•LAND AND WATER 
^ December 19, 1914. 
•would at once push up the lower flat country, till then the advantage of supply, were now up in 
where the valley of the Morava meets the the hills, in winter weather, some days from their 
Danube, up to A, and, what was more important, main avenues of transport, and these days involv- 
attempt'to force the high watershed, C-C, between ing traffic over two very doubtful roads leading to 
the easy country and the valley of the Western the two passes over the ridge. The Servians were 
Morava to the south— and so to Nish. in receipt of new and unexpected bodies of muni- 
Readers of these notes will remember what tion, on which no more need be said here, 
importance was attached to that watershed in my Inferior though the Servians had hitherto 
commentary of three weeks ago, in the issue of been in numbers, they made the new situation im- 
November 28th. It was suggested (justly, as the mediately felt, and from last Monday onwards 
matter has turned out) that upon whether or not the turned the tables upon the invaders 
Austnans could force the mountain ridge, C-C, 
here between Valjevo and Cuzac on the Upi'^er 
Western Morava (W-W) wmdd defend the 
immediate future of their campaign 
These, the Austrians and Hungarians, who, 
in their desire to govern alien races against their 
will, fell into the trap laid by Berlin, became the 
dupes of the Prussians, and originated this war. 
For the advance up the main Morava valley were pushed down all the northern slopes of Rud- 
(M, M)'0ould never be more than a subsidiary ope- nik and of Maljen. The valley of the Ljig was 
ration, although this valley holds the railway, successfully descended down to its junction with 
And it could never be more than a subsidiary ope- the Kolubara; -Valjevo was reoccupied; even 
ration because, if it had been made the main ope- Lazarevatz, far down that river, was seized. And 
ration, it would have given the Servians the oppor- tJzice, now isolated and impossible to hold, was 
tunity of establishing an unbreakable defensive evacuated also by the Austrians and occupied by 
in the narrows at A. In other words, it was their foe. 
easier to turn A by forcing the watershed and It was a dramatic change from the situation 
entering the valley of the Upper Morava (W-W), of,, the week before. 
across the ridge, C-C, than it was to try to turn • / With this, as with all our still incomplete suc- 
C-C by forcing A. So it was along the ridge of cesfees, we must be very careful not to exaggerate 
the watershed, C-C, that the struggle developed. its effect. It is no more than a reversal of the 
This ridge is very clearly defined in the passes previous situation. It is not a " rout " of the 
behind and to the south of Valjevo upon the 
heights called Maljen. Its culminating point- 
its " massif," as the French would say — is found 
in the big mountain mass called Rudnik, imme- 
diately to the east of Maljen. Thence the water- 
shed sinks in confused, tumbled lowland down to 
the Lower Morava, to the north of Kragujevac. 
Where this ridge can be turned upon the west 
from the Drina valley the Austrians had turned it 
and had occupied XJzice. They had also occupied 
Enemy. His losses, even in captured wounded, 
do not seem as yet to amount to 10 per cent. , or 
at any rate, not to 12 per cent., of his total force. 
But what it does mean is that upon this front 
where he had the best chance of breaking through, 
or at any rate of opening a door, he has failed to 
open a door. And it also means that in these less 
developed parts of Europe the difficulty of supply 
is everything, and that the Enemy, once he makes 
his advance into the wilder countries of the eastern 
all the northern slopes of the long Maljen moun- front and leaves his own bases of supply, weakens ; 
tain covering the town of Valjevo which they held, he is thrust back and again contained. And this 
and they had occupied all the northern slopes of further means that it is the business of the French 
Rudnik also. They held a line, therefore, corxe- and English in the West to see that the supply of 
spending to the line of crosses upon the sketch their Allies in the wild countries of the East shall 
on the preceding page. be maintained. For if they have the men, we have 
They were at their furthest point of advance the machinery ; and between us is a poison : Prus- 
by December 2, and the continuous southward re- sia— with her less poisonous train. 
tirement of the Servians up into the hills, coupled 
with their admitted difficulties in supply, had led 
most critics of the situation to suppose that the 
Austrian invasion would continue uninterrupted, 
and that the Servians would fall back for many 
days or even weeks to come. Indeed, this was the 
front which was perhaps most anxiously watched, 
of all the places through which the Germanic 
Allies were trying to break the ring which sur- 
P.S. — Since writing the above the news re- 
ceived proves that the Servian success has been 
even greater than was expected. A telegram 
came through (published in London upon Monday 
evening, confirmed upon Tuesday morning) that 
Belgrade had been reoccupied by the Servians. 
But more than this, the Drina has been recrossed 
to the west, and what with the Servian and Monte- 
negrin advance, combined forces were present last 
rounds them. Not that Austria and Germany Saturday invading Bosnia, and with tlieir cavalry 
would here have found a true issue, or by a success already within ten miles of Serajevo. That is, 
withm ten miles of the Bosnian capital, in which 
in Servia would have appreciably relieved the Rus- 
sian pressure which menaces Silesia. But that an 
established domination over the Balkan world 
would have affected every relation in the Mediter- 
ranean region, and v/ould have freed to a great 
extent the economic pressure upon that sector of 
" the siege of the Germanics." It would have had 
its reflex upon Italy perhaps, quite certainly upon 
Bulgaria, and almost as certainly upon Roumania. „ _..„ „„_. ., ^ ^. „„„ ^^„„ 
But when the Austrians had thus reached and tria was operating in tliis field, and, apart from 
occupied the northern slopes of the ridge, C-C the accession of supplies to Servia, we can estimate 
(and had even turned the western end of it by their the factor of numbers more accurately than we 
occupation of Uzice), the question of supply ap- could at the beginning of the week. 
peared xn another form. The Austrians, who had It seems that seven complete Army Corps 
all the hatred upon one side, oppression on the 
other, which lit this war were concentrated for 
years. 
At the same time information has come 
through which makes us understand both the mate- 
rial nature and the moral importance of the Aus- 
trian reverse. We now have a fairly good estimate 
of the fifjures before us. We know Vv'ith what Aus- 
