October 24, 1914 
LAND AND WATEE 
Such facilities are only to be found in two very 
simjjle groups. 
There is from the east and to siipply the 
Eussians that line Avhich comes from Kieli up to 
Lublin. There is from the west and to supply the 
Germans the branch line with its rail head at 
Ostroviecs — a good deal nearer the river than Lublin. 
In the last section of the Ime, along the San, 
the Austrians have excellent railway supply up 
from the main line at Jaroslav, and through Debitza 
junction, with the railway exactly serving aU their 
bank of the San. While the Eussians have nothing 
north of the main line from Kielf and Lemberg, 
wliich serves their positions in front of Przemysl. 
We see, therefore, that the Austro-German line 
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Base J of Supply 
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west of the Vistula and the San has its best railway 
supply just opposite the points where the Eussiau railway 
supply on the other bank is lacking. The Germans are 
better served on the Middle Vistula from Ostroviecs 
than the Eussians can be from Lublin. They are 
admirably served all along the lower San where the 
Eussians are not served at all. On the other hand, 
between the Eadom — Ivangorod line and Warsaw, 
there is nothing along the west bank to supply the 
Germans while the Eussians have an excellent line 
parallel to the river along their eastern bank between 
Wai-saw and Ivangorod fed by lateral lines from the 
East. The point is of great importance because the 
heavy artillery upon which, as we now know, the 
Germans principally depend, is useless without a 
sufficient railway supply, and the general scheme of 
the railways leads one to believe that the principal 
effoi-t of the Germans will be made at the points where 
this railway system serves them, that is in the middle of 
the line, while the Eussians should be strongest — for 
advance, at least — to the north, their right. The 
difference of gauge should not hamper the Germans 
very much, for they have provided for it by preparing 
axles measured to the Eussian gauge and convertible. 
A worse handicap is the attitude of the Polish 
population, which will do everything to interfere with 
German supply along the extended lines of com- 
munication between the German frontier and the 
Vistula. Those lines of communication are nowhere 
less than 150 miles long, and the method of teiTor 
which has lieen introduced into Western Europe by the 
Prussians in densely populated and wealthy regions, 
and has there in the main failed, will be of even less 
service in the open country of Western Poland with 
its dispersed population and its few and not valuable 
buildings. When the history of the war comes to be 
written, it will probably be found that one important 
element working against German victory has been 
the hatred every Pole has come to feel for the 
Prussian name, a hatred due to the incapacity of the 
Prussian to govern and to his crude persecution of 
such Poles as have the misfortune to suffer German 
rule. 
In the paucity of railways, the next important 
factors of communication are the weather and the 
roads. 
The weather we can only estimate by the 
averages of many yeai's ; but it is worthy of remark 
that the rainfall in Southern Poland is by no meaus 
at its heaviest in the autumn. The heaviest rainfall 
in this region is in the summer : and this is particularly 
true of the southern pait of the field near the 
Carpathian mountains. June will have from tkree 
to four inches of rain, while October sometimes has as 
little as half an inch. It happens to have been 
raining heavily during the last week over the northern 
part at least of the field of battle, but the weather 
would be altogether exceptional in this region if it 
were to remain wet for a long time on end in the 
early autumn. If then the roads were numerous and 
good, the factor of tlie weather would be inconsiderable 
as against an advance. But the roads north of Galicia 
for tlie most part are — in Western and Eussian 
Poland — ^impassable to heavy traffic after a little rain 
at this season ; and the sort of traffic involved by the 
passage of an army, particularly the movement of 
heavy field guns and field howitzere, cuts them up 
altogether. The soil in all the middle part is heavy, 
the roads, though possessed of culverts and bridges 
over streams, are rarely macadamised and, in general, 
an attempt to advance with the sort of train necessary 
to what we now know to be the German methods will 
be very heavily handicapped indeed ; for though the 
normal rainfall is slight the soil does not diy as it did 
earlier in the year. 
Tlie advent of winter is capricious, the coming of 
hard frost differs by more than a month from year to 
year, and it would be quite an exceptional year i£ this 
facility for transport, such as it is, was felt before the 
middle of November. It is true, of course, that all 
this tells just as much in theory against a Eussian 
counter-offensive as against the German advance. 
But there is this difference between the two. 
(fl) That the Germans depend much, more for 
their power to hold a position upon their 
heavy artillery, and that the direct contact 
which this arm keeps off tells against the 
German as compared with the Eussian 
soldier : using the term " direct contact " for 
aU short-range field operations from the 
field-gun to the bayonet. 
{6) When an advance is difficult the hostility of 
a population makes much more difference 
than when you have good roads and plenty 
of railways, and the population in Eussian 
Poland at least, and especially immediately 
beyond the present German advance, is, for 
the most part, exceedingly hostile. 
Further, there can be no doubt that the Eussians 
have the advantage in horses, at any rate in the quality 
of endm*ance in their horses, and that is one of the 
prime factors in transport everywhere, but particularly 
in a country only partly developed, especially when 
the roads are heavy. 
The Battle of the Vistula is marked then (in 
contrast to the struggle in France, whose issue is so 
V 
