November 14, 1914 
LAND AND WATER 
THE WAR BY LAND, 
By HILAIRE BELLOG. 
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AND TAJOeS NO KESPONSIBILITY FOB THE COEEECTNKSS OF THE BTATKllKXTS. 
IM ACCOKDAKCE WITH THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE TRESS EUREAC, THB POSITIONS OF TBOCPS OX PLASS liLnSTRATINO THIS 
AEIICLK MUST OKLY EJC EEGAREED AS APPEOXIJIATE, AND NO DEFINITE STRENGTH AT ANT POINT IS INDICATED. 
I. 
"PRESSURE." 
WHEN nations conflict in war they bring 
armies one against the other, and the 
first object of strategy for each army 
is to disarm, in as high a degree as 
possible, the other. 
But there is a second, subsidiary object alwa3's 
present in warfai-e between civilised nations, wliich 
indii-ectly leads to the same result, and that object is 
tlie putting of a political and economic " pressiu'e " 
upon the enemy. 
For instance: The German attack in 1870 was 
directed upon Paris, and rightly : not because Paris 
was an arm}'-, but because with Paris taken French 
resistance was almost bound to cease. 
Now there is in modern Germany no centre 
corresponding to Pjiris, and thereforc no coi-re- 
sponding political objective. 
But look for a moment at the accomjianying 
sketch. 
^^ Main Industrial Regions 
-.>•«* Frontier of German Empire 
A A Western German Battle Line 
BB Eastern 
Germany is a nation which has chosen in our 
cvra generation to induslrialisc itseK ; that is, to 
convert the main part of its energies from agriculture 
to capitalistic modern manufacture by machinery, 
notably of metal goods. 
There has accompanied this phenomenon what 
always accompanies it : the nation's reposing upon an 
urban poj^ulation of lower physique than of old ; 
its dependence for all information upon a centralised 
Press in the hands of a few capitalists ; a va-st 
proletarian mass, impotent to organise itself or to 
act with civic initiative — and an absolute physical 
necessity of kecking the machinery going. 
If an industrialised country be suddenly con- 
demned to use its agricultural resources alone, it is 
wounded to death. 
In an extreme case, like that of England, it will 
not even be able to feed itself with the first and most 
necessary forms of food. It wiU not have enough 
hread to keep aHve. Germany is not yet in this case ; 
yet it suffers in the second degree, which is, that a 
blow at its industrial districts deprives the mass of its 
population of their common habit of life and cuts all 
the channels whereby, within their experience, liveli- 
hood can be maintained. You may feed the towns, 
if industry decays, so long as you stQl have (as Germany 
has) a remaining sufficient agricultural population. 
But even the mere feeding of them would require 
suddenly organised, vastly competent, entu-ely cen- 
tralised control — and the destruction, of course, of all 
the old bonds of property and credit. Food would have 
to be taken by force and distributed by officials — to 
perform the task fully would certainly be too hard, 
even for the most humanly perfect organisation. The 
striking at the industrial districts would hamstrijig 
the whole nation in the matter of food distribution 
alone : e.g., Belgium (in spite of vast emigration and 
small size) to-day. 
But there is more than this. The industrial 
districts collect the cm-rency (and its control) in great 
depots. Outside them, only the capital and the main 
seaports have great depots of controlled currency. 
Again, the industrial districts provide the opinion, 
spontaneous or manufactui-ed, upon which the govern- 
ment of such countries reposes. 
Again, the industrial districts make a mass of 
things which the nation has learnt to regard as neces- 
saries, and which, in some cases, are necessaries — 
especially to the conduct of a campaign. They make 
the rails and the locomotives and the wagons, the 
internal-combustion engines, the electrical apparatus, 
the corn mills, the spinning and weaving machinery, 
and at certain few spots in them you find concentrated 
the only available plant for making the guns and 
explosives. 
Now it so happens that the German Empire has its 
two main industrial districts precisely in those regions 
which the first shock of an invasion icill strike. Eoughly 
speaking, you have (1) the Westphalian and Western 
group — extending into LoiTaine — and (2) the Silesian 
Eastern group. There is much intermediary; but 
those two districts are the two nerve-centres, the dual 
poles, of modern industrial Germany. 
Defending Westphalia you have, when the tide 
shall turn against the Germans in the West and tlie 
deadlock there shall break, successive lines of defenct-^ 
natural and artificial. It may be suggested that a 
first obvious line, for instance, is through and defend, 
ing Antwerp, then Bnissels, to Namur, and so up the 
Mouse. Another and shorter could run througV 
and in front of Liege along the Belgian Aisne and 
