January 2, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
fighting here, especially for the side which takes 
the offensive, are curiously similar to the corre- 
sponding diiFiculties in Flanders. 
The Russians then having fallen back to just 
behind the line of this river, their line followed its 
bank up to the place where a sub-tributary called 
the Rawka comes in from the south. They have 
paid no attention to the preservation of particular 
towns. They are evidently concerned only with 
having a defensive line as straight as possible, and 
vising as much as possible the natural obstacles of 
the country. 
Their line went on up the Rawka behind 
Skierniewice, and so up the stream to Rawa. At 
Rawa there is a break between the Upper Rawka 
and the Pilica, where there is no natural obstacle 
to defend the Russian front. As this part of the 
country is hilly, advantage can be taken of the 
broken land. The line strikes the river Pilica a 
few miles west of New Miasto, passing through 
luowlodz, where it crosses the river. It then con- 
tinues in the same north and south direction past 
Opoczno, where it strikes the railway line, which 
has very probably been partly restored in the inter- 
val since the German retreat of two months ago. 
There is again a gap south of this without any true 
defensive obstacle upon which the line can rely, 
imtil we come to the upper waters of the Lotsosina, 
which rises in the hilly country of Kielce, where 
again the railway, if it has been repaired, gives an 
opportunity for supply. From these upper v/aters 
of the Lotsosina the line runs down without break 
to the Nida River, of which it is a tributary, and 
then straight down the Nida to the place where 
that stream falls into the Vistula. It was con- 
tinued beyond the Vistula along and behind the 
River Donajez, through Tarnow, where it begins 
to rely upon a tributary of the Donajez, the Biala, 
through Tuschow, then across the hills to Jaslo, 
and thence bent back eastward to the Carpathian 
Mountains, missing Dukla by some ten or fifteen 
miles, and leaving that village and its all-impor- 
tant pass in the hands of the Austrians. 
From this general survey there will be appre- 
ciated the following points : — 
(1) The Russians have evidently fallen back 
upon a chosen position, the elements of which have 
been studied throughout the whole of its 200 miles 
of length. In other words, the retirement was 
deliberately undertaken, and halted where the 
Russian commanders intended it to halt. 
(2) The line so chosen involves a very consider- 
able retirement from before Cracow, the Russian 
line being nowhere nearer than thirty-five miles 
to that fortress. 
(3) The line so chosen equally involves a close 
iand apparently dangerous proximity to Warsaw, 
and the defence of that capital from very near at 
hand, the nearest point being Sochaczow, a little 
closer to Warsaw than the nearest point in the 
south is to Cracow. 
(4) The line is guaranteed against turning in 
the south by the Carpathian Mountains. Unless 
the enemy could cross these in very large force at 
some pass hehind the Russians, he would not be 
iable to make the Russian line fall back any further 
save by great pressure from in front. 
(5) The line is fairly well suppliedwith avenues 
of supply — the railways, which must be to some 
extent repaired already, and which must be 
getting into better working every day; the rivers. 
which are, especially in the case of the Pilica, 
navigable for boat transport ; and most important 
of all, the great trunk railway through Galicia, 
which supplies the largest force, the main Russian 
Army, in the south. 
(6) The northern flank has been left open. In 
other words, the Russians appear convinced that 
the enemy cannot threaten Warsaw from beyond 
the Vistula, that is, from the north, and may pos- 
sibly be preparing themselves to be threatening 
German communications along that river and 
along the railway which runs parallel to it. But 
of this I will speak in a moment. 
(7) The way the line is drawn is obviously 
intended to cover the existing investment of 
Przemysl, the fall of which would mean not only 
the capture of many Austrian prisoners, but the 
release of very considerable Russian forces for the 
front against Cracow. 
(8) Lastly, it is evident that the whole centre 
of this long line opposite Tomasow is defensively 
its weakest point, since it has here no natural 
obstacle along which to align itself, yet this centre 
is also the point from which the Austro-Germans 
can act with least effect. The tv/o danger points 
are Warsaw and Cracow, and the real effort of the 
Germans and their allies must be to take Warsaw 
if they can from its own neighbourhood, and to 
keep the Russians from advancing from Cracow 
into Silesia. Further, it may be noted that tho 
avenues of supply to the Germans and Austrians 
for an attack on the centre are poor. They have 
plenty of railways for operating in Galicia and for 
concentrating men upon the passes of the Carpav 
thians. They have one great line and the unfrozen 
Vistula to supply their attack in the neighbour- 
hood of Warsaw. But to maintain very large 
forces against the centre would be difficult. An 
attack in the centre is further hampered by the 
way in which the Pilica runs here, perpendicular to 
the front both of the attacking and defending 
forces. It is, even so high in its course, a formid- 
a,ble obstacle, with but few bridges and banks 
occasionally marshy ; it thus separates the attack 
into two halves at this point — two halves which 
can only with difficulty reinforce the one the other. 
So much being said of the general plan, let us 
turn to a consideration of the two actions in par- 
ticular. Their present phase is instructive and, 
compared with the news of the last two months, 
reassuring. 
L— THE BATTLE FOR WARSAW. 
The battle for Warsaw is essentially concerned 
only with the Rawka and Lower Bzura Rivers. 
South of Rawa there was neither, till now, a sufficient 
German force concentrated nor a sufficiently short 
approach to Warsaw itself to produce or to make 
desired a decisive effijrt. North of the Vistula there 
was nothing being done. The whole action there- 
fore lay upon a front of about 50 miles, this front 
corresponding accurately to the courses of the 
rivers. Save on the extreme left, as Rawa is 
approached, the landscape Is one very dead and 
even. It is rolling indeed, and diversified by fairly 
numerous M\atercourses, especially in the south of 
the field. But In the Immediate neighbourhood of 
the Bzura River it is what I have described above, a 
dull winter landscape, with hardly, at this moment, 
the relief of more than a sprinkling of snow. The 
River Bzura Is, during this lower part of its course, 
about 50 yards wide. It is everywhere shallow, and 
9* 
