June 26, 1915. 
LAND AND WATEE. 
Ibe whole Eastern front, just as C'racow is tJie 
capital strategic point (for the Austro-Germans 
oa the defensive) of the whole Eastern front. 
Russia, advancing, could only test the success 
of her offensive by the taking or passing of 
Cracow. She failed. The Austrians and Germans, 
advancing, can only test their real success — their 
power to prevent Russia from quickly coming 
back — by their hold upon Warsaw. 
If the Austro-Germans could so turn the line 
of the Vistida that their capture of Warsaw could 
at last be accomplished, then, although they should 
not have broken the Russian line, but should only 
have pushed it back beyond Warsaw, tliey would 
have done something almost as decisive as the 
breaking of that line. But the pushing back of the 
Russian forces from Galicia does not nncoeer 
[Wa?'saiv. 
That is the really important thing to seize. 
The Vistula line, as it is called, but what it is more 
proper to term the great fortified Vistula crossing 
(which is Warsaw flanked by Ivangorod on the 
south and Neo Georgievsk on the north), is not 
turned by this advance through Galicia unless, or 
until, the line of railway running from the forti- 
fied point Rovno, in the south, north-westward to 
Ivangorod, past the provincial capital of Lublin, is 
in the hands of the enemy. The point will be easily 
grasped from the diagram already given. We see 
in tliis the great nexus of railways, of which Ixm- 
lierg (L) is the centre, and how the loss of Lem- 
he will quite certainly find himself with every 
mile of his progress more and more ham- 
pered in the use of his heavy artillery, while 
behind the Russian front there Vill run the main 
line from the fortified junction of Rovno (R). past 
the provincial capital of Lublin (Lu), to the forti- 
fied point of Ivangorod (I), which flanks Warsaw 
(W) on the south, just as the fortified point of 
Neo Georgievsk flanks it on the north. It is. 
or should be, quite clear that such a line as, for 
instance, the dotted line on the foregoing diagram 
would give a Russian front strong against 
a superiority of the enemy's heaxj pieces, and 
confidently protecting the Warsaw crossing from 
being turned by the south. 
Meanwhile, before concluding with the 
details of the attack on Lemberg, one can only 
reiterate the obvious strategical truth, which 
is none the less true because it has grown weari- 
some, that the enemy has not effected his jmrpose 
in the East until he has separated the Russian 
forces and broken their line. 
He has, as a political asset, by the clearing of 
Galicia, delayed, if it were expected, the inter- 
vention of Roumania. He has, as a material 
asset, got back his sources of petrol supply — ^a 
really important point. He has, for what it is 
worth, affected newspaper opinion, particularly, 
it is to be feared, in this country. But luckily 
the conduct of the war is in the hands not of 
newspaper owners, nor even of politicians, but 
berg means, as we have just been describing, the of the great General Staff 
loss of Galicia ; but we also see beyond the frontier. Now, in doing this he has already lost, for 
once the Galician railway system is frankly aban- the moment, at least 600,000 men, and perma- 
doned, a great belt of R'us.sian Poland absolutely nently, say, 400,000. He has also expended some 
denuded of railways. It is also, by the way, very large proportion — perhaps half — of the 
largely denuded of roads, and, as the summer in great accumulation of shell, the " ^""'^ " ^* 
this Eastern corner of Europe has been as wet as it 
has been dry in tlie West, we may regard that belt 
of country as one over which the enemy could only 
advance with the greatest possible difficulty. lie 
is depending, as we have seen, entirely upon his 
superior munitionment for heav}^ guns. That is 
the one asset he has. His .soldiers, as soldiers. 
have no longer the moral value of the renewed 
Russian levies which come from younger men 
head " of shell 
with which he undertook the task not quite two 
months ago. If he does at last succeed in divid- 
ing the Russian Army and of obtaining some 
definite victory against it, then that exceptional 
expense may just have been worth while. 
Remember, it is still going on, and at what a 
rate the daily lists in our own Press of our own 
casualties may give us, in their much smaller pro- 
portions, some sort of idea. If he does not obtain 
and which feel indefinitely large .support behind ]iig main strategical object, then he has made the 
them. His generalship has had no cause to '• • • '^ "■ ' ' •' ' ' ' ' 
come into play since he has had nothing to do 
but batter, and whether it be superior or in- 
ferior to that of the orderly Russian retreat only 
an opportunity for his manoeuvring would show, 
(Whether his proportion of sick is higher or lower 
we cannot tell. The one and the only form of 
superiority he certainly has — and it is decisive 
— is this immense numerical superiority in 
munitions for his heavy guns. 
But he has never been able to make use of this 
expenditure in vain. I will deal with that point 
of the enemy's expense in men further in ;i 
moment. Meanwhile, let us conclude with the 
details of the battle for Lemberg. 
The general situation of the front defended for 
some days l.)y the Russians in front of Lemberg is 
that expressed in the folloAving map. There 
runs in front of Lemberg, rather more than fifteen 
miles away on the average, a long chain of lakes 
and mai-shes, generally known as the position of 
Grodek, from the town standing about midway 
superiority at more than a day's march from a in the system; the largest agglomeration of houses 
double line of railway. There* is no case in the in that rather deserted dtstrict. This town of 
^ar, even upon the J'^astern front, of a German Grodek occupies an isthmus between tAvo of the 
success at any appreciable distance fron\ some shallow, swampy lakes which here afford a very 
good double main line. Witness the failure of narrow passage of dry ground. It is this passage 
the first advance against the Niemen, the failure which carries the main road to Lemberg. The 
against the Upper Dniester, the failure against railway goes up by the north, through a similar 
the Lower San. &c. His present raoA'ement on 
Lemberg has been entirely dependent upon the 
main line through Jaroslav (J) and Przemysl (P) : 
even in this la-st turning movement, he is not a 
day's march from that line, to the north. 
narrow passage between two other of this chain 
of lakes. The whole chain of lakes and marshes 
from abo\'e Janow in the north to the beginning 
of the gi'eat Dniester marshes in the south is a 
matter of twenty-five miles. It is an exceedingly 
Now, if he attempt to get beyond the frontier strong position; in fact, it is impassiible to an 
3* 
