LAND AND WATER 
September 18, 1915. 
THE RUSSIAN FRONT. 
By HILAIRE BELLOC. 
nOTE.— Thii artkle has been submitted to the Press Bureau, nbich doea not object to the publication as censored, and takes n« 
responsibility ior the correctness of the statements. 
i3 accardance with tbe requirements of the Press Bureau, the positions of troops on Plans illustrating this Article must oaly ba 
regarded as approximate, and no deflniie strength at any point is indicated. 
■TN order better to illustrate and under- 
I stand the present nature of the ]^ussian 
1 retrejit, I propose to make a particular 
■^ examination of this operation from the 
creation of the salient at Grodno to the attain- 
ment of the lateral railway line which is for the 
moment the principal objective of the enemy. 
I propose, that is, to examine, as a whole, and 
then in detail, the last phase of the retreat cover- 
ing not quite a fortnight in time. The full ex- 
amination of this will occupy more than one 
.week's notes. I must carry those of this week 
down to the Pripet Marshes — that is, to include 
all the Northern and Central operations — leaving 
over till next week an analysis of the Southern. 
When such an examination is completed, we 
shall be in a position to grasp the i"ate at which 
the enemy's advance is proceeding, the elements 
of the enemy's advantage, the nature and efficacity 
of the Russian resistance, the measure of the 
enemy's success, and the character of his imme- 
diate objective. 
We shall not be able to decide what his ulti- 
mate object may be for the very simple reason that 
he does not know it himself. The higher com- 
mand of no force proceeding so tentatively and 
amid such " groping," as it were, can look far 
ahead. 
We shall not, therefore, be able to repeat with 
the confidence too often heard in some sections of 
the Press that the enemy proposes to menace either 
the Russian capital, or Moscow, or Kiev, or pro- 
iioses to stand at last on the defensive along the 
line he has gained. The whole thing is a number 
of successive hypotheses which are still hypotheses 
only in the enemy's own mind, but the immediate 
objective and the method of reaching it are clear 
enough. 
The immediate objective, then, is that north- 
and south railway line of communication which 
runs from Riga in the north upon the Baltic, 
through Dvinsk (Dunaberg), Vilna, Lida Junc- 
tion, and so right south to Rovno, and thence to 
Lemberg. To obtain possession of this line is what 
the enemy obviously desires at the present moment, 
and is also at that present moment not far from* 
attaining. 
This avenue of communication from Riga to 
Lemberg is not, of course, one single system 
iTheie is no " Riga-Lemberg line." Parts of it are 
smgle-line railways running through almost 
deserted marshy country. Short sections of it are 
busy double lines of railway with plenty of shops 
and rolling stock. Other sections are intermediate 
between these two types. One short portion that 
between Dvinsk and Vilna, is a sector of the great 
jnternanonal lino between the capitals of the 
Russian and German Empires. 
But the continuous communication from Rjo-a 
to Lemberg is strategically one thing. It is true 
otureenwich 1. 
Bvmslo 
Lemberg ^Tamopol 
LongituHe 24 [losf' of GreetiwLch. 
that our ally, in his retirement, would destroy 
such a line as thoroughly as possible. But you 
cannot altogether destroy, especially in flat 
country, a piece of engineered communication. 
Its trace is laid out, its embankments, where these 
are necessary (and through th e marshes they are 
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