wit, executed those who broke the laws of 
war and spared the rest. IMy judgment in this will 
be disputed. I believe it to be sound. 
THE "BLOCK" OR DEADLOCK. 
Thei-e is the foundation, moral and material, uoon 
which the situation now rests. Let us next turn to 
the present strategical position and what led up to it. 
The first characteristic of that strategical position 
IS a "block" or deadlock upon the East as upon the 
West; which block has lasted, roughly speaking, for 
a month. o ^ i &> 
The second characteristic of the position is that 
the block IS maintained well exterior to anything vital 
m the Orermanic powers. 
Upon the west it is almost entirely external to 
their boundaries ; only Upper Alsace, and a fraction of 
that, IS m the hands of the French 
r.li.?*'^"'f '''*/*^ '' ^"'•^"^^ «<>; «% Eastern 
Calcua and a few mi es of Ea.st Prussia is in the hands 
o thtV^'"'"'' '^^ ^^^* ^^^^^"*i ^« "^ ^^' I'-^d^ 
or the trermans. 
Innt ?f^rTir ^•'''^ t"^' ^^^' ^^^«^ propositions are, 
look at the following diagram 
tb. }^r'' *^'' •^''•"^ ^^ ^^^"^ P°«it^«^« occupied by 
S! P'^:!!! ^"""''' '" *''^ "'^'^ to-day (TuesdaV 
October 13th)-represented by a full line. C'on paS 
DOTTED LINES KEPRSSKNT POSITIONS ON SEPTEMBER 13tH. 
FULL LINKS REPRESENT POSITIONS ON OCTOBER 13tH. 
it with the similar position occupied a calendar month 
ago, upon September 13th — represented by a dotted 
line — and sec how slight has been the change. 
There has, it is true, been an extension northward, 
due to the successive attempts of France and Germany 
to outflank each other, but, so far as the advance of 
the one party or of the other is concerned, hardly any 
such advance has taken place. 
Turn to the same question in the east, and though 
the deadlock is not there so striking, it is remarkable 
enough. Here you have the Austro-German front a 
DOTTED LINES REPRESENT POSITIONS ON SEPTEMBER 13th. 
FDLL LINKS REPRESENT POSITIONS ON OCTOBER 13tH. 
month ago in dotted lines, and in a fuU line what 
appears to be the Austro-German front to-day. 
As to the way in which these blocked fronts 
keep the Allies at arm's length to the east and the 
west of Germanic territory, the reader can under- 
stand it best by looking at the following rouo-h diao-ram. 
In this sketch, the German-speaking area (1), in so 
far as it corresponds with the feeling in favour of our 
enemies, is marked with deep hatching. The area 
in favour of our enemies (3), but not German-speaking 
as a whole, is marked with another hatching; the 
boundaries of tenitoiy occupied by the Gorman and 
tlie Austrian Empires in arms is marked ■v\ith a broad 
black line. Finally, the hatching (2) represents 
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