January 9, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
THE WAR BY LAND. 
By HILAIRE BELLOC. 
HOTB.— Tkfi ArttcU ku b«*i labattttd t« the Preii Bnreaa, which doei not object to the pobllcitlon ai eeBiored end takei a* 
reipoBtlbtlity for the correetaeii of the itttemeati. 
b aMordtaco with the reqatreaeati of the Preii Bareao, the poiltloai of troopi on Plane lllaitratlnf tbli Article mnit only be 
retarded ae approximate, and no definite itrength at any point li Indicated. 
THE WEST. 
THE week just past, while it has been the 
most stagnant of the whole autumn and 
winter so far as the trench work in the 
West is concerned, happens to have pro- 
vided excellent examples of what that 
trench work means, and of why slight advances in 
one place or another, or slight losses, may be of 
such moment. 
I.— THE AFFAIRS AT SILLERY AND 
PERTHES. 
About a week ago the Germans reported and 
the French admitted the capture and destruction 
of a French trench by a mine. The progress thus 
obtained by the Germans in the region of Sillery 
was insignificant. The French casualties were 
limited to one company, and part of the ground 
was retaken. The whole incident if we read it by 
We have already seen in these columns what 
the general problem of trench work is. A very 
long line is held by numbers only just sufficient to 
maintain themselves : continual attacks upon that 
line are not intended to have the effect of slowly 
driving it back, nor even of breaking it in one weak 
place (that is the task of the reserve whenever it 
comes into play). They are intended, by attri- 
tion, to give the enemy pause at last and to make 
him consider whether he still has enough men to 
hold so very extended a series of defensive posi- 
tions. For when he decides that his numbers are 
no longer sufficient for that task, he may be com- 
pelled to fall back to a shorter line, and such a 
shorter line means, in the case of the western field, 
a very serious retirement, carrying with it politi- 
cal consequences of which I will speak later. 
But apart from this general character of 
trench fighting there are particular examples to 
show how success in one region or another may 
have effects quite out of proportion to the compa- 
ratively small measure of advance made. Of this 
we have had this week three examples: the first 
a small example of a German success five miles 
from Reims; the second a small success of the 
French in the plains of Champagne at Perthes; 
the third a much more important success of the 
French in Upper Alsace, at Stcinbach. I will 
deal with the first two together and with the third 
separately. 
itself would be confusing reading, and apparently 
of little moment : one of those very numerous de- 
tails of all this fighting with which weeks and 
months have made us only too familiar. 
Similarly, another telegram, a French one, 
announced the advance of the French trenches, 
first by 300, then by 600 yards, in the neighbour- 
hood of Perthes, a village about ten miles west 
of the Argonne Forest and about twenty-five miles 
east of Reims. 
This French communique also, read by itself, 
would mean very little, and would make almost 
meaningless reading. Whether the French ad- 
vance was admitted in the German communique 
or not I forget, nor is it of importance. The little 
forward movement was made and it was main- 
tained, and like that at Sillery, twenty miles off 
to the left in the same line of trenches, it was 
apparently of little value. 
But when Ave come to look at the thing as a 
whole, we see more clearly what particular effects 
successes of this kind may have. 
Here is a rough sketch of the trenches, over 
a space about sixty miles in length, from east to 
west. From in front of or north of the town of 
Reims, to the north-east of the lown of Verdun. 
It will be seen that the line is by no means a 
straight one. From Avhere it starts, well to the 
north of Reims (it has here been pressed back by 
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