October 9, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER. 
THE THREE MAIN MATTERS. 
By HILAIKE BELLOC. 
NOTE — -This article lias been submitted to the Tress Biiieau, nliich does not oliject ti> (he publication as censored, and takes no 
responsibility tor tlie coriectness of the statements. 
In accordance with the requirements ot the Press Bureau, the positions of troops on Plans illustrating this Article must only be 
regarded as approximate, and an definite strength at any noint is indicated. 
THERE are three things before us this week 
in the great campaign. The first, and 
most important, is the position in the 
West; that is, the position in which the 
Allied forces find themselves after the first success 
of the great offensive, and its check or halt in 
front of the enemy's second line. The next is the 
curiously prolonged refusal or inability of the 
enemy to attain his end in Poland. This, even 
more* than the situation in the West, has the 
character of a turning-point. The third matter 
is, of course, the intervention of Bulgaria. 
Let us deal with these three main matters in 
their order. 
L — THE NEW OFFENSIVE L\ THE 
WEST. 
We may neglect, as comparatively unimpor- 
tant, the minor features in last week's news upon 
this front. There have been a succession of 
slight advances on the part of the French iit 
the Champagne, the most important of which was 
no more than the surrounding and cutting off of 
an impossible little enemy salient. This advance 
has not been made for the purpose of gaining 
ground, but for the purpose of consolidating an 
acquired position. The smaller French body in 
the Artois, north of Arras, has taken, and holds, 
the crest above Vimy.<" 
The possession of such points has its chief 
value in the fact that it gives one obser- 
vation posts. A height no longer dominates, 
in the old artillery sense. Guns are hidden 
behind it. But a height, especially one stand- 
ing over a wide plain as does the escarpment 
all above Viniy stand over the plain of Douai, 
gives one a very decided advantage over the enemy 
in all heavy gun work. Those who have experi- 
ence of the campaign in the Dardanelles, for in- 
stance, .will agree that one of the chief advantages 
the enemy there has over the Allies is his pos.ses- 
siou of the crests from which he can correct all his 
fire upon the Allied positions. Had the Allies the 
same crests in their hands, they would be able 
both to protect the emplacement of heavy guns (at 
present impossible) and to correct the fire of these 
upon the works of the Narrows, at present largely 
inaccurate. 
The British advance north of Lens has held 
all its gains, including the recaptured Hill 70 and 
the recaptured quarries of Hulluch, with the ex- 
ception of the redoubt near Pit 8, to the north- 
west of Hulluch, which the enemy partly retook 
last Sunday. 
But, I repeat, the interest of the situation in 
the West does not lie in these very small nune- 
ments of the last week. It lies in an estimate of 
(1) The aam3 of tbia villaga was misa^ellsl act "Vitrv " by a 
(«!u.ter'B error both lu the map aaJ iu the t^xC of 'nit week's arlicla. 
the true position of the Allies and the enemy 
respectively for the next action. 
In order to judge this, we shall do well to 
contrast what may be called . the public, or 
popular, view of that situation with the aspect it 
UMist present to the commanders upon either side. 
The popular view is, roughly, a summing 
up of the whole afl'air as a partial, but 
only partial, success in an attempt to break 
through. This is naturally called bj' the one side 
a preliminary success, though everyone on our side 
knows that the success was not decisive. It is 
naturally called by the other side a failure upon 
the part of the English and the French. Our 
Press emphasises the mere fact that we advanced 
somewhat and took men and guns. These papers 
insist upon the fact that the Anglo-French offen- 
sive has stopped in front of the second or third 
line of the German works. 
Both sides speak and think of the thing as a 
blow delivered against an obstacle which cracked 
but did not break. 
This general opinion must not be despised, 
for it reposes upon very obvious facts. 
An impartial third party, not concerned with 
the art of war. and only knowing the news that 
had come to him and the positions on the map, 
would say, " The great offensive, delivering its 
main blow, had hojied at the best to get through, 
at the second best to shift the lines, at the third 
best to hold positions from which it would take 
action with greater i>ower. It has failed in the 
first of these. It has hitherto failed in the second. 
Only the future will show whether it has suc- 
ceeded even with the third." 
But though this general and uninstructed 
attitude towards the situation reposes in this case 
u[)on plain facts, and is, therefore, worthy of 
respect, the commanders upon the two sides are 
certainly looking at the matter in a totally dif- 
ferent fashion. The German Government pub- 
lishes a so-called French Order of the Day (cer- 
tainly not the General Order of the Day, 
for it is not French work; more probably a 
guess built upon notes found), and insists,, 
for the encouragement of public opinion in 
Germany upon the fact that the extreme success 
hoped for in that Ordei- has not yet been reached. 
The French and English dispatches point out with 
justice the extent of the success achieved, and are 
almost silent upon, or speak only in the most 
general terms 'of, the next step. The German 
Government, of the twtt, has been the least wi.se. 
for it has added to its poi)ular description for the 
consumption of its citizens a few phrases that are. 
childish— as. for instance, an increase of the 
English losses bv at least 50 per cent., of the 
French, by a great deal more than 100 per cent., 
