August 14, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
formed a chord across the arc of the Vistula; the 
other under Hindenburg moved southward against 
the Narev, while a remaining 400,000 men was 
sent north into Courland, with a huge proportion 
of cavalry in order both to threaten Riga, the in- 
dustrial and political importance of which town 
are of high importance, but more to cause an 
anxiety to the Russian command for its northern 
conununications. For of the three great railways 
leading out the Warsaw salient, and permitting 
an orderly retirement therefrom, the northernmost 
ran but three or four days' march from the theatre 
in which this Courland force was operating, and 
continues to operate. 
The Germans crossed the Narev in the middle 
of July. They reached, with their Austrian col- 
leagues, after repeated checks and very heavy 
losses, the neighbourhood of the southern railway, 
near Lublin and Cholm at the same time. 
It was upon July 18 that the decision was 
taken to evacuate Warsaw. 
Again, with deliberation and with excellent 
organisation, without confusion, and with com- 
plete success, the town to be abandoned was 
stripped of every gun and every cartridge, every 
machine, and every ounce of useful metal and 
stores, an achievement which, in the case of a town 
of a million inhabitants, deserves the highest ad- 
miration. The enemy entered the city seventeen 
days later, hardly opposed. He found himself in 
po-ssession of the Vistula line — a great asset, for 
that line can in the future be used defensively 
against a new Russian offensive, all useful railway 
communication concentrating, as it does, upon 
Warsaw. But he had pursued his adventure too 
far to stand thus upon the Vistula. A million 
men were already east and north of Warsaw, much 
more than another million east and south of it; to 
order their retirement now that the thing was 
pushed so far forward would be to order a most 
perilous movement. He might still hope, though 
with grievously diminished chances, to break the 
Russian armies before him, or, by threatening 
their commimications from the north across the 
Narev, and from Courland, to throw them into 
confusion. At any rate, he could not ungrapple. 
We leave this great Polish campaign, there- 
fore, still in full progress, and with its issue 
undecided. Had the enemy desired from the 
beginning no more than the command of the 
Vistula line, had he upon obtaining this object 
consented to stand upon the defensive and to 
release his forces now at or just past their 
maximum for an attack upon the West, his object 
would have been entirely achieved. But it is 
doubtful whether he can now confine himself to 
such a programme. And while it is impossible to 
prophesy the future of any human action, and 
particularly impossible to prophesy the develop- 
ment of war, we may yet say that after three and 
a half months of so victorious an Eastern advance 
no end is in sight for the enemy's higher command. 
He must continue his task, with what fortunes we 
have yet to see. And the vast Polish front will 
Btill demand the mass of his energies. 
is upon the issue of the Eastern fighting that the 
immediate future will depend — though doubtless 
if a decision is clearly unobtainable there, the 
enemy will, at no remote date, use the last of his 
energies in the South or West. 
But the naturally more vivid interest pos- 
sessed for Western observers by the line in France 
and Flanders, the entry of Italy into the war, 
and the experiment in the Dardanelles (though 
all are connected with and dependent upon 
Poland for the moment), must be given their due 
place. 
Upon the Western front during all these 
months, the repeated attacks upon the German 
line, the counter-attacks of the enemy against that 
of the Allies, have not been conducted upon a scale 
which could with any probability have resulted 
in the breach of either position. 
Upon the Allied side, each of these consider- 
able effects has been directed to the wearing down 
of the enemy numbers, to reaching points that 
would command his lateral communications, and 
to the perpetual occupation of as large numbers 
as possible in the enemy's difficult task of defence. 
In each of these blows (the largest of which has 
not been delivered over a front of more than eight 
miles, most of them in less than four) it was 
always conceivable, of course, that this defence 
might crumble and that the enemy's line should 
unexpectedly be pierced. But neither the French 
work in Champagne, on the Beau Sejour sector, in 
the winter, nor the conquest of the spur of Les 
Eparges, nor even the very vigorous action with 
some five corps north of Arras, nor the British 
blows delivered at Neuve Chappelle, and, many 
weeks later, in front of La Bassee, nor the slow, 
but unsuccessful, work upon the Eastern slopes 
of the Southern Vosges, have constituted or were 
intended to constitute a grand offensive. Had the 
pressure upon the enemy in the Carpathians suc- 
cessfully continued, that offensive would have been 
undertaken. The Russian retreat through Galicia 
compelled its postponement — and with that post- 
ponement the continued accumulation of muni- 
tions and the increasing equipment of men. A 
check to such an offensive with the enemy well held 
in the East would have been reparable. Such a 
check, when the pressure upon him in the East 
was removed, would have been a disaster. The 
Polish campaign, with its enormous consumption 
of men, clearly indicated for the Western com- 
mand the necessity of holding its hand. 
The point has curiously puzzled general 
opinion in this country. An analogy seems to have 
been drawn from struggles of infinitely less im- 
portance. Were the thing a game, one might 
argue that the distress of one partner was an 
opportunity for the other. But in this great war 
the true analogy is not a match, but an opera- 
tion upon which "one's life depends. The enemy 
had chosen to risk about a million men in the 
attainment of a certain object. While he was 
near to attaining it he could not be forbidden, 
and meanwhile his loss continued. Should he 
fail, then would come the moment for the coup de 
grace. 
XII. The West has accumulated ammunition and 
reserved its men. It has done well. There are 
In a complete survey of the whole war this many men behind. In the East the enemy 
Eastern campaign is so much the more important may shoot his bolt. All points to his having 
business of the summer that one might almost be mi.ssed the mark— and his reserves are very near 
forgiven for neglecting every other front— fcp, 4t ^^^ e"d. 
Sutblemmt to I^ND <ND WATEB. AugUit 14, 19 1 J. 
»Wai 
