February 20, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
Kovno, then, is the point upon which we shall both his pursuit of the Russians after Tannenberg 
probably find our attention fixed during the next 
few days. Any turning movement round Kovno 
for the investment of that fortress meets with two 
obstacles, with which I shall next deal. 
Upon the right bank of the River Niemen 
in front of Kovno, from the point of view of 
the German advance along that bank there are two 
obstacles, of which the one is far more serious than 
the other. The first of these is the small River 
Dubissa. The line of this stands at a rather less 
distance from Kovno than does the line of the 
Bzura and the Rawka from Warsaw. It is in the 
twenty odd miles away at its junction with the 
Niemen instead of in the thirties. It is important 
to note this, because it is evident that the furnish- 
ing of a defensive front being, as it is, in the nature 
of the spokes of a fan, a certain amount of elbow- 
room is of advantage. If you have to distribute 
ammunition and food over a front, say, of thirty 
miles from a point only five miles behind that front, 
your extreme munitionment will be very much, 
more hampered than your central munitionment, 
and the co-ordination of your defences will be 
adversely affected. Still, twenty odd miles is 
enough for a radius, and the Dubissa might well 
and their earlier operations were conducted m 
this difficult belt, the answer is that which I gave 
last week, that until either party had sufficient 
numbers equipped and ready neither could extend 
its line so far up to the North as the open country 
beyond the lakes and the Kovno-Tilsit district. 
Now, with sufficient forces for reaching north of 
the lakes and near the Baltic, to link up with the 
general line, obviously the enemy, as much as our 
Allies, will prefer the easier going, and the attack 
will hardly develop its main strength in the 
Suwalki, Kovno, Osiwiec district. 
That is why we hear of the Russians holding 
their own at Lyck. They are holding their own 
at Lyck because the main German forces are not 
pressing in the centre at all, but to the north and 
to the south of it. 
Now, when you get south of Osiwiec you are 
on that string of minor fortresses Lomza, Ostro- 
lenka, Roshan, Pultusk, Sierok, which all follow 
the line of the river and repose upon the very 
strong ring of Novo Georgievsk. Nevertlieless it is 
to be presumed that a great effort will be made by 
the enemy in this belt and probably a little to the 
south of Ostrolenka. It is true that he bas here 
be the line upon which a defensive to prevent the ^° railway, but h'e has fairly good roads and a 
investment of Kovno upon the north would stand. railway to the north of him, not much more than 
But the Dubissa is even at its approach to the ^^^ days' march away on the frontier, and to the 
Niemen quite a small stream, and it slopes away ^^st of him at (C), (C) from four days to nothing 
in its upper reaches from the Kovno position, according to his^pproach to that railway down the 
Much nearer Kovno, indeed about an hour or two 
outside the western suburbs of that half-Polish 
town, is a far more formidable obstacle, the 
Niewiasa. This stream is deeper and broader than 
the former. It is not defendable by marsh land, 
but there is a considerable belt of wood in strips 
along either bank, a feature which, unfortunately, 
cuts both ways, but, on the whole, is better for the 
defence in the situation of that particular line, 
because the woods screen the massing of men 
behind the river better than they do the massing of 
men in front of it. The Niewiasa, then, is the line 
which would be the obvious position were it not 
so near the town itself. The Wilia, a very formid- 
able stream, which enters at Kovno itself, is, of 
course, out of the question except at some distance 
from the town, for the town itself is astraddle of 
the water. Indeed, Kovno has only been fortified 
because it affords protection to the junction of the 
Niemen and the Wilia, just as Namur affords it 
to the junction of the Sambre and the Meuse. 
By this it is not meant that we shall see a stand 
either upon the Dubissa or the Niewiasa. A line 
of trenches might be held upon the right bank, 
well forward of either position, "or, again, a main 
German advance from the south might be the chief 
operation, but so far as natural obstacles are con- 
cerned, these are the only two in the neighbour- 
hood of the northern German advance. 
Such being the elements of Kovno and its dis- 
trict, (the point where Napoleon watched his 
armies cross into Russia, his hands clasped behind 
his back and he whistling " Malbrook." It was the 
height of June; there was hardly darkness in 
that high latitude, though it was but just past the 
midnight), let us consider next the more southern 
portions of the Line. 
The enemy has already experience of an 
attempt upon the Grodno district, where he failed 
river Narew. We may sum up and say that this 
new German offensive in the north, not unexpected 
in its nature, but somewhat unexpected in its 
rapidity, will presumably include two different 
operations — the attempt to invest Kovno and the 
attempt to pass the Narew south of Ostrolenka. 
Of these two operations the former definitely turns 
the defensive line; the latter alone would imme- 
diately strike at the great northern line of com- 
munication of which Warsaw is terminus ;_and we 
must again bear in mind at this stage that in the 
two operations Kovno, which will be quite a sepa- 
rate matter on the Russian defensive side from the 
holding of the Lower Narew, is the easier task for 
the enemy to undertake. But the stroke at Ostro- 
lenka and south of it, should it be successful, would 
be the more fruitful for the enemy because it would 
lead, were it successful, to the cutting off of 
Warsaw. 
Meanv.^hile, the enemy is, as usual, making 
everything he can of his advance in his reports:' 
every bogged or disabled gun of the Russian re- 
treat is counted, and every wounded man left 
behind — while vague total numbers, obviously ex- 
aggerated, are given us of his captures as he ad- 
vances. But it is quite certain that there has as 
yet been no decisive action in this field. The whole 
business has been the retreat of half-a-dozen Rus- 
sian corps before, perhaps, ten or twelve German 
ones, just concentrated for this new effort. 
II.— THE CARPATHIAN FRONT. 
F these are the conditions upon the extreme 
left or northern wing of the vast line, and 
if these purely strategic considerations de- 
termine the actions there taking place, 
what determines the corresponding action' 
upon the southern or right hand, where the* 
Roumanian border marches with that of Russia; 
60 conspicuously last autumn. If it be asked why and of the Austro-Hungarian empire ? 
6* 
