January 16, 1915* 
EANB AND' WATER 
gium and Luxemburg, are far from the French 
line. This attack upon Alsace has got the further 
purely strategical value that if it grows heavy, if 
the Germans have to shorten their line, they will 
be compelled to do so by an abandonment of the 
Upper Alsatian plain. It will be their shortest 
and almost their only alternative. On each of these 
considerations, and on all of them together, it 
seems certain that the offensive in this quarter is 
serious and is likely to grow more serious. 
THE SUCCESS NEAR PERTHES. 
The only other event of the week in the West, 
besides the German recapture of Burnliaupt, is the 
local French success near Perthes, in which they 
took the height " Hill No. 200." 
And here, again, we can use the highly de- 
tailed local fighting as an illustration of what the 
present trench work means. Immediately in front 
of Perthes, itself 162 metres above the sea, the 
ground swells in a sort of gradual lump to a 
rounded summit, 200 metres above the sea, or 
thereabouts — that is, about 120 feet higher than 
Perthes village. All this country is a confused, 
bare, rolling land of damp chalk and clay, and 
Perthes is almost at the highest of its monotonous 
lift. It is from this region that the little muddy 
streams, thick, white like milk in rainy weather, 
ooze from the imgrateful soil of the Champagne 
Pomlleuse. The Suippe rises not far off, and the 
Tourbe, near the farm of Beausejour, about three 
miles only from Perthes. What the French have 
done is to seize the fortified height above Perthes 
village, which is marked B upon the accompany- 
ing sketch ; and the importance of their action lies 
in its representing a further advance towards the 
railway lying behind the German trenches and 
supplying the forces that line them with munitions 
and food. 
K you had made a sketch of the French and 
German opposed trenches about a month ago in 
this region, you would probably have had something 
like the lines M M for the Germans, N N for the 
French. If you were to make a similar sketch 
to-day, you would have something like the line II R 
for the Germans and S S for the French. And 
though the advance does not represent more than 
3,000 yards at the very best from the extreme 
f*^ to jamnd.'Pre' and 
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positions held, and on an average more like 1,500, 
its whole interest lies in its approach to the railway* 
I have seen somewhere the remark that the 
capture of the point B or the HiU 200, in front of 
Perthes, gave the French gunners a dominating 
position commanding this railway. 
This is an error. The whole of that ugly naked 
landscape is far too confused to obtain a good gun 
position, and there are four lumps of much the same 
height in the same neighbourhood, which I have 
marked A, B, C and D on the sketch, while the 
shallow valleys between the swells of ground are 
not much over 100-150 feet deep. Moreover, 
artillery by indirect fire can, when it is in range, 
destroy such a work as a railway with precision 
by mere measurement upon a map. It does not 
need to dominate from a height. What an advance 
like this does is to give the guns operating against 
such an objective a shorter range over which to 
work. If, for instance, the French should reach the 
village of Tahure, more than half-way between 
Perthes and the railway, then the French, 
advancing their heavy guns behind their hne, could 
make the railway perfectly unusable. As the 
trenches now lie it may be doubted whether they 
have yet quite achieved this object. The whole 
meaning of their push forward here in the middle 
of Champagne is the approach towards the railway, 
and their foremost troops are now just under four 
miles from that line of communication and supply. 
THE POLITICAL EMBARRASSMENT OF 
THE ENEMY'S STRATEGY. 
WITH the apparent breakdown of the 
Austro-German offensive in the 
East, with the containment of the 
Austro-German offensive in the 
West, and the increasing pressure 
upon the Belgian and Alsatian extremes of the 
German lines there, we have a strategical factor 
apparent in the next phases of the war which may 
best be called "The Political Embarrassment of the 
Enemy's Strategy." 
That is, we may expect, if things continue 
upon the same lines, that the enemy will suffer 
during the next few months in the following 
fashion : — 
He will not be able to pursue purely strategi- 
cal aims. He will be embarrassed in such a pro- 
ceeding by certain political considerations which 
may confuse and which will certainly hamper what 
ought to be his purely strategical objects. 
This point is so important that it is essential 
we should make it, even though it seem a little pre- 
mature; we shall almost certainly find it domi- 
nating the future of the war ; and at the outset of 
such an inquiry the reader may well be perplexed 
by the use of that word " political." 
Wc perpetually read in military history that 
such and such a general " had designed an excellent 
plan of campaign, but it was marred by political 
9*- 
