November 28, 1914. 
LAND AND WATER 
being attacked by the Germans (C^) could get its 
reinforcements without seriously disturbing the 
middle or the southern body if only it could gain 
time. The southern body B, B, B would not fall 
back (and so relieve Upper Silesia from the threat 
of invasion) unless the northern bodies (C^, C^) 
•were so badly beaten by the Germans, lefore rein- 
forcements could reach these northern bodies, that 
they should be pushed right back upon Warsaw 
and thus expose all the flank of the southern 
ftrmies, B, B, B. 
One may put it in one sentence by saying that 
it was the business of the Russian northern bodies, 
C^ and C^, thus suddenly attacked by forces enor- 
mously greater than their own, to play entirely for 
time. 
If C2 especially could hold the Germans just 
long enough to get its reinforcements up from the 
cast along its own line of communication (1), and 
just long enough to keep the enemy out of the 
great towns Lodz and Warsaw, all anxiety would 
be removed from the main southern army of 
Russia B, B, B upon the front Czestochowa-Cra- 
cow and beyond ; the small bodies operating to pass 
the Carpathians from Dukla, Sandec, etc., and 
then to reach the Hungarian plain beyond the 
mountains would also be at ease, and, above all, 
the original plan of marching upon Upper Silesia 
- — A — could be continued. 
But if the northern Russian bodies a,t C^ 
allowed themselves to be badly beaten so that D, 
the unexpected German mass, could march rapidly 
on Warsaw: and if this disaster should occur 
before C^ could get up his reserves along line of 
communications (1), then the central body C^, and 
after that the large southern Russian bodies at 
B, B, B would be successively in peril upon their 
flanks, and the attempt to invade Upper Silesia 
would have to be abandoned. 
Now, in this effort upon the north at C^ to 
gain time, and to hold up the German invaders at 
I) while their own reinforcements were arriving, 
the Russians had one obstacle to make use of, 
which, properly handled, might prove of the 
utmost value. This obstacle was a river called the 
Bzura. 
This river rises not far west of the great town 
of Lodz, passes through Leczyca, runs nearly due 
east till it reaches and passes through Lowicz, and 
then falls into the broad Vistula rather more than 
half-way from Warsaw to Plock. 
This river, the Bzura, is quite a small stream 
in ils upper part, and has no very serious obstacles 
(so far as width and depth are concerned), even in 
its lower reaches. There are fords everywhere. 
But it has, like many of the minor Polish 
rivers, one very important characteristic for 
use in a campaign, which is that great 
stretches of it on both hanks are a 7nass of marsh. 
These bad lands stretch for several miles upon 
either side of the stream, and, though frequently 
interspersed with drier patches and cultivated 
land, are passable to large forces only where artifi- 
cial causeways have been made. For you cannot 
throw pontoons across a marsh. This belt 
of marsh in the case of the Bzura is rather 
more than 60 miles long, and once the Rus- 
sians had determined to use it as their main 
defensive obstacle whereby to gain time against 
the German advance, the whole strategic interest 
of what followed was to see how far this blocking of 
the German advance by the marshes of the Upper 
Bzura (they are continued along the course of a 
small western tributary) would succeed. 
M IS '-* 
r • 
'50 Miles from ihc 
German Frontier 
near Thorn, 
Te Warsaw 
fO -SO Miles. 
Miles. 
LODZ 
