August 7, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER. 
cisely the same fasliion, with the same order and 
the same free deliberation as has marked the cor- 
responding retirements after each check adminis- 
tered to the enemy during the great retreat. On 
a larger scale, but upon exactly the same model, 
the positions round Warsaw (Ossowiecz— Novo- 
Georgievsk— Warsaw— Ivangorod) are being ex- 
changed for positions in the first days of 
August after a full month's holding up of the 
enemy, precisely as the Grodek positions in front 
of Lemberg were evacuated after a fortnight's 
holding of him, at the end of June; the salient 
of Przemysl, after nearly three weeks holding of 
him upon the San in the last days of May. 
5. Such peril as menaces the retirement is 
chiefly present to the north and to the south of the 
salient itself by the advance of Mackensen and 
^e Archdulce through Lublin and Chohn, and of 
Hmdenburg across the Niemen ; but each of these 
advances is slow, and each has hitherto been held 
step by step as the Russian retreat required. 
6. There is in progress on the extreme north 
of the line an operation under Von Biilow which 
may ultimately force back yet further the line to 
which our Ally proposes to retire, but which 
would seem to have little opportunity for threaten- 
ing a retirement in progress within the Warsaw 
salient. If this northern enemy force has a 
strategic, rather than a political, object, and is 
really aiming at turning the Russian Army, its 
success can hardly now involve — seeing the con- 
ditions of time and space — any peril to the great 
mass of troops falling back from the Warsaw 
salient. It may even have no more than an 
economic object; for the possession of Riga, like 
that of Lodz, Warsaw, Lille, Belgium, is not only 
of political but of direct military value to the 
enemy, in so far as it gives him stores of supply 
and, above all, machinery and plant. For this 
reason also is he anxious to reach and hold Bielo- 
stock (or Byalystok) with its 65,000 inhabitants 
and its well developed industries. 
With this we may leave the analysis of the 
main operation and consider what the situation 
will be and what the enemy's opportunities, when 
or if, our Ally shall successfully conclude the 
straightening out of his line. 
Considerations of space forbid me to do more 
than begin this second part of my task. I must 
leave the most important conclusion — the question 
of numbers — to the next issue. 
ALTERNATIVES BEFORE THE 
ENEMY. 
It is clear that the enemy's success at the con- 
clusion of the three months' campaign upon the 
Eastern front has restored to him the initiative 
in the largest sense of that term. That is, the 
great main lines of the next devdopment are for 
him to choose, and it is we who are wondering 
what he will do next, and not he who is wondering 
what we will do next. 
Let us examine the conditions in which he 
finds himself and the opportunities offered to him. 
The opportunities arc obvious. He may continue 
his Eastern movement; he may strike south-east 
against Serbia; he may send troops to the Italian 
front; or he may come west. 
The conditions under which the enemy lies, 
and which limit to a certain few the opportunities 
ot his next action, are threefold in character 
They consist in (1) the length of line upon which 
he will consent to remain stationary, (2) the 
character of that line for defence, and (3) the 
strength which will remain available to him for 
the prosecution of his mobile attack. 
AH these three matters are indeterminate — 
that is, we can arrive at no exact conclusion witti 
regard to them, but only to a rough and doubtful 
estimate ; the first two because his choice is not yet 
declared, the third and last because the calcula- 
tion of his numbers (which is by far the most 
important element in the business) must in this 
case more than ever be a matter of inference in 
the absence of admitted official record. Yet some 
rough estimates we must make if we are to 
attempt any judgment, however general, upon the 
future possible activities of our opponents. 
As to the first point, then. Wherever he may 
decide to expend what remains of his military 
energy (and the choice of front is now in his 
hands) there will be, in his intention at least a 
mobile front and there will be a stationary front. 
Suppose, for instance, he decides to strike 
down south-eastward towards Serbia. Then it is 
clear that he wiU have to hold all the present 
Eastern front from Roumania to the Baltic 
against the gradual, though tardy, equipment 
and munitioning of his Russian foe. 
Or suppose that he decides on continuing his 
Eastern advance, and particularly a turning of 
the Russian line by a northern movement along 
the Baltic coast, it is equally clear that south of 
some fixed point upon the whole front he will be 
holding his enemy while the main blows are being 
delivered in the north. Just as he held the central 
mish front while he was delivering his blow in 
Oalicia, so he will, in the nature of things have 
to remain more or less stationary along some 
portion of his Eastern line (or the whole of it) 
while he concentrates for special action in a 
special area. If he comes West or South he must 
equally hold some continued and definite Eastern 
line. 
Had he time upon his side— as we have, and 
will continue to have if no Press campaign is 
allowed to shake the alliance, and no professional 
pohtician betrays it— the enemy would obviously 
—ujiless he thought it worth while to pursue the 
decision that has escaped him hitherto in Poland 
—confine himself to the line of the Vistula. It is 
far the strongest, and requires for its defence a 
smaller number of men than the immense stretch 
between Riga and the Dniester Valley. 
But we know that, in the first place, he has 
not time on his side, and, in the second place, that 
he is depending more and more upon political 
effect, and trusting more and more to semi-treason- 
able Pre-ss agitation and the secret influence of 
finance among his opponents. It is, therefore, 
very possible that he will follow up the Russian 
retirement to the full, and that he will decide to 
hold his opponent along the direct north and soutli 
.JP®" -^^ '^^ ^^^^ under a necessity of doing this 
if he determines to continue his Eastern attack, 
and to press on northward through the Baltic 
provinces. He cannot hold the Vistula line with- 
out calling back the army in Courland. 
With the nature of the Vistula line frequent 
descriptions in these pages have familiarised my 
readers. 
It may be worth \.hile to say. in parenthesis, 
that a great deal too iv.uch is made of the analof^y 
9 
