LAND AND WATER. 
September 25, 1915. 
raid, therefore, though it did not directly menace 
of its own force this northern flank of the Rus- 
sian retreat from Vilna, did (in a degree which, I 
repeat, is still obscure) threaten for two days the 
railway communication between Vilna and 
Minsk, which communication would be very valu- 
able or essential (the event will determine which) 
to the safe conduct of the retreat. 
If this railway be cut, the only line remaining 
for use is that through Vilna and Lida south- 
wards, but this line can only support the retreat 
for a part of its effort, the main direction of the 
retirement being not south, but south-east. 
Further, this line from Vilna to Lida and so 
southwards (which is a section of the great north 
and south avenue of railway communication from 
the Baltic to Leiuberg, which the Austro-Germans 
are aiming for as their first direct objective) was 
already closely menaced by the enemy's advance. 
Last Saturday, September 18, the enemy 
entered the town of Vilna. 
He found the town itself — as he had found 
Warsaw and Brest, and every other place he had 
occupied in this fashion — worthless to him stra- 
tegically; politically it is another matter. 
All material had been removed, all stores, all 
machinery, and all men. But the frustration of 
the enemy's military object in the town of Vilna 
itself was not, any more than the corresponding 
frustration of his object in front of Warsaw, the 
end of the business. 'There still remained the great 
salient, and everything turned upon how far the 
main bodies of the Russian troops had proceeded 
southward and eastward along the road to Minsk; 
how far the cavalry menace to the Minsk railway 
had hampered them— for on the railway they must 
depend as well as on the roads — how far the pressure 
on the two flanks of the salient was being resisted. 
Upon these elements — every one of them un- 
known at the moment of writing — depends the 
solution of the problem. The point where the neck 
of the salient is narrowest (or, rather, was 
narrowest upon Sunday last, which is the last day 
of which we have news) was from the neighbour- 
hood of Moldecezno Junction to the railway cross- 
ing of the River Lebeida, in front of Lida. For 
on last Sunday the Austro-German cavalry was 
lying in front of Moldecezno Junction, Smorgon, 
and Voriany. How near it was to these three 
points we cannot tell. The Russians report that 
the day before, the Saturday, they had beaten off 
the enemy cavalry from Moldecezno Junction 
Itself, and the Russians were clearly holding their 
own with a rearguard at Michelski.^ Further, the 
fluctuating character of this cavalry occupation 
of country was emphasised by the driving the 
enemy out of W^idzy , which he had occupied for 
* Hero I must admit in a footnote, by way of digression 
*n allusion to the Geniian official reference to the fight at 
Michelski. It is a model of mendacity «xacUy calculated to 
t«rnfy uninstructed opinion among neutrals and to support 
the newspaper campaign of panio on which the enemy so 
largely rehea. The communique apoke of the Russians "try- 
ing to break out by Miclielski " and failing to do so The 
jnenace in such a phrase is vivid t but only to a man not 
Using a map nor understanding that one "breaks out" of 
$. pocket by its mouth, and not by rushing right into the 
•nemya arms and trying to get hack Into territory he 
Wready occupies. There was not a subaltern in the enemy's 
forces who did not know that the Russian action at Michelski 
ivas a flank action successfully holding off the pressure from 
toe north while the main body retired. The official German 
Expression was therefore deliberately aimed at ignorant 
foreign opinion. It is a point well worth noting 
four days. The narrowest part, then, of the neck 
of the salient, from the river crossing at Lebeida. 
somewhere just in front of and to the east of 
Lida, to the Moldecezno station, was not far 
short of eighty miles. And that is a broad gate 
through wnich to draw off even the numerous 
forces which the Russians had been keeping 
within the Vilna salient for a fortnight past. 
Nor is the region to the south and east difficult. 
The roads for the retirement are sufficiently 
numerous. A great main causeway leads straight 
to Minsk. I repeat, the chances of a successful 
withdrawal are greater than the chances of 
disaster by envelopment, and if the successful 
withdrawal is accomplished, the enemy has again 
— and for, perhaps, the last time— thrown away 
his thousands for empty territory and nothing 
more. Strategically, he will have failed again. 
THE POLITICAL ASPECT. 
So far, I have only been following the strictly 
military side of all these operations. I must now 
consider, for a moment, the political side, because 
the political effect of war is inextricably mixed up 
with its mere strategics. 
Let us get our minds quite clear upon this 
distinction, lest amid the interests of purely mili- 
tary problems we should underestimate the politi- 
cal side of the matter as grossly as the alarmed 
opinion of certain uninstructed contemporaries 
exaggerates it. 
A belligerent Government and its commanders 
are not only justified, but are compelled to con- 
sider, not only the destruction of the enemy's 
afmies in the field, but also the influencing of those 
authorities which ultimately give orders to the 
armies, and of that public opinion upon which 
such authorities in the last analysis depend. 
All this second sort of action we call political. 
Supposing, for instance, that by some miracle the 
Austro-German commanders and Governments 
could make the great mass of English men and 
women feel what those few men feel who ai-e now 
struck with panic, avarice, despair, or any otlier of 
the baser passions making for a disastrous peace. 
Suppose they could extend this corruption to the 
great mass of French men and women, of Italian 
men and women, and of Russian men and women, 
they would create a state of affairs in which the 
Allied Governments would vacillate and break 
down in their effort; and though the Austro- 
Germans should not have achieved one single 
decisive victory in the field, nor have any prospect 
of achieving such, yet by that political miracle 
they would have achieved their end just as surely 
as though they had broken the Western lines or 
enveloped a group of Russian corps. They would 
be able to determine a peace which left them with 
their present occupied foreign territory as an 
asset for bargaining, with their fleets intact, and 
with reserves of men still in being. 
Now, though the enemy cannot work these 
miracles, yet he can, and most legitimately may 
attempt to, achieve some part of their effect by 
operations which, though not amenable to purely 
strategical analysis, have their effect upon civilian 
imagination, and, therefore, upon the structure of 
his opponent's society. If it is foolish and a 
mark of ignorance, to regard the mere occupation 
of territory, or the entry into a dismantled town, 
as a thing of military effect, it is no less foolish to 
