LAND AND WATEE 
November 14, 1914 
across the Luxembourg liiglilands down to the Upper 
Moselle. Another, but longer cue, would be the 
Ehiue. Before this last one is reached one outlier of 
the western industrial field, that in Lorraine, would 
be lost. But at any rate, from the very beghming of 
the setback, something upon which modern Germany 
immediately depends for existence, moral and physical, 
is in peril. The ruin of AVestphalia \vould mean a 
hundred times more in this war than the occupation 
of Berlin ; and it is possible that the near future will 
see Berlin occupied and yet the war not at its 
conclusion. 
But if this "pressure" threatens abead}' upon 
the West, far more does it threaten upon the East. 
Silesia is actually adjacent to, coterminous with, the 
enemy's frontier. The thickest knot of manufactories 
lies just on that point ^^here the three Empires meet ; 
not a day's march from, nor half a day's march from, 
the frontier of Eussian Poland, but actually on that 
fi'ontier. And behind this most vulnerable belt lies 
belt after belt back on to the mountains, making uji 
the whole industrial region of the Upper Oder valley. 
It is true that a blow at Silesia would not be the 
game thing as a blow at AVestphalia. To take but 
one point ; armament is manufactured wholly in the 
western field. There only is found the plant required. 
Krupp is in the AVest, and so is Erhard and Sehnier 
(who, by the way, make not only for Genuany, but for 
Austria, and forge gun-barrels for Krupp as well). 
The (rerman output of heavy guns, the plant for which 
is about equal to that of France and England combined, 
proceeds from, and can only proceed from, this vulner- 
able centre in the West. The French centres of such 
production are very far removed from the advance of 
armies : The English ones are defended by the sea 
and by the Fleet. 
To sum up : defeating the German armies in the 
field, disarming them, is indeed the principal business of 
the Allied strategy ; but a secondary and allied object is 
the destruction of the maimfacturing provinces. And 
these centres are not in the heart of Germany, but on 
its borders, so far as this war is concerned. The two 
German battle-lines in East and West are drawn up to 
cover as long as may be — and are already perilously 
close to ! — the vital parts. 
This, coupled with the importance to the German 
Government of keeping the war off German soil, gives 
all its meaning in particular to the present Eussian 
advance and to the Eastern campaign. 
As the Eussian advance, right up to the Silesian 
frontiers, has been the featm-e of the past week, and 
as the Eastern field of war is still (as I IiaA-e constantly 
insisted in these notes) the determining field of the 
war, I will deal first again this week with the opera- 
tions in Poland. 
11. 
THE OPERATIONS IN POLAND. 
Three things are required for an appreciation of 
the operations in Poland dm-ing the last week. First, 
some dear conception of the rate and positions of the 
Eussian advance. Secondly, the nature and extent of 
the Austro-German reverse. Thirdly, some estimate 
of the chances the Germans have of entrenching and 
standing ujwn this side of their frontier. 
As to the first of these points, we have accurate 
information, and that information concerns, as through- 
out this Eastern campaign, two main fields of war : A, 
the East Prussian frontier, and B, the basin of the 
Vistula ; while the latter is naturally subdivided iuto 
the Eussian effort in front of AYarsaw and on the 
middle A'istula (B-1) where it has principally to 
NOOMIR 
'^-•^. FRONTIER. 
JI 
THK BATTLE FRONT IN THE KASTKEK AREA. 
meet German troops ; and (B-2) the Eussian effort 
in front of Randomir and on the Eiver San, where it 
has principally to meet Austrian troops. 
THE OPERATIONS IN EAST PRUSSIA. 
^,^'^'^'^_^!^^^itbMzn 
^^^ 
Suwatki 
S.BakiUrjlifiia'iJ 
Scute^Mitts 
TC 
As to the first of these, the East Prussian 
frontier : 
The struggle between the comparatively small 
bodies engaged (comparatively small in relation to 
such a war as this : they are larger than anything 
that Napoleon met in any one field before 1812) is 
still almost coincident with the frontier between the 
two nations, and the reason of this coincidence I 
explained last week. It lies in the all-important 
political necessity under which the Prussians are of 
keeping the war as long as possible off German soil. 
Both the Eussian communiques, though they only 
give one side of the story, and the map (which is 
more impartial), show some slight retrocession in the 
German defensive line. When Bakalarshewo was 
2* 
