EAND AND ,W.AT£K 
August 21, 1915. 
sniijilies could go up the Vistula until this ring N 
is reduced. 
There was no point in keeping the ring 
marked I. on Sketch III. — the ring ot Ivangorod 
i — .so long as N stood. No considerable supply can 
come down the stream past I. All the op})or- 
tunities existent were for transport up the stream, 
])ast N. Therefore, so long as the ling of Novo 
Georgievsk (X) stands, the Vistula is forbidden as 
an avenue of supply to the enemy. 
The chances of continued resistance in Novo 
Georgievsk are not within our powers of calcula- 
tif)n. We can only state what we know from the 
experiences of this war to be the conditions of 
lesistance of a modern fortress, and leave the 
future to deteiiiiine how far these conditions have 
l)een fulfilled. 
We know that the old permanent works, 
with their t)arrow area and known exact positions, 
can be dominated in a few hours by the modern 
siege train. The le.sson learnt at Maubeuge, 
Nanuir, Li<5ge. and Antwerp (and taught us, let 
us remember, by the Germans) is here conclusive. 
But if the defenders move their fortress artil- 
lery out into tempoi-ary works, skilfully concealed, 
and if, by the provision of light rails, &c., they 
give to those heavy pieces a certain mobility, so 
that a battery, once spotted, can shift its ground, 
then a defensive system is capable, as we have seen 
at Verdun, and shall probably see later, in the 
case of Metz, of almost indefinitely prolonged 
resistance, supposing always (1) that the number 
of pieces and their calibre is sufficient to meet 
and break down the fire of the siege train ; (2) that 
nmnitions for the same are amply provided. 
How far either, or lx>th, of these conditions 
have been supplied in the case of Novo Georgievsk, 
and how far the organisation of mobile batteries 
lias proceeded, we cannot tell. But upon these 
elements will depend the power of resistance of 
the fortress. 
The numbers required to garrison it are not a 
sei-ious drain upon the very large forces engaged ; 
on the other hand, the numbers of heavy guns 
which will be halted to reduce it, and of enemy 
forces which will be retained to contain it, is 
certainly considerable. If Novo Georgievsk holds 
out, it hampers the whole scheme of the Austro- 
German advance. And its abandonment by the 
retiring Russians is a wise move. 
PRICE WHICH THE ENEMY 
HAS PAID. 
I shall deal in a later article, when I have a 
more thorough analysis at my disposal, with the 
lull position of the enemy at this moment, his 
total maximum and minimum reserve of men his 
corresponding maximum and minimum of losses 
iwiU to-day only point out the truth that we 
cannot understand the German effort in Poland 
Its present phase, or the chances of its future' 
unless we perpetually read the whole thing in 
terms ot expenditure. It is not going forward it 
U^^ 'T f Pt"P"g' killing, Sr nfaimini your 
enemy which is the test of what you have^Ce 
It IS the comparison between what you have 
achieved and the price at which you have 
It may be said without injustice that unin- 
structed opinion regards a cam{)aign as a sort of 
game, with forfeits attached. There are two 
teams exercising a physical force one against the 
other, each trying to press back the other. One 
wins or is in process of winning if it goes for- 
ward ; the other loses, or is in process of losing, 
if it goes back. Were we to view the present war 
from this exceedingly erroneous standpoint there 
would be ample cause for the exaggerated fears 
which our censorship alone among all the Allies 
allows the stupider and more malignant part of 
our Press to propagate. Of the two teams, or, 
rather, sets of teams, opposed, the one holds his 
own in the West and pushes forward in the East; 
the other is held up in the West and is retreating 
in the East. Translate that into terms of a game, 
and it is obvious that the enemy team is in process 
of winning and the Allied team in process of 
losing. 
But instructed opinion looks upon war in 
siich a totally different light that it has some 
difficulty even in understanding the newspaper 
terrors of the day. 
It does not comprehend a state of mind in 
which one can in war presume to prophesy until 
some decision is apparent, and the idea that 
advances or retreats are decisions seems to it as 
wild as the idea that a clean collar and a top hat 
are a bank balance. 
Instructed opinion not only envisages a war 
in terms of attempts to obtain, obtaining, or fail- 
ing to obtain decisions, but also perpetually postu- 
lates as the chief factor in any military judgment 
the factor of numbers (both of men and material), 
and, therefore, the factor of expense. 
One might contrast the attitude of instructed 
opinion with that of uninstructed opinion by say- 
ing that if the latter regards war as a game 
between two teams, the further rather regards it 
as a competition of incomes and expenditures. 
The study of war in the period during which 
a true decision is awaited, but not yet reached is 
^,<?37iamic problem in the resultant of forces 
which are perpetually consumed in the very pro- 
cess of their action, but as perpetually subiect to 
recruitment. Such forces are to be measured in 
their chances of success by the rate and nature 
of the exhaustion and of the recruitment, and bv 
little more. 
In other words, the student of war does not 
ask himself simply, " Has this force driven back 
that force and if so, why ? " but also— much more 
"~ J • ^ T ^^P^nse has the advance been gained, 
and is the advantage of the new position, if any' 
worth this estimated expense ? " 
Now the. position the enemy has achieved 
between April 30 and the night of Saturday, 
August 14, is simpl;j. this. He has caused the 
Kussian armies— which stood on positions skirt- 
ing the East Prussian boundary, just coyering 
,Warsaw, running south to the Dunajec River 
and so to the Carpathians, and thence along the 
crest of the Carpathians, and back to the 
Bukowina— to retire from those positions, until 
they reached a line running from before Riga, 
past Kovno and Grodno, and Bialostok and Brest, 
to the line of the Upper Bug and Upper Dniester, 
and so to the Roumanian border. 
This achievement has taken the enemy fifteen 
weeks. He has attained the political advantage- 
especially valuable with neutral and civilian 
