December 12, 1914. 
LAND AND WATER 
city, but it is probable that the main attack will 
come first from the north, or from the east, and 
that the Russians -svill reduce the works crossing 
the railway before they proceed to the inner ring. 
THE WESTERN THEATRE 
OF WAR. 
In the western theatre of war no event of im- 
portance has taken place save the capture of the 
country house called the Chateau of Vermelles, 
near La Basse. 
The way in which the French have insisted 
upon this little affair is an interesting commentary 
upon the nature of that siege warfare to which the 
struggle in Flanders has come ; and it may be worth 
the reader's while to study in a brief note the 
nature of that success. 
When you are working from trench to trench 
and conducting operations analogous to those by 
which a permanent fortified position is captured, a 
very slight advance is sometimes of appreciable 
moment. Warfare of this character does not in- 
volve an indefinite number of defensive positions 
one behind the other. Theoretically, it might do 
so. Theoretically, you might have a hundred 
trenches each half a mile behind the other, and 
permitting of a stubborn resistance over a belt of 
fifty miles. But that is not the way in which the 
wrestling between two forces that have dug them- 
selves in works out. In practice what you have is 
a front established after the first fluctuations ; that 
front will correspond to a line of positions majiy of 
which are naturally defensible. Care would be 
taken to have a second line, at least, behind these 
in both places, but if the first line is badly broken 
anywhere, or the second line behind is threatened 
from a vantage point gained by the enemy, then, in 
that region at least, the enemy will very likely 
that to a fourth and so on, but right away back, 
probably behind the town. 
This lack of an indefinite series of parallel 
lines upon which to retire is due to the limit of 
numbers and of human energy. It is always pre- 
sent, and as I say, in such a struggle as that now 
being conducted in Flanders, your line is double, 
or, at the most in places, treble, and if pierced in- 
volves the loss of a considerable belt behind it, 
which in its turn, when lost, may threaten the 
general position for twenty or thirty miles. Tho 
whole thing may be compared to crowbar work, a 
number of apparently minute efforts involving 
apparently an expense of energy quite incommen- 
surate with the immediate result, culminates in 
the overthrow of a block apparently immovable. 
Now, the capture of the Chateau Vermelles 
illustrates all this. It represents an actual ad- 
vance of probably less than a mile, and at any rate 
very little more than a mile, but the interest of it 
lies in the new position it creates for defence in 
this region. 
The readers of these notes are accustomed to 
the name and the importance of La Bassde. 
The Germans' thrust from La Bassee to 
Bethune, had it been maintained, and had 
it been successful, might, some weeks ago, 
have decided the campaign in the north. 
The enemy, as we know, preferred to throw his 
weight along the sea coast, and later against 
Ypres, but La Bassee retained its potential im- 
portance still. Now, the communications along 
the German front of La Bassee depend upon a rail- 
way going north and south, and upon the great 
high road going north and south also, somewhat to 
the east of the railway. From the railway you 
command the high road, but behind the railway, 
that is, to the west of it, there is a slight slope run- 
^ethunc 
La'Bassee 
^'•^f-fc'' 
12345 Kilometres 
-^ 1 — -• 
2 2i Tulles 
compel you to a considerable retirement. For in- 
stance, if the Germans had maintained their first 
success on November 11 in front of Ypres (which, 
luckily, they failed to do, suffering upon the con- 
trary very heavy punishment from the counter- 
offensive of the second line), then the retirement 
upon our side would not have been to yet a third 
line immediately behind and fully prepared from 
ning down 200 yards to a little and very sluggish 
stream, which goes northward and falls into the 
canal which runs parallel with the high road from 
La Bassee to Bethune. There was thus a slight 
dip of land with this brook at its lowest j^art, the 
railway along the low crest to the east of it, and 
open fields upon a corresponding crest to the west. 
The crest along which the railway ran was, and 
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