Deeember 12, 1914. 
LAND AND WATER 
THE WAR BY LAND. 
By HILAIRE BELLOC. 
ROTE. — Thit Arttdt hat bteii tobmltted to the Preii Borean, which doei not object to the pabltcattoo ai ceniored and takei nt 
reiponiibility for the correctneii of the itatementi. 
la accordaDco with the reqairementi of the Preii Boreao, the poiitloni of troops on Plani lUnitratinr tbii Article mnit only b* 
rcfarded ae approximate, and no definite itrenpth at any point it Indicated. 
LODZ. 
THE great town of Lodz, a modern experi- 
ment in industrial capitalism, planted in 
the heart of Poland by Jewish and Ger- 
man capitalist organisers, and exploit- 
ing a Polish proletariat, has recently 
been occupied by the Germans and evacuated by, 
the Russians. It is a city of half a million people, 
the second of all the cities of Poland, and new and 
tawdry as it is, its occupation is of high political 
and of some military importance. That occupa- 
tion is by far the chief event of the present week in 
either theatre of war, and the most important task 
before us in the comments of to-day is to appreciate 
the meaning, the weight, of this event upon the 
campaign as a whole, neither exaggerating it, as 
the enemy may tend to do, nor, as the official com- 
muniques will certainly do on the side of our Allies, 
under-estimate it. 
In order to appreciate what happened and its 
exact value, it is necessary to sum up the imme- 
diate past of the campaign in the eastern theatre 
of war, and particularly in this northern part of it. 
With the elements of the situation the readers 
of these notes are already thoroughly acquainted. 
I repeat them in this little sketch before pass- 
ing on. 
Three bodies (apart from those operating in 
East Prussia) are mainly concerned, stretching 
from near Plock to Cracow, and of these the two 
first, A-B, have now virtually coalesced in a vast 
battle not yet decided, the central point of which 
is the great manufacturing town of Lodz. At C 
the main Russian effort to invest Cracow, to mask 
that fortress and to pass on into the German 
danger-point of Upper Silesia, continues quite in- 
dependently of what is going on with Lodz as its 
centre in the north. 
With all this a. b. c. of the situation my readers 
are, I repeat familiar. But what must now be 
particularly observed and what from collating in- 
formation from various sources has recently be- 
come clear, is that feature in the German plan 
upon which General von Hindenberg depended for 
a positive success. 
How far he failed, how much he may yet 
achieve, I will discuss in a moment. The first thing 
is to appreciate to the full what he might legiti- 
mately conceive to follow, were the first objects 
of his plan achieved. Those first objects were : — 
(1) Tlie occupying of Warsaw with its bridge 
and all that it means. 
(2) In so doing either to destroy the weaker 
Russian forces in front of him (for they were much 
weaker at the moment when he swept round to 
the north) by the use of the German frontier rail 
ways, or to press them back until they both faced 
so much more northerly than their original front 
and were also pushed so much more backwards 
towards the South that the main Russian effort in 
the south at C, could no longer afford to he indiffer- 
ent to what was going on in the north. 
That was the whole of his plan. 
Now let us consider why, if this attempt of his 
had succeeded at once it would, and why (if it 
finally succeeds) it will have such an effect. What 
would these two things, the occupation of Warsaw 
and the pushing round and back of the Northern 
Russian Armies mean? And why would a com- 
bination so decisive as that make it necessary for 
the main Russian Army in the south to look to 
itself ? That Army has its own lines of communi- 
cation quite separate from the Northern Armies. 
It is very numerous. It is within a short distance 
of its goal. 
The value of such an achievement would lie 
in the capturing at Warsaw, not only of a great 
city, and not only of a political standpoint valuable 
to the whole German position in Poland, but 
strategically also, and of the most important 
" nodal point " or junction of communications in 
the whole of this theatre of war. While the 
Northern Russian Army, supposing it to have been 
bent round and back until it faced nearly due north 
would, by that same occupation of Warsaw, have 
been cut off from its already difficult and perhaps 
insufficient line of supply. 
Look at this scheme of railways, remembering 
that east of the Vistula all the railway lines are 
intact, and that upon them depends the provision- 
ing of the Northern Russian Army at N with its 
supplies. Warsaw is the crossing-place of the 
great main line leading into the heart of Russia, A* 
There meets this line at Warsaw the other maiii 
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