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December 26, 1914. 
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fore this second retirement began was roughly at 
A-A. It is now roughly at B-B. The western 
passes on the left of the sketch having been taken 
by the Austrian reinforcements was one of the 
main reasons that the Russians fell back. It may 
well be that with the capture of further passes 
more to the right we shall see a further Eussian 
retirement to the line, C-C, which would involve 
the uncovering of Przemysl, and the raising of the 
siege of that fortress. 
All this, both the retirement that has already 
been effected, and that which may well follow, is 
a success for the enemy, and a corresponding 
check to the cause of our Allies. But so long as 
the retirement takes place astride of and in pos- 
session of the main railivay, R-B, there is nothing 
remotely approaching a decision. 
If, indeed, the southern part of the Eussian 
line were bent back so that instead of occupying 
the line, B-B, which it does now occupy, it were 
to be forced into some such shape as the dotted 
line, B-D, then the Austro-Germans would have 
achieved a very great, and, so far as this stage of 
the war is concerned and this field of action, a 
decisive result. 
Why? Because in a modern war a railway is 
essential to your supply, and because, under the 
particular conditions of the Galician campaign, it 
is peculiarly vital. North of this main line, E-E, 
there is no railway communication for a good 
week's march. There is no avenue, therefore, by 
which the Eussian Armies can be supplied with 
shell, let alone with a sufficiency of other muni- 
tions and of food. Consider how this series of 
actions is being fought. You have vast stretches 
of rolling land covered with snow and swept at 
short intervals by violent storms of piercing wind. 
Even such roads as there were, mostt of them mere 
tracks of mud, have disappeared. The great 
patches of forest, empty of men and shelter in any 
form, are further obstacles to convoy, and across 
a landscape of this kind so largely deserted and 
so ijnpossible for wheeled transport at this season, 
these great bodies of men are struggling, wholly 
dependent for their chief munitions upon the line 
which still remains open or, in the neighbourhood 
of the water, upon transport by the Vistula, which 
still remains unfrozen. Let the Eussians lose the 
railway and the Vistula must again become their 
line, but under climatic conditions far worse than 
those in which they won the first battle of Warsaw 
two months ago. But so long as they retain pos- 
session of the railway, whether they are retiring 
along it or advancing along it is strategically of no 
very considerable moment. It is the retention of 
the line itself that is essential. 
Now, consider the other decisive element, the 
possession of Warsaw. The reason that Warsaw 
is of such strategical value in the Polish campaign 
has been insisted on over and over again in these 
notes. It is at once a vast depot, a crossing-place 
to a very difficult obstacle, and a knot of railway 
communications in a land where railways are 
very rare, where only one other crossing-place 
exists over the Vistula for 200 miles, and where 
only two or three siniilar large human agglomera- 
tions can be found upon a radius of 100 miles at 
least. It is upon this account, coupled with its 
political importance, that the Germans have made 
the great efforts they have for now a month past 
to obtain possession of the city. Let us see how 
far they have progressed in this attempt during 
the last few days. 
The rio-ht or northern end of the Eussian line 
across Poland ran, less than a fortnight ago, from 
the Vistula near Ilovo to the Bzura at Lowicz, and 
thence along that river southwards to positions be- 
hind Lodz. It ran, in other words, like tlie line 
of crosses on the accompanying sketch. At the 
end of last week it ran, so far as one can gather 
from putting together the communiques received, 
as the dotted line does upon the same sketch ; that 
is, from just behind the point where the Bzura 
falls into the Vistula, through Sochazow and so 
along and behind the river, which it gradually 
left, crossing the Eawka, a tributary of the Bzura, 
and so southward roughly parallel with the ori- 
ginal line^ but abandonixig Lowicz. It may be 
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