December 19, 1914. 
LAND AND WATER 
I 
saw (W), and would further have to make off east- 
ward in the direction (D). The threat upon 
Silesia (S) would cease, and the whole object of 
the German campaign upon the eastern front 
would be achieved. 
Now, the interest of this second battle for 
Warsaw is that the German plan has failed. 
Vigorous as has been the German attack, suc- 
cessful as it has been in pushing back the Eussian 
left and in re-occupying Lodz, expensive as it has 
been to the whole of the German plan of campaign 
from the fact. that it has compelled Germany to 
withdraw at least five army corps from the west, 
Warsaw remains secure and the German objective 
is not only not reached, but not approached. The 
German armies are no nearer the taking of War- 
saw than they were between November 20 and 27. 
Their attempt to reach that key-point by the great 
original attack between the Warta and the Vistula: 
a month ago had failed at the very moment when 
they scored the local success (strategically value- 
less) of entering and occupying Lodz. 
Depending upon their system of railways 
directly organised for such a war, railways run- 
ning immediately behind and parallel to the Rus- 
sian frontier, the German commanders attempted, 
after the failure of this first direct attack, a new 
movement in their unceasing effort to occupy the 
nodal point of Warsaw. 
The first great movement — that from between 
the Warta and the Vistula — was at a stand- 
still. It had reached the situation expressed 
in thij following sketch. From Ilovo at I to in 
THO. 
E. PRUSSIA\ 
front of Petrokov at P the German Army faced the 
Russian, without being able to make any further 
impression. Reinforcements had reached the 
latter, it had entrenched itself, and upon the all- 
important right wing at I (which was the defence 
of Warsaw), the Vistula solved what was for the 
Russians — with the ruined railways behind them 
— their chief difficulty: the difficulty of supply. 
Under these circumstances the German com- 
manders projected a novel advance from the north. 
Of the four main lines of railways feeding 
Warsaw the most important one to the supply of 
the Russian northern army is that marked upon 
the sketch A A. To get upon this line of commu- 
nication and to cut it is to be in the rear of War- 
saw and to compel the complete retirement of the 
Russian line IP beyond the Vistula, to some such 
position as KQ. The new German forces, there- 
fore, working along the railway from East Prussia 
to Warsaw (the northern railway marked BB upon 
my sketch) advanced rapidly southward with the 
object of striking at this line AA. Once past the 
frontier town of Mlawa, they proposed to cut 
across the remaining fifty miles and to cut AA 
somewhere in the neighbourhood of DD. 
It must here be remarked that this new turning 
movement, in spite of its importance, did not in- 
volve great numbers. The whole German force here 
on the north, where it came into contact with the 
Russian defence, did not cover the front for more 
than sixteen miles. It extended from the town of 
Prasnych to the town of Liechanow, which are 
united by a tolerable high road, though by no line 
of railway (Pr and L on the sketch). 
Small, however, as was the force engaged, the 
effect of its success, had that success been 
achieved, would have been very great. If with 
seven men you are trying to turn five, your march- 
ing wing which is turning the five may consist only 
of two men, and if it succeeds it has decided the 
fate of all the twelve. 
These comparatively small forces, therefore, 
which met this week upon the front L-Pr, had 
each a very important task assigned to them. 
If the Germans should defeat the Russians 
badly, the advance upon the main communications 
of the Russian Army, the railway system AA, 
would be undertaken, and four days would ucc it 
brought to a successful conclusion. 
If, upon the other hand, the Russian defend- 
ing force should no more than merely contain or 
hold up the German advance here, the communi- 
cations Avould be safe and the position of Warsaw 
intact. 
What happened was more than a containment 
of the Germans. The Russians in this region actu- 
ally threw back the enemy : if not to the frontier, at 
any rate beyond Mlawa ; and this last of the many 
German attempts to seize the great depot and 
bridge over the Vistula and the nodal point of all 
the northern Russian communications, Warsaw, 
failed, as every such attempt in the past had failed. 
The second battle of Warsaw may continue in 
some other form, though it is difficult to see where 
Germany is going to get more men for any new 
surprise. She is already compelled to strengthen 
her forces in South Poland, for that series of 
actions to which I shall next turn. She has 
already depleted her line in the west to the very 
margin of safety. Indeed, that depletion has per- 
mitted the Allies in the west to resume something 
of an offensive, and in several places to being an 
advance, which, though covering as yet but very 
little ground, reverses the order of the last few 
weeks. 
But whether Germany finds the men to 
initiate a new phase in this second battle for War- 
saw or not, we may take it that up to the present 
moment the results of that battle are for her a; 
defeat. She had one clear objective : the town of 
Warsaw, its knot of railways and its bridge. In 
attempting to reach that objective she has been 
blocked and beaten back, and her effort has failed. 
At what loss in Germans the second battle for 
Warsaw must have failed we can only guess ; per- 
haps 150,000 since the beginning of the month. 
But more important even than that .wastage is the 
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