LAND AND WATER 
October 30, 1915. 
the mountains. But they are very rave. There is 
no good arenue of supply, for instance, wherehy 
yon may vork up northward from Monastir to the 
relief of I'skuh; there is no proper avenue of 
supply in all the south of the State, save the tno 
connnunicating trenches of the A'ardar and the 
Morava, which are followed by the Salonica- 
Uskub-Nish-Semendria railway. This formation^ 
of the country lends itself strongly to defence. A 
territory once occupied by the enemy will be the 
better heltl on account of it. 
It is therefore conceivable that the i)Ian which 
will suggest itself to the Allies for the ultimate 
relief of Serbia — or, rather, for the ultimate em- 
barrassment of the enemy liere and for the inter- 
ruption of his plans — will rather turn upon a 
blow delivered upon the Bulgarian plain and the 
main line to Constantinople, further to the East. 
That is a matter which is both uncertain from the 
necessary concealment of our plans and not to be 
discussed in detail in any paper until those plans 
are as clear to the enemy as to the student of the 
.A^■ar in the West. 
THE RUSSIAN FRONT. 
TTpou the Russian front, in spite of the 
obvious weakness of the enemy's centre and south 
and the corresponding local successes continuing 
to advantage the Russians, the interest of the 
moment turns upon the big fight for Dvinsk and 
Riga. It is toAvards this front that the enemy 
has recently sent such considerable reinforce- 
ments, imperilling his centre and right, and it is 
Jiere that he has deliberately incurred such ex- 
tremely heavy losses. It is not easy to say what 
military object the enemy has in this enormously 
expensive effort, which has now lasted over two 
months. 
Many theories have been put forward. None 
are quite satisfactory. 
Thus one theory would have it that the enemy 
desires to threaten Petrograd next spring — with 
what forces after the wastage of another six 
months heaven only knows; but at any rate that 
theory has been put forward by authorities who 
carry weight. But even if the enemy do nourish 
such a scheme, or desire to threaten with it, there 
is no particular advantage in securing the line of 
the Dvina just as winter approaches, and at so 
grievous a price. 
Others tell us that it is because he desires " to 
winter in Riga," but that is talking in the twen- 
tieth century in terms of the eighteenth. Riga is 
for some time to come at the mercy of the sea, and 
the army would remain stretched out along 150 
miles of country in any case. It could not leave 
gaps. It would have to hold the whole line 
exactly as it had to hold the line of the Dunajec 
last winter. Nor is the line of the river here 
appreciably stronger than would be an entrenched 
position. 
The whole thing is a puzzle which I have 
never seen explained, unless the explanation be 
that the enemy, calculating the rising rate of the 
Russian equipment and munitioning, allows for a 
renewed Russian offensive fairly soon and desires 
both to secure the Dvina bridgeheads before it 
takes place and to keep the north busy in case that 
offensive is designed for the south. 
At any rate, the position in front of Riga 
is that which we have followed upon the accom- 
panying Sketch II. The enemy has advanced 
roughly from the railway line which goes east- 
ward from Mitau, right up to the line of the 
Dvina, and is now upon his nearer sector no 
further than ten miles from Riga itself. He 
first took Linden (opposite Lennevaden), then took 
Borkowitz, and two days ago, at the time of writ- 
ing — that is, last Sunday, the 24th — had outposts 
as far down as the mouth of the Httle Berze stream. 
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