LAND AND WATEE 
October 21, 1914 
The battle is joined upon aU its central reaches from 
WarsaAv southward and on along the San to the 
Carpathians. , . . 4. 
The Vistula first tumbles as a mountain ton-ent 
through the foothUls of the Carpathians, then 
(lowing east and west past the gi-eat fortress and 
ancient PoUsh capital of Cracow it begms to trend 
north, and reaches, in about two hundred miles, 
the Uttle town of Sandomir. In all the lower part 
of this first division it forms the artificial frontier 
between Austria and the Kussian Empire, though, of 
course, both banks are really Polish, and the whole 
territory of Wai-saw and Cracow is but the ancient 
sacred south, the later centre and heart of an undying 
Poland. . T • ^ 
The province lying to the south of this artificial 
Austro-Eussian frontier and stretching up to the crest 
of the Carpathians is called Galicia. To the north of 
this frontier and to the east of the equally artificial 
frontier between the Eussian and the German Empires 
lies the western part of Eussian Poland v.ith its five 
main Governments of Kielce, Eadom, Petrokow, 
Warsaw, and Kalisch. 
About four and a half miles below the isolated 
castle-hill of Sandomir comes in from the south and 
east the main tributary called the San, upon the 
upper waters of which, also in the foothills of the 
Carpathians, stands the great fortress of Przemysl. 
After the two rivers have joined, the Vistida 
runs north through a trench commanded upon either 
side by hills, fii'st fairly high, then gradually falling. 
It turns a rather sharp bend after tbe issue from 
these hills at the place now called " New Alexandria " 
and there enters the plains which run almost un- 
interruptedly to the Baltic. Twenty miles further it 
passes the fortified point now called Ivangorod, which 
town (it will be important to remember this in the 
development of the battle) lies on the eastern or right 
bank of the stream. Thence another sixty miles of 
course now trending westward brings it to Warsaw 
upon the left bank, and somewhat lower down to the 
fortress of New Georgievsk, beyond which it does not 
concern us in the matter of this battle. 
In all this stretch of tbe river between Sandomir 
and Warsaw the Vistula, everywhere broad and fairly 
deep, is of course increasiug in depth and breadth. 
It is already a large river below Ivangorod, three 
to four hundred yards across at Sandomii-, quite six 
hundi-ed at Wai-saw. It is navigable even in dry- 
seasons all the way, and all the way there is no ford. 
At this moment the water is high and the current con- 
siderable. N6te, for further consideration in the 
action, the tributjiry known as the Pilica, having the 
town of Warka upon its north or left bank; it is, as we 
shall see, of high strategical importance. Note 
further the town of Grojec, the junction of seven roads 
and a point which gives to whoever holds it, a choice 
m his avenues of approach from the west and from 
Germany to Warsaw and to the Lower Eiver. 
After a continuous German advance through 
Western Poland and as continuous a Eussian retire- 
nient before it, the invaders reached the neighbourhood 
of Warsaw upon the north and touched the Vistula 
itself m all its middle course from Ivano-orod to 
southward ; while southward again, the Austrians, after 
their long retreat, turned and advanced abreast of 
their Allies through Western Galicia tiU they reached 
tlie San. •' 
At the end of all this—about a week ago -the 
wliolo Eussian force had concentrated (meeting its 
contmual reinforcement from the east) upon positions 
wliich ran fi-om near Warsaw upon the north. aU alono- 
the east bank of the middle Vistula, then along and up 
the east bank of the San to the batteries emplaced 
before Przemysl and so to the Carpatliian Mountains. 
This great position — the Eussian retention of, 
retreat beyond, or advance from, which bistory will 
probably call the Battle of the Vistula — is fully as 
long as the corresponding great position in the west, 
that is more than 250 but less than 300 miles. As 
in the west, two nearly equal forces, each in the neigh- 
bourhood of two million men, are struggling each to 
break or turn the opposing line. Again, as in the 
west, that line has been thrust back by the Germanic 
powers iipon the territory of Germany's enemies. As 
in the west, the main direction of the fronts runs from 
north-west to south-east. There is a remarkable 
parallelism between the two great conflicts, 800 miles 
apart, upon whose co-relative fates the future of 
Europe should depend. But when this parallelism of 
certain main elements — some of them accidental — has 
been noted, the comparison fails. 
In the first place, the line of battle along the 
Vistula is one of extreme topographical simplicity — as 
contrasted with that in the west, which depends now 
upon a range of mountains like the Vosges, now upon a 
forest like the Argonne, now upon a small river like 
the lower Aisne, now again upon an entrenched but 
open plain like the Champagne. The Polish position 
is simply the line of the Middle Vistula between 
Warsaw and Sandomir, or, more accurately, between 
Warsaw and the mouth of the San ; it is then con- 
tinued up the San nearly to its source in front of 
Przemysl, and so across the foot hiUs to the Car- 
pathian Mountains. 
No more elementary strategic thesis could be 
conceived. The Eussians are holding the line of the 
San and the middle Vistula ; it is the business of the 
Austrians and Germans to j)ierce them upon that line, 
or at the least to bold them there in check and to forbid 
their further advance. It is the business of the 
Eussians to hold the continuous line of the two rivers 
and by turning or breaking the Germanic forces facing 
them to compel them to retire. 
There is another contrast in the nature of the line. 
All the western rivers concerned in the present actions 
in France and Belgium are comparatively narrow and 
slow ; everywhere bridged, and when the bridges are 
destroyed easily to be bridged again by the engineers 
of either army. Often they are fordable. But the 
Vistula is everywhere deep and broad and swift and, 
save at two points — TFarsaw and Ivangorod, unbridged. 
The San, save in quite its upper part, is an equally 
simple and absolute obstacle though better bridged. 
Again there is a great contrast between tha 
eastern and tbe western fields in the matter of railway 
and road communications. 
There is here of course the main point that 
whereas in the west the railways are very numerous 
and hard macadamised roads universal and serving 
eveiy^ four or five miles of country, such roads are 
rare in Poland and railways rarer still. But there 
is more. 
The Vistula, tbe one main artery of the country, 
is not even served as are all the great rivers of 
AVestern Eui-ope by a railway line parallel to itself. 
There is, indeed, such a railway line from Warsaw 
past Ivangorod to New Alexandria, but beyond that 
point the railway trends o£E eastward to Lublin, and 
between that point and Sandomir there is no railway 
following either bank of the river. There is no 
direct and continuous facility for the supply of 
ammunition and food by rail to the millions lined 
up on the opposing sides of the stream. 
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