LAND AND WATER 
February 6, 1915i 
the sweep of country from the Argonne to Berry- 
au-bac is much the most open in the whole line, and 
the soil is one which, though veiy sodden and difficult 
immediately after rain, is fairly quick to dry. It is 
the soil in which the Prussian regiments found it 
impossible to move forward at Valny, but had 
they attacked three days later they woiild have 
carried the hill, for even half a week of dry wind 
gives you fair going. In the Champagne Pouilleuse 
the earth is a mixture of chalk and light clay, the 
obstacles in all this sector are quite insignificant, 
there are no woods save a few regular stunted 
plantations, and the streams are little white sluggish 
things, such as the Suippes, which not even stop 
vehicles in all their upper courses. 
The drawback to making an attack in force in 
the Champagne Pouilleuse is that it has to be con- 
ducted in a country where every movement is 
observable for miles, that were it successful it would 
find immediately in front of it one of the best 
defensive positions in the whole of France known as 
the "Cliffe of Champagne " and consisting in steep 
hillside running north and south from the neigh- 
bourhood of Reims right down to beyond the level 
of Chalons and to nearly opposite Vitry. 
4. The fourth sector, the " elbow " where the 
great line of trenches comes nearest to Paris (you 
can motor out from Paris to the trenches, spend an 
hour upon your message there and be back in Paris 
all between breakfast and lunch) looks the most 
tempting opportunity of all, but that appearance 
is Lttle more than a suggestion caused by the 
shape of the line. If the attempt be made 
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here it will be made only because the lure 
of Paris will prove pohticaUy too strong for purely 
military plans. The point of a salient like this 
is not the best point for attacking a line as a 
whole ; if while you are attacking inside the angle 
and trying to break it at its point (a) your enemy 
with an equal force strikes it on either side as at (b) 
or (c) he will imperil you far more than you are 
imperilling him, he will be quite certain if he is 
successful to cut the avenues by which you live, for 
those avenues are necessarily confined to the narrow 
aarea of the angle. You do not, even if you break 
through, threaten Txis communications, which, 
especially under the particular circumstances of the 
case in question, are at large. He can be fed, 
ammunitioned, from anywhere along the open 
country behind him, M-M-M and N-N-N. You ara 
dependent on 0-0-0. It is almost true to say the 
first appearance of a great force upon the side 
of such a salient is sufficient to prevent the com- 
mander of an equal enemy force firom proceeding to 
attempt an issue through the point of the salienL 
Whatismuch more likely, if the enemy proposes to usd 
his new armies in this sector at all, is that he would 
move to attack one side of the angle, as Soissons to 
the east of it or Eoye to the north of it. But 
even so he would be acting under difficulties and a< 
corresponding force striking at the side opposite to 
him would, if it were successful, destroy him. The 
only advantage that he would have would be that 
working inside the angle he could more quickly 
decide which side to attack than his enemy could 
concentrate for the counter attack upon his flank. 
Take it all in all the use of the new German 
armies in the " elbow " of the line would be the use 
of them in the worst possible place of all the five 
sectors. If the gap made were narrow it would be 
useless or rather disastrous, and to make it broad 
against the convergence of the defence on either 
side is hardly possible. 
5. The last sector, the sixty miles or so from 
the Arras region to the sea, would of course, if it 
were the object of attack, reproduce the conditions 
of all the earlier fighting. These conditions would be 
reproduced with the advantage to the enemy of his 
new formations and increased numbers. He would 
have the same objectives the French side of the 
Straits of Dover and the possible turning of the 
French line by the North. He would guarantee 
himself from any future danger of being attacked 
along his own right flank from the Belgian coast 
and m general success here would rank only second 
in its military efiect to success in the sector of 
Verdun, while the political efiect, for what that is 
worth, would be much greater. Further, it would 
be a local success won after months of effort over 
ground the names of which are the household words 
of every party to this campaign in the west, the 
enemy would hold Arras itself, Bethune, Boulogne 
and Calais, Hazebrouck, St. Omer, Ypres and 
Nieuport. That is only a moral point, but it is 
worth counting. More than one critical authoiity 
has gone so far as to say that the new oflensive will 
certainly be delivered against this fifth sector. That 
seems to me a great deal too strong. .Nothing is 
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