■January 16, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
purpose. Next grant that B is divided by the 
dotted line C-D into two halves. B not being one 
homogeneous State, but two States, B-1 and B-2. 
Next let it be granted that while B-1 is more 
likely to remain attached in its alliance to A, B-2 
is more separate from the Alliance in moral ten- 
dency, and is also materially the weaker half of 
B. Finally, let the whole group A-B be subject to 
the attack of enemies from the right and from the 
left, from the right along the arrows X-X-X, and 
from the left along the arrows Y-Y by two groups 
of enemies represented by the areas M and N 
respectively. 
It is obvious that in such a situation, if A is 
the chief object of attack, and is the power which 
has both provoked the conflict and made itself the 
chief object of assault by M and N, A is by this 
arrangement in a position politically weak. 
That is, the strategical position of A is gravely 
embarrassed by the way in which his Ally B sepa- 
rated into the two halves B-1 and B-2 stands with 
regard to himself. B-2 is isolated and thrust out- 
ward. The enemy M upon the right, attacking 
along the lines X-X-X, may be able to give B-2 a 
very bad time before he gets into the area of 
B-1 and long before he gets into the area of the 
stronger power A. It is ojDen to M so to harass 
B-2 that B-2 is prepared to break with B-1 and 
give up the war ; or, if the bond between B-2 and 
B-1 is strong enough, to persuade B-1 to give up 
the struggle at the same time that he does. And 
if B-2 is thus harassed to the breaking point, the 
•whole Alliance A plus B will lose the men and 
materials and wealth represented by B-2, and may 
lose the whole shaded area B, leaving A to support 
singly for the future the combined attacks of M 
and N along the lines of attack X-X-X and Y-Y. 
Now, that diagram accurately represents the 
political embarrassment in strategy of the Ger- 
man-AustroiHungarian Alliance. B-1 is Austria 
and Bohemia ; B-2 is Hungary ; A is the German 
Empire ; M is the Russians ; N is the Allies in the 
West. With a geographical arrangement such as 
that of the Germanic Alliance, a comparatively 
small proportion of the Russian forces detached to 
harry the Hungarian Plain can make the Hun- 
garians, who have little moral attachment to the 
Austrians, and none whatever to the Germans, 
abandon the struggle to save themselves ; while it 
is possible that this outlier being thus detached 
wifl drag with it its fellow half, the Austrian half 
of the dual monarchy, cause the Government of 
the dual monarchy to sue for peace, and leave the 
German Empire isolated to support the undivided 
attention of the Russians from the East and of the 
French from the West. 
It is clear that if a strong Power, A, allied 
with and dependent for large resources in men 
upon a weaker Power, B, is attacked from the left 
and from the right, the ideal arrangement for the 
strong Power, A, would be something in the 
nature of the following diagram, where the weaker 
Power stands protected in the territory of the 
stronger Power, and where of the two halves of 
the weaker Power, B-2, the less certain half, is 
especially protected from attack. 
Were Switzerland, Alsace-Lorraine, and the 
Rhine land upon the one hand, the Hungarian 
Plain, Russian Poland, and East Prussia upon fhe 
other hand, united in one strong, patriotic, homo- 
geneous German-speaking group with the Govern- 
ment of Berlin and the Baltic Plain, and were 
Bavaria, Switzerland, the Tyrol, Bohemia to con- 
stitute the weaker and less certain ally, while the 
least certain half of that uncertain ally lay ia 
Eastern Bohemia and in what is now Lower Aus- 
tria, well defended from attack upon the East, the 
conditions would be exactly reversed, and the 
Austro-German Alliance would be geographically 
and politically of the stronger sort. As it is, the 
combined accidents of geography and political cir- 
cumstance make it peculiarly vulnerable. 
And that is my first point. 
My second point concerns the German Empire 
alone. 
A 
Let us suppose a Power concerned to defend 
itself against invasion and situated between two 
groups of enemies, from the left and from the 
right. We will again call that Power A, the enemy 
upon the right M, and the enemy upon the left N , 
the first attacking along the lines X-X, and the 
second along the lines Y-Y. 
Let us suppose that A has political reasons for 
particularly desiring to save from invasion four 
districts, the importance of which I have indicated 
on the above diagram by shading, and which I 
have numbered 1,2, 3, and 4. 
Let us suppose that those four districts happen 
to lie at the four exposed corners of the area which 
A has to defend. The Government of A knows it 
to be essential to success in the war that his terri- 
tory should not be invaded. Or, at least, if it is 
invaded it must not, under peril of collapse, be 
invaded in the shaded areas. 
It is apparent, upon the very face of such a 
diagram, that with the all-important shaded areas 
situated in the corners of his quadrilateral, A is 
heavily embarrassed. He must disperse his forces 
in order to protect all four. If wastage of men 
compels him to shorten his line on the right against 
M, he will be immediately anxious as to whether 
he can dare sacrifice 4 to save 2, or whether he 
should run the dreadful risk of sacrificing 2 
to save 4. 
If wastage compels him to shorten his defen- 
sive line upon the left, he is in a similar quandary 
between 1 and 3. 
The whole situation is one in which he is quite 
certain that a defensive war, long before he is 
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