February 6, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
THE WAR BY LAND. 
By HILAIRE BELLOC. 
HOTE,— Tbli Article hit beta labalttcd to th« Preii Boreta, which doei not object to the publication «• ceniored and takei no 
reiptnilbilltr for the correctneii of the statemcnti. 
la accordance with the reqilrencnti of the Preit Borean, the poiltloni of troopi on Plant lUuitratln; thli Article mnit only be 
regarded a> approzlaate, and no definite itrenfth at any point It Indicated. 
THE EASTERN FIELD. 
IN the eastern field Russia has now developed 
a plan the elements of which are quite clear, 
though the counter-moves of the enemy are 
as yet only partially developed, and the fac- 
tors making for success or failure are still 
c|mte indeterminate. 
The plan is, briefly, to hold the centre with no 
more than sufficient troops (even in front of War- 
saw), and to attack — with political as well as 
purely military objects — on the two wings. 
The opportunities and difficulties of these I 
will discuss separately. 
Upon the immensely extended line a thousand 
miles long in its total trace, counting its recesses 
and local salients, the Russians have endured as 
to all the centre a violent offensive, the culminating 
sector in which has been the fifty miles imme- 
diately in front of Warsaw along the Lower Bzura 
and its tributary the Rawka. This offensive, 
though still renewed, has failed, and is probably 
nearly exhausted. It has cost the enemy very 
heavily in men, probably in men permanently dis- 
abled or killed or prisoners along the whole Polish 
line, as many as a quarter of a million — perhaps 
more. The difficulties of ambulance, especially in 
the centre of Poland, hasve rendered unusually 
high the German permanent losses, and correspon- 
dingly low the number of the wounded who will 
ever be able to return to the colours. 
But the enemy, upon the model of his similar 
action in the West after similar failure there, has 
entrenched himself and has begun to depend upon 
the support of heavy artillery for the maintenance 
of his entrenched position. These trenches run; 
from the Middle Vistula to the Upper Vistula, a 
line not far from straight and approximately 160 
miles long. From the Upper Vistula to the Car- 
pathians the front continues just along the Dona- 
jec river, then up a tributary, the Biala, up to the 
foothills of the Carpathians, and here a certain 
amount of continued trench work, but more the 
balance of artillery and the vile weather, keeps it 
stationary. 
It is this length of line from the Middle Vis- 
tula near the mouth of the Bzura to the Upper 
Biala (a tributary continuing the Donajec line) — 
say, 200 miles or more — which may be regarded 
as the centre of the whole vast scheme ; and that 
centre is for the moment immobile. The Germans 
and Austro-Hungarians, who are in much larger 
numbers here than their opponents, cannot ad- 
vance further than the line so drawn up, not even 
in front of Warsaw. 
But on either side of this centre are two wings, 
differing greatly in character, and it is upon these 
two wings that the Russian movement is taking 
place. The southern or left Russian wing runs 
all along the base of the Carpathians from the 
upper torrent-reaches of the Biala to the borders 
of Roumania: that is, to the district called the 
Bukovina, Austrian before this war in political 
definition, Roumanian in population. 
All along this left or southern wing the Rus- 
sians are more or less advanced into the mouths 
of the Carpathian Passes. They do not hold the 
summits of any one of them, and against the efforts 
they are about to make in this region — particularly 
from the Bukovina — the Germanic Powers are 
massing very large forces, the nature and the 
chances of which will be discussed in a moment. 
On the northern or right wing of the immense 
Russian line the situation is as follows: — 
There are three sectors : 
(1) The district between the Vistula and the 
East Prussian border, a district in the form of a 
wedge, a hundred miles broad at its base, dwind- 
ling to nothing at its apex in front of Thorn. 
(2) A front upon " the region of the lakes," 
this front stretching roughly from Goldap to Oso- 
viecs. This front is about sixty to seventy miles 
broad. 
(3) Finally, there is the northern sector run- 
ning right up to the Baltic and measuring about 
100 miles or a little more in extent. 
With these elements clear we can study our 
Ally's plan as it appears to be conceived for the 
immediate future, and the enemy's apparent coun- 
ter-plan so far as this has developed. 
But before taking either of these movements 
upon the wings in detail, we must appreciate the 
most general conditions under which the whole 
struggle must take place for at least four months! 
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