August 28, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
Again, in the particular case of the Russian 
retirement you have rather empty land traversed 
by a few formidable obstacles, the communica- 
tions across these rare, so that the blowing up of 
one big girder bridge (like that over the Bug near 
Brok, south of Ostrow) helps the retirement much 
more than it would in a country where there were 
more railways and smaller rivers. 
It will be seen, therefore, that both from 
general principles and from the particular cir- 
cumstances, the Russian retirement should 
normally proceed with success and the Austro- 
German Higher Command's attempt to compel the 
inferior force in front of it to battle has the 
chances against it. 
Nevertheless, it hopes to achieve its end — to 
compel the Russian forces to stand— and it be- 
hoves us to consider^upon what that hope reposes. 
To bring an unwilling and inferior adver- 
sary to battle is (upon the same metaphor as we 
used just now of the two schoolboys) as though 
the one who was pursuing at last got the one who 
was pursued into a place from which he could no 
longer get away. The pursuer, for instance, 
runs down a corridor, passes through two or three 
doors that have been slammed in his face. The 
pursued has on each of these checks made good 
his escape, but he may find himself at last in 
some place from which there is no issue. He gets 
into a room, for instance, in which there is only 
one door through which they have both alreadjr 
passed, and when that has happened there is 
nothing left for the pursued but to turn and fight. 
The metaphor is ungracious and morally in- 
accurate, for the retirement of an army in the 
field has nothing in common with the running 
away of an individual from another stronger 
individual. An army retires to gain strength and 
at the same time to weaken its opponent ; but for 
the purpose of understanding what is meant by 
" compelling an inferior opponent to battle " the 
analogy will serve well enough. 
This forcing of a retiring enemy back into a 
place from which there is, geographically, no 
issue, is comparatively rare in the history of war- 
fare; but circumstances can arise, or military con- 
ditions can be produced by an able commander, 
which are in practice equivalent to the getting of 
a pursued individual into a room from which 
there is no issue. When that is done the retreat- 
ing force must halt and face the pursuit with its 
full strength. The retreating force has been 
" compelled to accept battle " while still inferior 
in power. 
The retiring army may not have been forced 
on to an area physically so bounded that there is 
no escape from it, like a peninsula with the sea 
behind it and no transports. But the pursued 
may be put into such a posture that he is as surely 
condemned to fight as though he were thus caught 
in a corner. And it is the whole object of the 
pursuer to get the pursued into these straits. It 
is his whole object to '" compel him to accept 
battle." 
What are those conditions? They are two. 
The presence of either will usually " compel the 
acceptation of battle '" by the inferior force 
against its will; the presence of both combined 
will still more successfully have that elTect. 
These two conditions are congestion and the 
threatening of comviunications. They nearly 
always occur together and depend one on the 
other. 
By congestion, I mean the able " shepherd- 
ing " of your retiring foe so that his masses 
occupy a narrower and narrower area, until their 
power of retirement is blocked and choked. That 
retirement will then progress at a slower and 
slower rate until it nearly comes to a standstill. 
The pursuit, on the other hand, continues at a 
fixed rate, catches up the pursued, is prepared to 
advance for the future more rapidly, and there- 
fore the pursued, thus restricted in mobility, are 
compelled to turn and fight. 
The second condition, a threat to communica- 
tions, which is closely allied to this state of con- 
gestion and which very often produces that state 
of congestion, is the appearance of a body of the 
pursuers behind one or both flanks of the pursued, 
so that if the retiring force still attempts to with- 
draw it will be in danger of envelopment. Under 
these circumstances, also, the retiring force is 
compelled to stand and accept battle. 
These very simple elements of the problem, 
are so clear that I have perhaps expended too 
much space in laying them before the reader, but 
they are essential to the comprehension of what 
follows. 
The Russian armies during their retirement 
throughout July and now three-quarters of 
August, remained perfectly free to withdraw 
almost at their leisure, and each step in that 
retreat was undertaken at the moment chosen by 
the Russian Higher Command and not at the 
moment imposed by the enemy Higher Command. 
The enemy's every effort during this consider- 
able period (which has cost him in time nearly 
two months and in men not less than a quarter of 
his total forces there present) was to get round 
the flanks of the retiring Russian line, to cut off 
that portion of it which projected, while it still 
held the salient of Warsaw; failing this, to claw 
round either edge of the main lines as the line fell 
back. 
In these attempts, as we know, the enemy 
perpetually failed. But there would come a 
moment when a certain physical obstacle, which' 
has from time immemorial affected every cam- 
paign directed against Russia from the west, 
would make itself felt. This 'physical obstacle 
was the great region of marshes lying to the east 
of the Upper Bug, and therefore to the east and 
south of the modern fortress of Brest at the turn- 
ing point of that riper. 
The moment the Russian forces had fallen so 
far back as to impinge upon this region of marsh 
there would at once appear a division among 
them. There would be. two great masses of Rus- 
sian troops, the one north of the marshes, the 
other south of them, and the main body north of 
the marshes would repose upon the marshes with 
security — at least, on the analogy of all past his- 
tory. Its left would be protected by the marshy, 
region. It would apparently have nothing to fear 
in the way of envelopment save from the north — 
that is, on its right flank. 
The threat to the line upon the north — tlie 
threat, that is, directed against the right flank 
of the Russians, has principally occupied military 
opinion in this country. The advance upon Riga, 
first the peril and afterwards the fall of Kovno, 
the approach of the Austro-German columns in 
Hindenburg's group of armies to the railway line 
between Warsaw ami Petrograd, all meant that 
should the advance continue the Russian line 
on the north would be turned; but that advance 
