LAND AND WATER 
January 23, 1915. 
ma point C, and if we allow for the distance be- 
tween any one of these points one day for entrain- 
ing, carriage and disentraining. His last rein- 
forcements will, in the case of an attack on B, ar- 
rive within a delay of two days, which is the length 
of the journey from the extremes to the centre ; 
while in the case of C his last reinforcements will 
arrive in a delay of four days, which is the length 
of the journey from A to C. 
But apart from this arithmetical line of argu- 
ment we have the noticeable fact that before any 
of these concentrations took place the enemy's line 
is demonstrably weakened in all sorts of points 
save where the main attack is being delivered 
upon it. 
Thus, the last two weeks which have seen a 
concentration upon Soissons and upon Burnhaupt, 
in two regions where the French had lised their 
initiative to develop an unexpected activity and to 
press home, a whole series of minor successes were 
registered by the Allies in many places scattered 
along the line. There was the advance befoire 
Perthes, the perceptible advances at Roye, and in 
front of Arras, north-east of Verdun and just north 
of Pont-h,-Mousson. In other words, you get on the 
III 
line A, B, C, two strong French attacks which by 
successive reinforcement of the enemy are turned 
back at B and at C, but meanwhile you are getting 
smaller but more numerous successes of the Allies 
at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, where the line must in all 
probability have been perilously weakened by the 
enemy. 
The enemy, then, is still drawing upon his 
existing line. 
There is a second conclusion to be drawn from 
this state of affairs which is also of moment in aid- 
ing our judgment upon the present phase of the 
war, and this is that the enemy is now put into 
great anxiety by the thinness of his line. 
When the French took Steinbach and the gun 
position dominating Cernay, their whole advance 
■was no more than a mile and a-half ; yet it sum- 
moned down into Upper Alsace from other por- 
tions of the line, at least an extra German division. 
The French captured, before they lost Burnhaupt, 
2,000 prisoners, and accounted for at least as manjf 
more killed and wounded; and casualties of 4,000 
do not mean less than a division at work— at least 
where that division is successful. 
The French at Soissons found themselves at 
last in front of quite 40,000 men upon a front of 
little over three miles. Now, let the argument 
consequent upon this be carefully noted. If the 
enemy had made these great concentrations of 
men for the purpose of attack we could not arrive 
at the conclusion that he was anxious for the stabi- 
lity of his line. On the contrary, we could con- 
clude that he was quite secure behind his " wall " 
and could therefore choose his own moments and 
places for striking. 
But the enemy made a concentration utterly 
different from this in character, both at Burn- 
haupt and in front of Soissons. He did not mean 
to concentrate and did not attempt to concentrate 
until the forces that were pressing him had 
achieved a certain result, and when that result was 
achieved, although in each case it was quite a small 
thing in mere distance (the advance of a mile in 
one case and of less than two miles in the other), 
he at once is at the expense of weakening his line 
elsewhere and of forming concentrations for re- 
pelling an attack which, slight as it seems, he 
judges may be fatal. 
It is but the repetition with further proof of 
what has been said so often in these columns : — 
The problem before the Allies in the West is 
not the problem of gradually pushing bach an op- 
posing force ; it is the problem of compelling that 
force under pressure to shorten lines which are 
already as stretched as they can be, consistently 
ivith being held at all ; and when the compulsion 
for shortening these lines shall arrive, it cannot 
take the Jorm of gradual retirements from one line 
of trenches to another close behind it ; it can 07ily 
take the form of a wholesale retirement, eitJier 
evacuating Northern France arid half Belgium or 
evacuating Alsace. 
All this does not mean that the enemy may not 
in the near future bring up large reinforcements 
and new formations with the object of hold- 
ing his line unshortened. It does not mean that 
he may not, even in the near future, bring up re- 
inforcements so large as to take the offensive again. 
It only means that the considerable movements 
which we have seen during the last two 
weeks, and particularly at Burnhaupt and 
before Soissons, prove the non-existence so 
far of such reinforcement; and it also proves 
the twin facts that the enemy fears gravely 
for the stability of his line in the west and only 
reinforces threatened points at the expense of the 
general strength along the rest of it. 
We can sum up, therefore, and say that in the 
last two weeks, including Soissons, we have had 
upon a line of some 400 miles between the Swiss 
mountains and the North Sea a considerable body 
of German reinforcements successfully resisting 
attacks delivered in front of Soissons (1) and in 
Upper Alsace (2), but that the concentration along 
the lines to these points has been effected at a cost 
of so weakening the general strength of the lines, 
that the Allies have exercised successful pressure 
upon a smaller scale by the French in front of Nieu- 
port {a), in front of Lens (b), by the French in 
front of Arras (c), in front of Roye (d), in front of 
Perthes (e), north-east of Verdun (/), north of 
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