March 13, 1915. 
LAND AND ,W A T E R. 
point— the moment ■which will presumably be 
that of greatest strain — a sort or watershed in 
the history of the struggle, after which the 
failure or success of what is now an attack upon 
a besieged district will begin to take clear 
shape. And even this conjecture upon the 
critical point in the campaign must be made 
subject to the reservation tnat the entry of 
certain forces now neutral would heavily 
modify any conclusion now drawn. This being 
said, let us consider the two remaining factors 
I have mentioned above. 
First, in the matter of topography, we must 
remember that the forcing of an entrenched 
line, or the wearing of it down, and the com- 
pelling of an enemy to shorten it (which is the 
problem in the west) is, even supposing 
superiority in hea^"57^ artillery, and in muni- 
tions, and in air work, a problem to be stated 
in terms (among other terms) of soil and of 
climate. And largely in the same directions 
must be stated the ]3roblem upon the Eastern 
front, for though it is not there in the main a 
c^uestion of impelling the enemy to shorten his 
hue, or attempting to force a Ime of trenches, 
yet the crossing of the Carpathians, quite as 
much as the possibility of advancing in 
Northern Poland, is a matter of climate and of 
fioil. 
Now it has further to be remarked that one 
part of an extended line, if it is sufficiently 
broad, suffices to determine an issue. And we 
must consider the effect of the weather, of local 
conditions, of soil, not only over the whole of 
the two great lines, but especially the favoured 
portion of them. In the west this portion speci- 
ally favoured as a rule by climate and always 
by soil is the Champagne. We have already 
Been, in another part of these columns, the 
conditions enjoyed in the district between 
Rheims and the Argonne, over the flooded land 
to the north and the hilly land to the south of 
it for advance. The possibility of such an 
advance comes earlier in those conditions of 
soil than elsewhere, and the rainfall is less 
heavy in the spring than in the fen country to 
the north or in the hills to the south, but if we 
asked on what date in the year the conditions 
become really favourable for action here, 
though we find it a little earlier than the date 
■which we arrived at in considering the reserves 
of men and the question of material, yet we do 
not find it so much earlier as heavily to disturb 
our calculation. And it is again in the late 
spring or early summer that the critical 
moment would seem to come. Though the early 
summer is, perhaps, too late a date to put for 
this particular factor, save in exceptional 
years, the end of April is, roughly, in this part 
of France, which is already central and Con- 
tinental in climate, suitable to action upon a 
large scale. The snow is still melting in the 
Vosges for a month after all the choking plain 
to the east and to the north of the hills of the 
Meuse is clear of wet. The moment differs, of 
course, from year to year, and I have seen bad 
conditions of flood in early April in the Marne 
portion, but in the latter part of the month one 
is nearly always in full spring. 
Upon the Eastern front there is only one 
sector where the topographical conditions of 
eoil and climate have a real advantage over the 
rest, and that is the central watershed of 
Poland, between the upper waters of the Pilitza 
and those of the Nida : the higher land which 
slopes westward away from the hill group 
round Kielce. It is not a portion of the line to 
which much attention has been directed until, 
oddly enough, the last few days. All the heavy 
work has been done to the north or to the south 
of this. Were there no such thin^ as the 
fortress of Cracow, the same remariv would 
apply to the northern bank of the Upper 
Vistula and the approach to Silesia, but, 
Cracow standing as it does, the first sector upon 
which, so far as climate and conditions of soil 
are concerned, action on a large scale will be 
easy, is that which I have here mentioned — the 
watershed between the Pilitza and the Upper 
Vistula basins. Unfortunately it is hardly here 
that any decision could be attempted. It leads 
nowhere. The passes in the Carpathians do 
not benefit so early by the change of season, 
though they are further south. They are not 
free till nearly a month after the snows have 
melted round Kielce, and it is the passes in the 
Carpathians which obviously offer the best 
strategic opportunity and the greatest political 
fruits to an advance. 
The marshy district which is even now im- 
perilling the German retreat from the Niemen 
and from the Narew, though far w^orse in 
winter than in spring, is never easy going even 
in the driest of years, and in the open Avintet 
which has proved such a handicap to the 
Russian efforts in this frontier, has only been a 
handicap, because it has reproduced the condi- 
tions of spring. When the snow melts, there is, 
along that belt of land from Lithuania to Cen- 
tral Poland, a state of affairs in which armies 
must be almost immobilised, and, in general, 
action upon this northern part of the Eastern 
front (so far as climate and local conditions of 
soils, and apart from other questions of num- 
bers and equipment and rnunitioning) must be 
looked for later than in the west. It must also 
be looked for somewhat later (but not so late 
as in the north) in the passes of the Car- 
pathians. The earliest portion to get fit, the 
centre, near Kielce, being unsuitable in situa- 
tion for the main blow. 
But far more important than these very 
general material considerations are those 
moral ones which have been but imperfectly 
understood, perhaps, so far, in the west at 
least, and which it behoves us to grasp quite 
clearly. All centre upon the attitude of the 
Germans. It is the Germans who, by their 
efforts, will maintain the Austrian alliance : it 
is the German determination of force which 
still controls even the doubtful Hungarian 
position; and the German mood to-day, the 
chance of its changing to-morrow, are wdiat 
probably the nations of the W^est have most 
difficulty in grasping, and what it is most im- 
portant for them to grasp. 
The foundation of the whole matter is, as 
has been so often repeated in these columns, 
the completo confidence of the Germans in the 
certitude, or, rather, the necessity, of their 
victory. 
Acted upon by the enormous news of the 
first six weeks, neither one nor the other of 
these tAvo factors has been measured to its full 
extent by British oijinion. 
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