LAND AND .W. A T E R 
September 4, 1915. 
of the more i.-tfional centres of Russia may be 
grasped in the foregoing sketch from e 
nresent enemy position in Courland in tlie 
Kne north at^ to the capital of Russia is 
about three hundred miles; from the present 
enemv position bejond Kobryn to the old and 
central capital, Moscow, is about six hundred 
miles; from the railway junction of Kowel, which 
is the advance post in the south to the southern 
capital of Kiev, is again three hundred miles. 
It has been remarked, not only in Russia, but 
in the West, that all the more obvious elements ot 
the situation should lead the enemy to attempt an 
advance on Kiev. 
1 The climate lends itself better to an 
autumn campaign than does that of the north and 
the centre. 
2. The distance is no greater than the 
distance to Petrograd and only half that to 
Moscow, while the roads are good and the ground 
hard all the way. 
The advance to Petrograd, on the other 
Land, depends upon but one railway, and, if it is 
direct, passes through very difficult country of 
meres and forests. 
3. An advance towards the south of Russia 
is a threat to the principal sources of supply and 
munitionment, and would also ultimately 
approach or cut off Odessa. 
4. The opportunities of intelligence are, 
perhaps, on the whole, greater on this southern 
advance. It is better populated, and contains 
elements of population, in its first part, at least, 
more favourable to the German cause. 
As against this theory of a new German 
objective against Kiev, there is the physical 
obstacle of the Pripet marshes, or the marshes of 
Pinsk. 
Not that these marshes bar the way to Kiev, 
but that their mass intervenes between the 
southern avenue of advance into Russia and the 
central and northern ones so effectually that an 
army taking the Kiev road would be quite cut off 
from support from the north during something 
like half its advance. 
The Russian forces, as we have seen, will, in 
any case, group themselves into separate armies, 
and it is obvious that one group will be south of 
the Pripet marshes, while the two other groups 
will lie to the north of them. For a forced retire- 
ment, able always to command its rate of speed 
and to check at will the pursuing enemy, this 
separation of the groups by marshland is not 
formidable. But for an advancing enemy, who 
may find himself checked at any moment, and who 
is never certain of his rate of advance, to be cut 
off from his supports and the extension of his line 
northward, is a serious matter. 
It is important to appreciate exactly what 
this obstacle of the Pripet or Pinsk marshes 
means. It is a matter that seems to have been 
a good deal misunderstood in the comments the 
iWestern Press has made upon them. The marshes 
stand as in this Sketch II., forming a sort of 
truncated cone or funnel in shape. The western 
part of this has in the last hundred years been 
considerably improved in its means of communi- 
cation; but the further one goes East towards 
Russia proper the worse the country becomes. I 
have attempted to indicate this in Sketch 11. by 
increasing the shading of the area. 
IBoronowice 
"W^'" 
BREST 
n 
The marshy district is roughly bounded upon 
the north by the railway leading from Brest to 
Minsk and Moscow and upon tlie south by the 
great high road which runs in its last portion 
nearly forty miles south of the Kowel — Kiev 
railway. 
West of Pinsk there is nothing but one vast 
district, nearly two hundred miles across, of 
marsh, forest, and heath. It is a perfectly impos- 
sible country for an army. It is not traversed by 
a single good road (there are several such in the 
western portion); one single-line railway going 
eastward from the junction of Luminiec is the 
only real opportunity of movement afforded to a 
modern army in the district, and it is very 
limited. Through the northern edge of the marsh 
runs the great causeway in monotonous straight 
stretches twenty, thirty, and forty miles lonj^, 
which leads from Brest through Kobryn, ulti- 
mately to Minsk and Moscow. Through the 
southern edge runs, mile after mile through marsh 
and flats of water, the railway from Brest through 
Kowel to Kiev, while along the southern boundary 
on hard land runs the old highway metalled and 
in good repair, which leads ultimately to Kiev. 
It is clear that the further main advance of 
the Austro- Germans must be either to the north 
or to the south of this district and that the 
marshes will more and more separate the northern 
from the southern portions, for the marshy, 
country gets worse as one goes eastward and at 
the same time gets broader. 
Another factor, of course, in the develop- 
ments we are about to follow is the rate of the 
Russian retirement and of the enemy advance. 
From the day when the Germans entered 
iWarsaw and found it deprived of all advantages 
for war to that when they entered Brest and 
found themselves similarly bereft of booty, gnns, 
or stores, the rate of advance was nearly seven 
miles a dav. But that is no guide to the rate of 
advance which may be possible to the enemy when 
the real resistance is offered as it was offered for 
so many weeks in central Poland. 
Hindenburg's group, for instance, advanced 
against the Narew front at an average rate of 
not a mile a day, or, to put it more accurately^ 
they were held up until the retirement behind tha 
Russian screen was complete, and there is no 
reason to suppose that a similar policy may not be 
attempted again at any moment by the Russianq 
during this next stage of their retirement. 
lA 
