LAND AND WATEE 
October 17, 1914 
setting of licr coiiimnniciilions — wliile France was 
bcin(» settloil. 
In tlie case of tlie wcstcm lialf of this plan 
Ocnnany liad two first-rate i)icccs of riglit jutlginont 
njion lior siJo. She claimed tliat modern howitzer fire 
would dominate modern fortification, and she ])i-ovcd 
right. She claimed, in other words, that the French 
reliance upon stronghokls would betray them in the 
field of t'tiiir. She claimed that the fortresses of the 
!Meuso would impose no appreciable delay. Further, 
she calculated that she could put (by the e.\cellence of 
her organisation, and considering that the strain would 
bo but a momentary one) the vast majority of her 
forces noith of the Meusc in lielgimn and maintain 
them suj)plied through the narrow gap of Jjicge 
for the few days necessary to an invasion of France. 
Once they shoidd have broken through thus they 
f 
VII 
would have other commmiications open to them 
through Luxembourg and Treves, and the pressure 
would be relieved. 
Here again they were perfectly right. They 
had brought against the AlUed anny on the Sarabre 
torccs far larger than any commander or critic 
outsHle trermany had thought possible. 
Again, the advance on Paris was as rapid as 
human physical effort and human intelligence com- 
bmed cou d make it. Few finer things liave been 
done m the Instovy of war than that ^m^;Z 
advance. » 
dajs o September the "rush" strategy Berlin had 
planned was triumphant. Then (about the an i 
ersary of Sedan) m the first week of September c e 
the failure in both theatres of war 
In the eastern theatre the Austro-Huncrarim 
a ly had pushed his main army right up into J us • 
^f^'^ -^^'"-'^l everything before hiuT had q ito 
.Heated the troops he had foimd at Krasnik and^ 5 
S'£ "^o cV"''"- ^"t "^^ Russian Ibi! 
sinon iiad proved more rapid and smooth tlnn 
<^orman calculations admitted. TheforcosT?,! 
brmirrlif Jn*,^ j-i.„ /?_ii , ,, V -^"^ loices Kussia 
stlfj^'^^^f ™ 'S,-'"*- W been Z 
J iiioMng upon Lublin was compelled to 
retire beyond the San and up the Upper Vistula 
Valley. 
Meanwhile in France tlie policy of a larcre 
reserve had vindicated itself, and the fresh masses 
deliberately kept out of the field during the great 
retreat from Mons and Charleroi appeared from behind 
the screen of Paris and compelled Von Kluck's retreat. 
From that moment in either tlieatre of war, 
eastern or western, the strategy of " rush " failed. 
But precisely at that moment of failm-e came in 
another element to produce the " block " or deadlock 
which marked the rest of the month of September and 
the first days of October. Another modern element 
(which the British service could, perhaps, after the 
experience of South Africa, expect better than any 
other in Europe) modified what at first looked like the 
progressive defeat of the Germanic allies. This 
element was the formidable resisting power of 
entrenched infantry, backed by heavy guns. It was 
in the western field of war that this new element was 
particularly observable. Upon one of the best lono- 
defensive positions discoverable in Europe from the 
Argonne to Noyon the German army held its own 
day after day. 
Yet another new element appeared. Your 
turning movement, the essence of which is that it 
should be unexpected (in the absence of heavy 
numerical superiority) proved no longer possible in 
modern war. To bring up great forces by railway 
was a matter not of hours but of days; and the 
movement could be observed almost suflaciently by 
old-fashioned methods of intelligence — cavalry, spies, 
prisoners— its discovery could be made even more 
certain by the use of air-craft. Finally, the only 
roads by which the work could be done, the railroads, 
limited to precise and known lines the methods of its' 
advance. 
Under all these conditions the attempt to turn the 
German line by its right north of Noyon failed. Every 
new French body brought up to extend that turninc^ 
movement was met and checked by the arri\-al of 
a corresponding German body, drawn, as the Allied 
body had them drawn, from the centre and the east. 
Uritil after the extension of the line northward to the 
Belgian frontier at the end of September the turnino- 
movement as such may be said to have definitely 
tailed. It had proved to be nothing but an extension 
ot the block already established. 
Something of the same sort appears to have 
gone on m the eastern field of war, though there 
certain modifications appeared. Germany lent aid to 
the Austro-Hungarian forces; between them the 
resistance to the Kussian advance proved stronger and 
stronger, ^and the progi-ess of the Russian hosts 
through Gahcia grew less and less pronounced, until 
witli the first days of October things were at a 
standstill m southern Poland. Meanwhile in 
northern Poland the very same phenomenon Avas 
repeated on a small scale as had taken place in 
1 ranee upon a gigantic one. 
A rapid German advance to the Niemen failed 
turned back, was pressed to a certain line of defence 
partly behind and partly in front of the frontier of the 
German Empire, and there, for the moment, at least, 
established a stalemate. 
,.n ( ^r^^' ?''" ^'''^^ '"'"^ stationary grip so unex- 
pectedly prolonged in either theatre of the gi-eat war 
ends its first phase. 
Under what conditions does the second phase 
eiistic ? What kind of fighting are we to expect in 
the immediate future ? ^ 
6* 
