January 20, 1916. 
LAND AND WATER 
engaged is of high interest, has shown some 
development. It may be weU to sinnmarise the 
news of the various fronts, conchiding with this 
last one upon the Tigris. 
(1) THE WESTERN FRONT DURING 
THE WEEK. 
Upon the Western front there has been 
nc" "change. The only remarkable feature in the 
week's communiques being the long range firing 
of the heavy artillery on the Allied side. This 
practice has done some damage in the French 
town of Lens behind the German lines and shells 
have also been dropped at long range on to 
Lille. The enemy has given out in his official 
communiques that the shells killed and wounded 
such and such a number of civilians. It is remark- 
able that the authorities in this country have 
not explained to the public the meaning of this 
long-distance fire ; its contrast with recent enemy 
long-distance fire and the reason that the enemy 
emphasises the loss (if they are telling the truth) 
of French civilian life. 
The enemy some months ago against Dun- 
kirk and the other day against Nancy has delivered 
shell at extreme ranges, unaimed and designed 
only for moral effect upon the civilian population. 
In each of these cases he has emplaced a gun very 
securely with apparently no freedom of movement 
and aimed to drop a shell somewhere in a dense 
centre of population. In each case his gun thus used 
after a fashion really puerile, has been discovered 
and destroyed. The enemy apparently imagines 
that a few large shells dropped indiscriminately 
in a considerable town will coerce the French or 
the English towards peace. It is a complete 
misunderstanding of the nature of this war. It 
i§;6h a par with the silly air raids upon London, 
\i'hich do not advance the enemy's military 
objects by the smallest fraction. 
The Allied long-distance fire is obviously 
not designed to terrorise the friendly population 
of a French town. It is designed to interfere 
i&ith enemy communications. It does interfere 
with enemy communications badly. Hence the 
enemy's official news about unfortunate wounded 
civihans. It is directed to destroy depots, rail- 
way junctions and sidings. It is not delivered 
at random at extreme range by fixed guns, but 
with calculation at a particular range and aimed. 
The more the enemy tells us that it is hurting our 
friends the more may we be certain that we are 
interfering with his transport. 
For the rest the only other news upon the 
Western front has been the check of an enemy 
attack in the open Champagne country east of 
Rheims and west of Argonne. It was delivered 
with about three divisions and was checked with 
very heavy loss because it exposed itself at one 
critical moment to the full sweep of the French 
field artillery. It cannot have been intended for 
anything but a local offensive of the sort to which 
the enemy is compelled if he is to maintain his 
lines in spite of his anxiety for men. He lost a 
considerable number of prisoners — how many the 
French have not told us — and he did nothing. 
That it was the beginning of any offensive on a 
large scale is not credible. Such an experiment 
in the West may come from the enemy before the 
end of the winter. It is more likely to come later. 
(2) THE ITALIAN FRONT. 
Upon this front the only event of.thepast week 
hasbeen the re-occupation of the trenches just out- 
side Oslavia by our Allies. The position has nothing 
determining about it at all, as would have, for 
instance, a similar short advance upon the Podgora 
ridge, but it has shown the incapacity here of the 
enemy to hold even a short captured section for 
more than a day or two against a counter-offensive. 
Along all this front Austria is hanging on with just a 
minimum of troops. They are very good troops, 
carefully chosen ; the best she has. It is, 
paradoxically enough, an expensive policy in men 
for it puts your Hne to a heavy strain. It is a 
gamble upon the war's not lasting more than three 
or four months more, for we know that Austria is 
drafting in continually numbers out of proportion 
to her permanent strength upon this front. Her 
very high proportion of loss here is due to the 
weight, number and excellence in handling of the 
Italian heavy artillery, which stands very high 
indeed as an arm, and behind which is all the 
intensive mechanical power of modern Lombardy 
directed against a front, the Izonzo front, even 
shorter than the British front in Flanders. 
(3) THE RUSSIAN FRONT. 
Upon the Russian front the cessation of 
our Ally's advance which was taken for granted in 
these columns last week and the week before, was 
clearly marked in the present week. It is due, as 
was pointed out in these columns, to the fact that 
upon a front of less than 300 miles, with many 
interruptions due to the nature of the ground, 
the enemy has men sufficient to hold a line of 
trenches which, though not actually continuous, 
forms a virtually continuous defence. To force such 
a line we know from the whole experience of this 
war that nothing will suffice, save a concentration 
of heavy artillery and its extremely immobile 
munitionment. Now such a concentration in a 
period of alternate frost and thaw and over a 
country without hard roads is impossible, for it 
depends nowadays upon motor traction. What the 
Russian effort "has done has been strategically 
and generally to compel a concentration of enemy 
forces just when the enemy most wanted to spare 
men for the Balkans. It has had a political effect 
within the enemy's territory and perhaps upon the 
politicians of Roumania. Tactically and locally 
it has cleared the enemy from the eastern bank of 
the Strypa, it has established a firm bridgehead at 
Chartoriysk, and it has occupied the heights which 
overlook Czernowitz from a few miles eastward. 
It has thus established a straight line north and 
south from the Pripet marshes to the Roumanian 
frontier, and there it has halted. 
(4) THE BALKAN FRONT. 
Upon the Balkan front nothing strategical 
has developed during the week. Politically we 
have had the arranged surrender of official 
Montenegro to the enemy. Strategically this 
means nothing whatsoever, beyond what we knew 
last week, that with the capture of Lovtchen 
Montenegro was overrun. Such of its few thou- 
sands as are free to join the remnant of the Serbian 
• Army towards the sea will join it. The event is oi 
no importance to the campaign as a whole. 
(5) THE SYRIAN FRONT. 
From what may be called the Syrian front, 
which is as yet potential, that is, the menace tc 
Egypt, nothing has been reported. Air recon- 
naissance informs us that no railway work has 
^•et been even begun or apparently so much as 
