LAND A .N U \\ A 1 11 K 
i\o\emuci ^u, lyio- 
front is immobility combined with a normally 
even spreading ."t of the forces reqnired to hold the 
line. But the Eastern front is and will remain 
mobile, and it does not consist in two long lines of 
men, more or less evenl\' distributed and facing 
each other, but in separate main groups of con- 
tending armies ; one very large group on the Riga- 
D\insk front in the extreme north : one \ery large 
one on tiie Styr in the south, and smaller groups 
scattered through the middle part, and in the 
marshes of Pinsk unable to engage in any actions 
of importance. 
The problem for the enemy is how he shall hold 
tiieRussians as they gradually re-cqui]-) themselves 
with rifies. This equipment of the Russians witii 
rifles is reall\- the whole business. If by a miracle 
one could put a million and a half rifles more upon 
tlie Russian front to-morrow, the trained men 
ready to use them are amply present and the 
enemy line could not hold. But the re-equipment 
is as a fact necessarily slow for these vast numbers, 
and meanwhile it is for the enemy to see if he can 
just maintain his strength sufiicient to prevent 
disaster while the Balkan adventure matures. 
The thing has been blurted out quite frankly 
by the otficer who is, upon the whole, the best of 
the German students on the war in one of the 
principal Berlin papers : " If," says this consider- 
able authority, " we can maintain ourselves in 
Poland until we have done what we want to do in 
the Balkans, we need not complain." Whether 
his compatriots and their allies will succeed in this 
effort is the whole of the interest upon the Eastern 
front this winter. 
In order to hold the Russians, though their 
ecpiipment is steadily increasing, the enemy's 
plan would seem to be something of this kind: — 
He bases himself upon the necessary viscosity 
of the Russian forces : That is, the inability of 
Russia to move great masses of men from north to 
scuth or south to north on account of her bad lateral 
communications. Sketch Map I. shows clearly 
why this is. The Russians have no one lateral line 
running North and South as they had when they 
still stood in front of — i.e., to the west of — the 
line Riga, Dvinsk, Vilna, Baranvichi, Rowno. 
Part of that line they have lost — from just south 
of Dvinsk to ju?t Scuth of Baranvichi. It may 
be said " Though the Russians suffer from this 
handicap, so do the enemy ; for they, on their side, 
have failed to obtain possession of all this line — 
which was their object. But the enemy, by skirt- 
ing back westward a little to Brest, has ample 
opportunities. He can still move men from North 
to South fairly easily. Russia cannot. He hits 
as hard as he can, and over and over again upon 
the Dvina front in the extreme north in order 
to hold there the maxinuTi number of Russians. 
For it is Russian success in the South that would be 
dangerous, politically as well as strategically. 
In the scuth he confines himself to preventing, 
at very great expense, a Russian advance. 
Both these combined policies are exceedingly 
costly in men, tut the cost is calculated and the 
calculation is that the expenditure during the 
winter of masses of less and less efficient recruit- 
m?nt will, at any rate, hold the Russians u itil 
the two new classes of 'i6 and '17 come in with 
tlie spring, and the Balkan adventure turns (as 
there is always a chance of its turning) in his 
favour. There are signs that the price, though 
calculated, is here and there too higii. Probably 
what has happened in front of Riga is a small 
local breakdown due to the too treat kiUing off 
the new and imperfect recmitment at this extreme 
end of the line. 
Wc must remember that though the equip- 
ment of the Russians in rifles will still take a long 
time, their re-munitionnient for field artillery i^ by 
now fairly completed. We must further remember 
that though you may calculate upon paper the 
expenditure you mean to make of bad human 
material, the moral factor of error becomes more 
and more important as the material gets worse. 
Castelnau, in Champagne, with what are as good 
troops as ever took the field, or Bojadjeff, with 
his new Bulgarian forces can say : "I shall 
lose so many men in this plan ; I shall then have 
so many men left ; my losses will be made good by 
such and such a date-; I shall then attack again 
at such and such a place, expecting such and such 
a loss." With good troops a General can put the 
problem thus mathematically, because he knows 
that the remainder who are not spent in an action 
will stand, and that after certain given losses are 
made good out of sound reserves, his army is as 
strong as ever. 
But Hindenberg cannot make calculations of 
the same sort in front of Riga, because the human 
material which is being supplied to him is declining 
in quality. There are voluntary surrenders, and 
there are bad breakdowns. The evidence of these 
is quite clear, and is repeated and increases as 
time goes on. 
This does not mean that there is a " rot " ; 
it does not mean that this German Army grouj) as 
a whole on this northern extreme of the line is as 
yet losing cohesion — far from it. But it means 
that the bad recruitment makes exact calculation 
more and more difficult. When your material 
is not quite at the level of the best troops, or, rather, 
when some lately added part of it is below par, you 
may, in an attempted offensive thrown back, lose 
very many more men than you had budgeted for, 
and every time this happens you must fill their 
places again with still worse material. 
In other words, the enemy's policy on the 
Eastern front, deliberately and calculatedly ex- 
pensive in men, is also not entirely under his con- 
trol. The losses may, so to speak, " bolt " : Thev 
may outrun the constable ; the machine may 
''race." And that is the great danger which 
lies before the Gsrmans here in the next few 
months. 
In the Southern group the pouring out of 
human life by the enemy is even more remarkable, 
and even more necessary, because he dares not 
allow the political effect of a Russian victory to 
strike the Balkan imagination, and because he has 
there even worse material than in the North ; be- 
cause, also, the Russians are there fairly close to 
good bases of production and supply, and finally 
because the Austro-Hungarian troops, upon which 
the enemy mainly depends in this region, have at 
once a larger and a worse reserve of man power 
than the Germans. Hence the desperate— and 
so far successful effort to prevent the Russians from 
permanently crossing the river Styr and hence the 
recent holocaust of men at Tchartovinsk, where the 
railway crosses the river. 
THE AUSTRIAN RATE OF 
RECRUITMENT. 
In this connection it is interesting to note a 
piece of detailed evidence, unofficial, it is true but 
bearing good marks of authcnticitv, which appeared 
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