LAND AND WATER 
February 20, 1915. 
THE GENERAL MEANING OF THE 
MOVEMENT. 
L 
The new counter-offensive taking place as it 
does upon both wings of the enemy's lines between - j .^ tt t^ i,-i *i 
Rouniania and the Baltic has. in general, two dis- Lupkow and the Uszog Passes, while they are 
To-day the new German bodies and the neW 
German drafts, which were here helping the Aus- 
trians, and in every probability a great mass of new 
Austrian troops as well, are doing more than hold 
as best they can the Russian strength in the Dukla, 
tinct elements of the highest moment to us in the 
West First it is apparent that the recent efforts of 
the Russians, though acting with inferior numbers, 
have at last drawn the newly trained men of the 
enemy to the East, not only in the regular drafts 
which have been coming in t'or a long time past to 
fill gaps, but in larger numbers, including probably 
-whole new formations on a grand scale. The enemy 
ias, therefore, decided that a violent new effort in 
Poland is necessary to him, and that until some 
sort of more or less conclusive result is arrived at 
there he must continue to direct on to that field his 
^remaining reserves. 
Secondly, it is obvious that this great move- 
ment has not one co-ordinated strategic object. 
This last point is really an imi>ortant one for 
us to seize. It is on a par vsdth so much that has 
already appeared in this campaign that we cannot 
afford to neglect it, and the lack of co-ordination 
apparent in this new counter-offensive is perhaps 
the chief adverse element to the enemy in the whole 
problem — for on the north, that is, upon his left 
bearing heavily against the Russians to the South, 
have forced them back well into Bukovina, have 
passed the line of the Sereth River, and propose 
to attack Czernovitz: the reason of this swing 
being the desire or necessity of the Austro-Ger- 
mans, first to produce the moral effect of impress- 
ing Roumania in this neighbourhood, and secondly 
to produce the local strategic effect of separating 
if possible the actual Russian from the potential 
Roumanian Army in the near future. 
With these preliminary observations we can 
examine the whole of the eastern field and the new 
developments therein. And I propose to take that 
examination in the following order: — 
First. — To analyse the northern operations: 
that is, in brief, to consider the lines of the Niemen 
and Narew. 
Second. — To examine the present situation in 
the Carpathians. 
Thirdly. — To consider what indications we 
now have of the presence and extent of the 
new 
proDiem-ior on lae noiiu, txiat i6, iiijuii nis leii ^^ formations" in both fields. Inadequate as is 
wmg he is acting with a purely strategic object, ^j^^ liaterial upon this latter point, it must be 
upon his right with an object largely political 
We must not misconceive the origin of this 
double motive. It is not due to confusion, it is due 
to necessity. In the north the political problem is 
a clean one. Two great forces at the orders of two 
great Governments with no serious neutral within 
striking distance at all are at issue, and victory 
or defeat will be determined by the action of exist- 
ing armies alone. Therefore is it that the problem 
the Germans are engaged in at the Baltic end of 
their line is a purely strategic problem. 
On the other hand, the problem the Austrians 
and Germans are engaged upon at the Carpathian 
■end of their lice has become mainly a political one. 
Here there is a powerful neutral — a neutral 
capable of throwing. into the field nearly or quite 
upon 
stated as clearly as possible, because what we shall 
have to meet in the West in the near future de- 
pends entirely upon what the enemy is having to 
spend now in the East : he only has a certain num- 
ber of men to ^o round. 
AND 
T 
I.— THE LINE OF THE NIEMEN 
THE NAREW. 
HREE points have been perpetually in- 
sisted upon in these notes as the founda- 
tions to any apprehension of the vVar in 
i'oland. These three points are : — 
(a) The inferiority (which lis bound 
to continue for some time to come) of our Allies in 
numbers, in equipment and in amount of ammimi- 
half a million men, a neutral whose capacity for tion in the face of their enemy's superiority in all 
war, though not recently tested, is believed, inso- three. 
mucii as this capacity depends upon organisation, {h) The lack of railways upon our Allies' terri- 
to be very high, and a neutral whose popular syra- tory, coupled with the necessity of a railway to the 
pathies are very well known to be opposed to our functioning of a modern army, particularly in its 
enemies. That neutral is Roumania. artillery. 
So long as the problem in the Carpathians re- (c) The all-importance of Warsaw as a bridge 
mained a strategic problem, so long v/as the and a railway nexus: its importance being such 
struggle a struggle for the northern passes, and that the Germans holding or cutting off Warsaw 
ultimately for the great transverse railway by the destroy the offensive power of Russia west of the 
use of which alone can an army in Galicia live Vistula and the San — that is, the offensive power 
of Russia against Prussian territory as a whole. 
Now, in the light of these three principles, the 
strategic object of the new German advance in the 
north is perfectly clear. They propose to control 
that one of the three main railways meeting in 
Warsaw which runs northward and eastward — 
the main international line to St. Petersburg. 
through the winter : so long was it secondarily a 
struggle for the release of Przemysl, but in the last 
two weeks the German General Staff and their 
Austrian Allies have evidently received news 
■which convinces them, rightly or wrongly, that 
Roumania is in the act of deciding. 
The whole weight of the campaign upon the 
south, or right wing of the Austro-Germans, there- With that in their hands the capture of Warsaw is 
fore, has swung as though upon an axis. It is but achieved. Munitions cannot in great amounts, 
three weeks ago that their main effort was directed nor the newly equipped men as they probably 
to the maintenance of the Dukla, of the Lupkow arrive in great numbers, supply the defensive of 
and the Uszog, and not a month ago wh-en Russian the vital points or maintain that long line which 
forces in Bukovina were steadily advancing, and stretches across Poland from the mouth of the 
in one place <'Kirli-baba) had crossed the ridge of Bzura almost due south to the Carpathians, 
the mountains. The natural defences lying along this line of 
2« 
