LAND AND WATER 
October 31, 1914 
The real strength of all that country between the 
Tsor canal and Dunkirk is the mass of small water- 
ways and the nature of the soH. The Duke of York 
failed before Dunkiik in 1793 principally from these 
two obstacles. The great niai-sh south of Dunku-k 
called the Two " Moers," great and little, is mdced 
nearly drained by this time ; but gi-eat parts of it can be 
flooded. IVther, if it were mtended (which I doubt) 
tliat troops should in the event of retreat stand along 
the small canal that inins from Loo to Funics, they 
woidd have, between them and the Yser, seven or eight 
miles of extremely difficult country which is cut up by 
a perfect labyruith of waterways. 
I think one may sura up and say that an advance 
along the sea coast, even if the Germans should be 
able to make it by bringing up unexpectedly large 
numbei-s, would be a painfully slow business. It is 
not country the full difficulty of which you grasp by 
the map, though the map tells you something ; nor is 
it country, which, surveying it under conditions of peace, 
you can report on easily for conditions of war; and time 
andagain under the conditions of war it has disappointed 
those who would occupy it. Most of it is as " blind " 
as any country in the world. The more eastward you 
get the more difficult your advance becomes with the 
increase of small waterways in aU directions, and, 
though it is a soil too light to impede an advance 
after rain, it is one in which, especially towards the 
coast, transport sticks thi'ough the peculiarly 
treacherous nature of the sand. There is only one 
really good road, that along the sea coast behind the 
gand hills, called "dunes," and this road is com- 
manded from the sea. 
But all this is only a supposition in a more or 
less abstract strategical problem. Before any step of 
droops, the offensive will pass to the Allies : with the 
offensive the initiative : the counter-stroke. 
No more can be said. But on this battle very 
much depends the immediate futui-e of the war, and it 
has all the marks of a violent effort which, when it is 
exhausted, does not fail stubbornly, but suddenly 
and aU together. 
THE NEWS FROM THE ARGONNE. 
The obscure fights which take place all along the 
old line from the Meuse and Moselle to the Oise, right 
across north-eastern France, merit more attention 
than they receive from the public. It is natural that 
the vast struggle upon the line to the west of all this 
between the Oise and the sea, and particularly the 
conflict (perhaps decisive) going on in Flanders at this 
moment, should absorb the gaze of Europe. But all 
that old series of positions, 100 miles long, in which 
Germans looking south face Frenchmen looking 
north, have this interest, that they show in what 
fashion the German line is being " held " — that is, 
pinned. 
When the history of the war comes to be 
written, not the least of its lessons will prove to be 
the power of resistance which modern small arms 
and entrenchment give — even to a short service 
conscript army, with its masses of nearly civilian 
reserves. 
As an example of this poAver, consider the state 
of affairs in the Argonne. We have evidence of what 
happened there, fragmentary indeed, but stretching 
over almost eveiy day of the last six weeks ; and in aU 
those six weeks there has been no retirement upon 
either side /or more than four miles! 
'- Co ^■ 
-Sl^.., 
VIENHE 
VILLE 
FORGES* 
CMWF<: -f^'" •MALANCOURT 
ENNES ,-^-'9 . 
v/ood/ r, 
<^HARNy 
"'%. 
to 
15 
20 
25 
Miles. 
RegcorL of the Arg^ontie 
VII 
the Calais march can be undertaken the initiative 
niust be assumed by the Germans— their huge 
offensive between Ypres and the sea must succeed. 
It has not yet succeeded; it seems, at the moment 
ot WTiting, to be drooping, and as it droops, or if it 
Here you have a sketch of the very small district 
where one may study in detail the kind of thing that 
is going on along all this chain of entrenched 
positions. 
The main Argonne Forest— -a clay ridge about 
8» 
