LAND AND WATER. 
July 24, 1915. 
this section, I believe, than from 100 to 150 yards. 
It is, like most of these Polish rivers, marshy, and 
its approaches are in most places more diHicult 
than those of neighlwuring streams. 
At every place v^^here there is any considerable 
roatl crossing the Russians have established a for- 
tified bridge-head. With the date and strength 
of these fortifications I am unacquainted, but 
works permanent and temporary exist from 
Lomza downwards at Ostrolenka, Rozan, Pultusk, 
Serock, while at the junction of the Bug and Vis- 
tula there stands, of course, the very powerful 
fortress of Neo Georgievsk. 
The last German communique tells us that 
the Russians are retreating across the Narevi-, 
and adds vaguely that their bridge-heads are of 
no avail. Nothing can be gathered from phrases 
of this sort. The real interest of the position is 
this : Have the Russians decided to defend the 
Narew line, holding the bridge-heads temporarily 
as best they can and deciding to use the river it- 
self for their main obstacle, and, if so, will they 
be near enough to railway supply, and will they 
have enough munitions from that railway, to 
maintain this natural line ? If they cannot, then 
.Warsaw is, of course, lost. If they can it is, so 
far as the northern attacking line is concerned, 
saved. Whether they will or can hold the Narew 
line, only the future can determine. It is signifi- 
cant that they have not fought in front of it as 
they did in lebruary, but have fallen back to it 
and perhaps beyond it. 
Should the Northern or Southern edges of the 
salient be forced, or both, there still arises the 
problem of the " Polish triangle " — Neo 
Georgievsk, Ivangorod, and Brest. Some have 
believed that this famous series of fortresses could 
yet save the situation even if the Northern or 
Southern railways were cut. It will be more 
practical to discuss this when the event is deter- 
mined one way or the other. 
THE ARGONNE. 
As for what has happened during the last 
«.hree weeks in the Argonne, it has been greatly 
exaggerated, not only upon the enemy's side, but 
upon the Allied side. It is difficult to attach any 
weight to the rumours that the Crown Prince 
was instructed to break through the French line 
at this point. He only attacked with twenty 
thousand men — or half his command — he only 
attacked upon a front of ten kilometres — that is, 
a little over six miles. 
That his achievement or failure should have 
been made much of in Germany is only natural. 
Apart from the tendency on both sides to exag- 
gerate any slight advance, at no matter what cost, 
there is the acute political interest pressing on 
Germany to-day of making the best of every bit 
of good news. 
What happened is easy enough to describe. 
The part of the Argonne where the attack 
developed was that sketched upon Diagram V. 
The Argonne is essentially a ridge of clay, 
covered with thick wood and undergrowth — 
mainly oak — and the Franco-German line runs 
transverse to the forty-mile long ridge of the clay. 
The rising ground and the forest are virtu- 
ally coterminous, and the limits of the one define 
the base of the other. 
The French hold the sinall town or large 
village of Vienne le Chateau, upon the western 
side of the forest; upon the eastern side the larger 
and historically famous country town of Varennes 
is in the hands of the Germans. 
There is a road running along the western 
side of the forest, in the plain just under the 
slope. It goes from St. Menehould, the capital of 
all this district, northward, and passes through 
Vienne le Chateau and the village of Binaville. 
On the eastern side of the forest there is a road 
going from Verdun, running through Varennes, 
and immediately afterwards through the hamlet 
of Petit Bouveuilles and Bouveuilles proper. Both 
these villages are in the hands of the Germans. 
The clay ridge, the summit of which is about 
300 feet above the plain, is diversified in this 
neighbourhood by a ravine which starts up from 
the woods from Vienne le Chateau, watered by a 
little muddy brook, and marked by an almost 
equally muddy country lane, which I know well. 
At the point called Four de Paris, where there 
are, or were, a couple of houses, between the high 
lift of wood on either side, a branch lane goes 
right across the main ridge to Varennes. The 
woods to the south of this branch lane are called 
the woods of Chalade, those to the north the woods 
of La Grurie, within which latter are two points 
perpetually recurring in the communiques, a little 
hunting lodge called the Bagatelle, and a spring 
with stonework round it called the Fontaine 
Madame. Along the main ridge indicated on 
Diagram V. by the letters R R R goes a ride or 
green lane between the trees, known as the Haute 
Chevauchee, and the highest point on it, 285 
metres above the sea, is called, from local tradi- 
tion, " La Fille Morte." It is only slightly higher 
than the rest of the ridge, but there is a clearing 
here which gives distinction to the point, and one 
looks down through tree trunks to the ravine on 
the west. 
The Crown Prince's main attack was 
delivered along the front from A to B in Diagram 
v., when the French front at the beginning of this 
operation lay as do the crosses in that diagram. 
The maximum result of his efforts is represented 
by the line of large dots, and was reached rather 
more than half-way through the period of his 
daily attacks. He had by that time picked up 
about three thousand wounded men and some un- 
wounded men as well. He had carried Point 285 
and acquired quite a section of the main ridge, his 
total advance being something like a mile. 
After that the French pushed him back, re- 
capturing most of the ridge taken, including 
Point 285. The total belt the Germans retain on 
the balance of these operations has a maximum 
width of 400 yards, that maximum width lying 
very much where the belt is crossed by the lane 
from the Four de Paris to Varennes. 
In affairs of this sort, which cannot be com- 
pared for magnitude to the principal local actions 
further north, such as Neuve Chapelle, or Festu- 
bert- — still less to the considerable operations north 
of Arras — the only matter of interest is the pro- 
portion of losses upon either side. It may be pre- 
sumed that it is in this case pretty evenly, 
balanced. On the extreme end of the line west- 
ward, near Binaville, there seems to be a slight 
French advance. 
If there is any other point worthy of notice 
in this piece of news it is the figures of the French 
prisoners which the Germans give. It has 
already been pointed out in these notes that there 
