April 24, 1915. 
LAND AND .WATER. 
THE WAR BY LAND. 
By HILAIRE BELLOG. 
KOTE. — This article has been submitted to the Press Bureau, nhkh does not object to the publication as censored, and lakei M 
responsibility (or the correctness ot the stfitements. 
lu accordance ivlih the requirements of the Press Bureau, the positions ot troops on Plans illustrating this Article must only bt 
regarded as approximate, and no definite strength at any pcint is indicated. 
1 
"\B[E news of the past week has been so slight 
that there is no particular commentary 
to be made (or at least none which would 
be useful to the general study of the war) 
upon the details. 
I shall therefore take the opportunity, with 
my readers' leave, of considering as thoroughly as 
may be the problem presented by the Carpathian 
fighting. 
There have indeed been a couple of points 
in the West which have excited interest in the 
French and English Press. The first is the cap- 
ture of the hill marked " 60 metres " on the 
Belgian ordnance map just south of Zillebecke by 
the British contingent. The second is the fact 
that the Erench have in the Vosges pushed forward 
upon one of the ridges of the lateral valley leading 
down upon the Alsatian plain north of the height 
captured a fortnight ago. 
But neitlier of these local movements is more 
than typical of the initiative possessed along the 
whole line by the Allies in the West. There is 
nothing to be learned from them beyond what we 
already know — that, with sufficient preparation, 
the Allies can attack where they like, and that 
where they attack they will almost invariably 
draw upon the enemy a higher loss than he inflicts 
upon them. 
The matter has been repeated so often in 
these columns that I do not labour it; but it is 
of the first importance to the understanding of 
that attrition which, though people are getting 
rather tired of the term, remains the foundation 
of military policy between the Swiss mountains 
and the North Sea. It may be summed up in 
these maxims. The attack is less expensive than 
the defence. This paradox depends upon the 
allied superiority in heavy artillery. That artil- 
lery is superior on account of superior airwork. 
In those three points you have the whole business, 
and there is no more to be said upon them until 
the moment shall come for putting them to the 
test upon a far larger scale. 
In Northern Central Poland nothing has 
happened, and in the Carpathians themselves 
little more than the intensive actions confined to a 
few hundred yards which mark the slow advance 
of the Russian occupation from the crest. 
But the general problem presented by the 
Carpathians will remain for some weeks a capital 
element in the campaign, and perhaps the chief 
element. It may even become the determining 
thing of the whole war. 
It is therefore amply worth our while to pause 
in this lull and analyse the conditions of the 
front between the Dunajec and the frontiers of 
Roumania. 
THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF A MOUN- 
TAIN CHAIN AS AN OBSTACLE. 
All obstacles to a strategic advance have this 
in common, that their characteristic is to impose 
delay. 
Each type of obstacle, however, differs from 
the rest in the fashion whereby if must be sur- 
mounted and defended. Thus marsh involves the 
building of a causeway ; a belt of sea is defended 
by a fleet and can only be surmounted by a fleet ; a 
river is usually to be crossed anj^vhere when once 
the opportunity of throwing a bridge is acquired. 
A range of mountains commonly presents a 
particular type, both in the methods of surmount' 
ing it, and in the methods of defending it, which 
give to the strategic problem connected with it a 
special character capable of definition and 
analysis; and one range differs from another 
according to the height, the breadth, the character 
of artificial communications across it, and so 
forth. As the Carpathian front has become for 
the moment the principal field of the wai', I 
propose this week to describe the general character 
of a mountain chain as an ob.stacle, and next to 
analyse the particular conditions of the Car- 
pathians. 
A mountain chain opposes the rapid progress 
of an army in three ways, all inter-connected. 
First, and least important, you have the mere 
fact of the slope. The attacking party has nor- 
mally to advance up hill until the crest of the 
chain is acquired. 
Second, and much more important, mountain 
districts are, by their forests and their crags, 
difficult of access save by certain well-determined 
avenues, commonly those of the main valleys, and 
these avenues are made accessible in various 
degrees by the artificial work of roads and rail- 
ways. 
Thirdly, a mountain chain is commonly a 
deserted territory, with few inhabitants, few 
towns, and, therefore, few opportunities for 
shelter and storage. 
Certain consequences flow immediately from 
these three main characteristics. The most im- 
portant is that frequent and good communications 
will be discovered in the Plain upon either side, 
and will usually grow rarer and rarer as the crest 
is approached. A consequence of this is that the 
defence of the chain becomes increasingly easy, 
and the attempt to cross it increasingly difficult 
as the belt of mountain country from foothills 
to foothills is traversed by the attack. 
The problem, therefore, of mastering the 
obstacle of a mountain ehain is by no means the 
Eroblem of merely reaching its most deserted and 
ighest portion, the crest, after which one may 
expect the task of the advance to become easier. 
Students sometimes fall into this error on the 
analogy of lesser elevations. If you are trying, 
for instance, to master a range of hills such as the 
Cotswolds, when you are in possession of the crest 
you have done your work. Supposing an army 
coming up from the Plain of Oxford along the 
gradual Eastern approach of the Cotswolds, and 
another army concerned to prevent their crossing 
this chain and appearing in the Plain of the 
Severn — the decisive fighting would take place on 
