December 5, 1914. 
LAND AND WATER 
THE WAR BY LAND. 
By HILAIRE BELLOG. 
MOTE.— Thit Article bat betn inbmitted to the Preit Boreau, which doei not object to the pnbllcatloD ai ceniored and takei ■■• 
reiponiibility for the correctneii of the itatemente. 
In accordance with the rcqnlrementi of the Preti Biirean, the poiitloni of troopi on Plant Illuitratinf thii Article mnit only be 
refarded at approximate, and no definite ttrength at any point it indicated. 
THE CRITICAL MOMENT IN POLAND. 
I.— PRELIMINARY. 
TIME and again it has been insisted in these 
notes that Poland was the decisive field 
of this great European War. Once it 
was seen that the Germans west of the 
Rhine could both hold their defensive 
line and prosecute from it violent counter-attacks, 
especially in the north towards the Straits of 
Dover, and once it was apparent that the combined 
Russo-French strategy presupposed (1) the mere 
containment of the Germans in the West, (2) the 
consequent husbanding of the French reserve, 
(3) the making of the Russians in the East with 
their perpetually increasing numbers the " march- 
ing wing " of the whole plan, it was clear that 
the measure of the Russian success was the mea- 
sure of the success of all the Allies. Containment 
in the West, with the reserve always ready there, 
might be very nearly taken for granted: the un- 
certain, and, at the same time, decisive, factor was 
the result in the East. 
Now, upon one occasion after another the 
general critic or watcher of this campaign has had 
to say : " As the decision lies in Poland this action 
now in progress in Poland may be the critical 
action of all." And on one occasion after another 
the suggested value of the moment has not 
matured. 
First, the Russians advanced rapidly through 
Galicia against the Austrians, because their mobi- 
lisation had lieen much quicker than Germany had 
been led to expect it would be. Then they de- 
stroyed one of the Austrian Armies in front of 
Lemberg : they advanced halfway to Cracow. But 
that moment did not prove decisive: Germany 
brought great forces into play — having failed in 
the main object of her Western campaign and 
having been compelled to retreat from before Paris 
— and the German Army advanced upon Warsaw 
and the Vistula. The Russians retreated before it, 
concentrating as they did so their perpetually 
arriving reinforcements. 
The Germans were beaten in front of War- 
saw, and in a prolonged but successful struggle 
the Russians compelled them and the Austrians to 
withdraw from the Vistula and the San. The 
Russian advance nearly reached the frontier be- 
tween the two Empires again, for this time the 
wave of the Russian advance swept much further 
than it had the first time. 
Then came the third pha.se in this Eastern 
struggle, which phase was descril>ed at some length 
last week in these notes. Ilindenburg brought up a 
great mass of German troops by rail behind the 
frontier, swung them up to the north, and unex- 
pectedly appeared between the Warta and the 
iVijjtula Rivers, with certainly half a million, and 
perhaps more than half a million, men, in an at- 
tack upon the weak, and, it is to be feared, un- 
suspecting, Russian right. 
That right retired before him : a great general 
action was engaged, lasting, as such modern ac- 
tions do, not even through days, but through 
weeks. It is still undecided. 
After the experience of the other two phases 
in the eastern campaign one might be tempted 
to say that this third phase also might end with- 
out any decision. 
But that conclusion is doubtful. This time 
things have come to such a juncture that it is 
almost certain one side or the other will establish 
now a permanent superiority. Not that Germany 
is devoid of further reserves: she can train, and 
is training, what is left of the men of military age 
hitherto unfitted for the field. For that matter 
Russia has reserves far greater in number. But 
the Germans happen to have taken this counter- 
oftensive under the burden of a deliberate risk. 
They have engaged deeply; they have staked a 
very heavy proportion of their strength, and it 
would seem that the result of the action now en- 
gaged between the Warta and the Vistula Rivers 
must necessarily end by Western Europe knowing 
once and for all whether Germany will in future 
have to look to herself in the East, to expect in- 
vasion, to put there every man she can possibly 
spare; or whether, in the alternative result, she 
shall by her victory, partial or complete, be able 
to release men for the West, and there to menace 
our present security along the great line between 
the North Sea and the Vosges. 
Now, with regard to this great battle in 
Poland, opinion has become so confused by exagge- 
rated accounts, by the citation of names not to be 
found upon ordinary maps, and by the apparent, 
contradiction between German and Russian official 
news, that it has during the last few days seemed 
difficult, or impossible, to draw up any reasoned 
plan of what has happened, or to project in any 
degree the chances of the future. 
I propose to attempt some such plan, and to 
elucidate as best I may, the nature of this great 
battle (which is still proceeding), and even to show 
what chances for the future it bears according to 
the success of one side or the other. 
It is unfortunate that these notes should have 
to be written just at a moment when all news 
of the last and most critical portion of the action 
is lacking. That accident forbids me from giving 
any definite result ; but it does not forbid me from 
describing what has hitherto taken place, and 
from suggesting the alternative possible results. 
Let me repeat before I begin this analysis the 
words with which I began the notes of this week :1 
that upon the result of what is now taking place 
between the Warta and the Vistula the future of 
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