August 21, 1915. 
LAND AND :W A T E R . 
iened for good and with nothing to show for your 
effort. "^ 
Now in this doable attempt at the envelop- 
ment of the Russian salient— the great advance 
upon Lublin and Cholm from the south, the great 
advance upon the Narev from the north— the 
latter was really the " marching wing " of the 
mancEuvre. 
It was clear from the first days of July 
from July 3 to 5, to be accurate; that is 
from the check administered to the Archduke in 
front of Lublin— that the supply of munitions to 
the vast host upon this side was imperfect; and 
no wonder, considering the absence of railway 
communication. 
But the enemy upon the East Prussian fron- 
tiers had behind him a magnificent system of rail- 
ways directly connected with his chief arsenals 
and centres of production. It is probable that 
men were sent round to this northern wing from 
the south. It is certain that on the northern wing 
everything depended. It was precisely that 
northern wing which failed in its task. It had 
to come down between thirty and forty miles in 
say, a fortnight, if it were to confuse the evacua- 
tion of Warsaw and Ivangorod and to interrupt 
the retirement of the main Russian column. The 
Russian rearguards, vastly inferior in number, a* 
a rearguard must be, so pounded and held this 
berman hammer-blow upon the Narev front that 
It has advanced, not in two weeks, but in five, not 
forty miles, but less than twenty— and in most 
places less than fifteen. It was held tight till the 
Mid of the second week in August, while the main 
Russian bodies drew away. Only then the 
manoeuvre thoroughly effected, did the Narev 
screen withdraw— or, as the German phrase will 
have it, " break." 
The thesis may be made clear with a simple 
diagram. '■ 
A T>^^°^^® '^ holding, as in Sketch II., the salient 
A B C upon the D A B C E. That salient is 
attacked by a large force operating down from F. 
and up from G. If For G.or both, advance quickly 
enough they will cut off all the men and materials 
in the bulge A B C; but if the rearguard marked 
by the dotted lines between A and B and B and C 
holds them up long enough, then all the men and 
material in the salient can retire to the straighter 
line D A H C E, in which case the enemy's effort 
at F and at G will have failed. 
Now F was in this case Hindenburg's forces 
working to force the obstacle of the Narev, which 
defended the north or top of the salient. The rear- 
guard of dots A-B were the Russian forces left ' 
behind to oppose them while the main body retired 
upon A H C, and that opposition of the Russian 
rearguards to Hindenburg upon the Narev has 
proved so effective that the retirement upon 
D A H C is already virtually accomplished by 
the main Russian bodies, while the enemy body F 
has not yet got appreciably within the bulge of 
the salient. The rearguards which were holding 
it up would seem now to be free to retire at wiU, 
for their task would seem to be successfully 
accomplished. 
In order to understand how thoroughly Hin- 
denburg's armies were held up on this Narev 
front let us translate the operations into terras of 
English geography. 
The Narev between Lomza and Novo Geor- 
gievsk may roughly be compared both for size and 
for length to the Thames between Lechlade and 
London. The Narev is larger at Lom^a by a good 
deal than is the Thames at Lechlade; but the 
middle courses of the two rivers are of much the 
same width and the distances involved are roughly 
the same. ^ 
Observe how the Thames would stand to two 
armies situated as were, at the beginning of the 
business, the Russian forces as a whole and Hin- 
denburg's forces which were trying to 'take them 
m flank by forcing the line of the Narev. 
The Russian Army may be conceived of as ' 
standing from Birmingham, a little west of tha 
main line of the North- Western Railway, to tha 
neighbourhood of London, and thence curling 
round north-eastward through Essex and Suffolk 
to Great Yarmouth. It is obvious we have here a 
great salient, and this army, stretched from Bir- 
mingham down to the neighbourhood of London 
and then on to Yarmouth, is retreating in order 
to straighten out its line and take up a general 
position Birmingham — Peterborough — Yar- 
mouth. It has several converging lines which 
supply It and along which it can move munitions 
and men— the London and North-Western, the 
Great Northern, &c. Of these the London and 
JNorth-Western brings it munitions and food from 
the great centres of the Midlands and the North. 
Supposing, of several enemy armies working to 
cut off the advanced part of the salient before it 
could retreat, one were coming up from the 
Channel coast between Brighton and Bourne- 
mouth. It would find in front of it the obstacles 
of the Thames. If it could force that obstacle 
quickly enough before the retreat of the salient it 
was trying to cut off was far advanced, it would 
come down on and cut the London and North- 
Western line, thereby gravely interfering with the 
retreat. It might even get further round to Bed- 
ford and cut off the great mass of the southern 
part of the retreating army. The commander of 
this retreating army would use the obstacle of 
the Thames to check such a movement. 
So thoroughly have the Russians achieved 
the check in question that if we take the historyj 
