March 27, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER. 
period of three weeks, the Germans have here 
remained entirely upon the defensive. Nor have 
the Russian forces, which could effect no general 
strategical results by further advance northward 
in this region, been re-inforced for the purpose of 
prosecuting such an advance. They remain drawn 
up in front of the German lines, content to contain 
the enemy, and to watch any f ui-ther attempt of his 
to take the offensive again. 
For about a fortnight, the fighting here took 
the form of a scattered number of local engage- 
ments, in which the Russians have taken a certain 
number of guns, continuous driblets of prisoners, 
and have, in a few places, advanced slightly by the 
capture of disputed points. 
At the end of the fortnight, about a week ago, 
the Russians noted a very considerable new concen- 
tration taking place in front of them. They 
announced the imminence of a new great battle 
and of a further attempt upon the part of the 
enemy to force the Narew line, but the situation 
has not developed, and, after three weeks of in- 
decisive and petty actions, not only on this front, 
but everywhere along the frontier, a detailed 
German communique enables us to define, with an 
accuracy rare in this Eastern campaign, the exact 
cordon of positions held by the Germans as late as 
a week before these lines will appear, Thursday, 
March 18. 
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VII 
The German line, then, upon that day, start- 
ing from the Vistula, ran as follows : 
From just east of Plock, it ran almost due 
north to Zuromin, which means that the flank here 
has been i)ent well back by some recent Russian 
concentration in that region, for, quite a short time 
ago, it v.as far eastward of such a line. From 
Zuromin it turned to run south of Mlawa, soutli 
of Khorgele, and just south of Myszyniec, and on 
south of Kolno. There it bends a little away from 
the frontier, follows the left bank of the Bobr for a 
very short distance, and is then bent round in 
front of the guns of Osowiecs. From those 
marshes it turns northward, just includes Augus- 
towo, covers the local chief town of Suwalki, and 
reaches Mariarapol to strike the main inter- 
national line from Berlin to Petrograd at the 
station of Pihviski. Thence it bends rigiit back 
close to the frontier, and reaches Tauroggen, 
beyond which point it is not prolonged. 
Now it is clearly apparent, from the trace of 
this line upon the sketch, that it is drawn with tha 
single object, for the moment, of covering the East 
Prussian frontier, and of drawing its provisions 
from the scheme of railways that runs just within 
German territory; and though, from such a line, 
further German forces may initiate a third 
chapter in the great movement, and may attempt 
yet another advance in force against the line of 
the Niemen and the Narew, yet the main object of 
remaining in precisely this situation, with such 
considerable forces, is the political object of saving 
German soil for the moment from further moles- 
tation. With the exception of the point at A, 
where the line just touches the Bobr, the whole 
system is clearly designed as a screen against raids 
into East Prussia. 
It is the first rule in war not to do what your 
enemy expects you to do, but it is a secondary rule, 
sometimes of value in practice to do, from time to 
time, what, for any reason, he particularly desires 
you not to do. It is evident that the enemy is, by 
the disposition of this line, nervous about tlie 
purely political element in the situation, German 
soil. He will, apparently, make some considerable 
sacrifice for the, not military, but political, object 
of saving that soil from further suffering. The 
Russians, therefore, have, in the last few days, 
undertaken an expedition detached, and presum- 
ably of no very great size, against the isolated sea- 
port of Memel, in the extreme north of the East 
Prussian province. 
We must remember that East Prussia is 
German in its wealth much more than in its 
texture. It is the squires and the merchants in 
the towns — the town population in general — that 
regards, with peculiar tear, Russian action over 
the frontier. That the attack on Memel has a 
strategic object may be doubted. Prophecy, and 
even conjecture, in any campaign, particularly in 
such a campaign as this, where the value of secrecy 
has been so thoroughly comprehended on every 
side, is futile enough, but it is not easy to believe 
that any serious action could be undertaken from 
the Memel district. It lies at a very great distance 
from the mass of the Russian forces, and an 
advance from that corner would butt at once into 
the serious obstacle of the broad and deep Niemen, 
just near its mouth, and upon all that Tilsit dis- 
trict which our Ally found it impossible to 
traverse in his last advance of December and 
January. We are, therefore, fairly safe in regard- 
ing the" raid upon Memel as designed to increase 
the nervousness of the enemy only, and as further 
designed to increase an exasperation which is 
apparent in the wild order for looting and burning 
masses of Russian property by way of revenge for 
this incursion, exasperation of such a sort being 
tlie worst possible counsellor in war. 
The telegrams to hanfl speak of the participa- 
tion of the civilian population of Memel in t!io 
fighting. If that is so, it will mean, of course, 
tliat the German example, though it will not have 
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