LAND AND WATER 
January 20, 1916. 
about 100 from Salonika. And all these routes 
of concentration by sea are far more rapid in mere 
time apart from the actual conditions of land 
transport in that region. That is, even if the rail- 
way were of the best equality, even if the land were 
well supplied with petrol vehicles and rolling 
stock upon the railways, the sea would still have 
the advantage. 
(3) This leads me to my third point. As a 
matter of fact, !and communication in the Levant 
is quite peculiarly handicapped. 
There is, what we have already remarked, 
the handicap of only one railway. That railway 
is not continuous. Further, it is broken in gauge 
at one point, though this may be remedied later, 
(iood roads are very nearly absent, and on the 
top of all this you have the lack of homogeneitjan 
the ground. All the North-western part at A- - 
the Balkans— is a mass of mountains. Communi- 
cations over the plateau (B) of Asia Minor is 
easier, but there are the great mountain ranges at 
C and C. There is the desert at D 
Put together all these points and it is clear 
that the situation of the Allies in the Near I^ast, 
that is upon the coast of the Levant, presents a 
case of possession of interior lines almost unique 
in military history. 
RELATIVE STRENGTHS. 
But having reached that conclusion, certain 
other considerations arise which must be carefully 
noted, if wc are neither to overestimate the 
advantage here described nor to misunderstand it. 
In the first place, while the field of operations 
is for the Allies essentially subsidiary, it is for one 
of the parties to the enemy group of primary 
importance. It is of primary importance to the 
Turkish Empire. To which fact must be added 
the further fact that the .Allies, though now 
superior in men and in munitions to the enemy, 
particularly upon the main western front, have 
no indefinitely large margin of men to spare for 
s^ubsidiary operations. In other words, the pos- 
session of interior lines in this region, which 
would be of importance if it were the only theatre 
of war and if the two forces were there numerically 
equal, is modified by the fact that the enemy will 
in this region almost certainly have for months 
to come a numerical superiority, and that his forces 
there engaged will not be called elsewhere. 
The Bulgarian and Turkish bodies combined, 
even with but . small Austro-German additions, 
working all around the Plastern Mediterranean 
upon such a point as the front before Salonika to 
such a point as the front of the Suez Canal, though 
immensely handicapped by their exterior position 
will, when their equipment is complete, count more 
presumably in men and in material than will the 
Allies (as at present acting) in the same field. 
It may further be noted, though it is not a 
point to insist upon too heavily, that of the allies 
one only, Great Britain, is here seriously menaced. 
I sa^'^ it is not a point to insist upon too much 
because the cause of the Allies is manifestly one, 
and a heavy blow delivered at this country would 
be equally delivered at the resisting power of 
France, Italy and Kussia. 
Another point to be remembered is that 
though we do possess the great advantage of 
interior lines in the Levant our ultimate bases, our 
manufactories and our accumulated stores are 
very far distant. They are, for our own forces, 
more than a fortnight away, taking the average of 
steam, and that Power which is most immediately 
concerned with security in the Levant, Great 
Britain, is also that one of the Allies most distant 
from the scene of operations. . 
Another modification of the position is the 
presence of the submarine in Levantine waters. 
That is a point which I must leave to my colleague 
who deals with naval matters in this paper, but 
the experience which has been before everyone in 
the last few weeks is sufficient to show that this 
factor is not decisive. Ships and stores have been 
lost through submarine activity, but in so small a 
proportion compared with the vast amount of 
coming and going in men and materials, that it 
has not, hitherto, at least, seriously modified the 
control of sea communications upon which all this 
argument is foimded. 
One last consideration seems to me of especial 
moment. It is obvious enough and has been 
mentioned (a little timidly perhaps) in various 
sections of the Allied press. It will bear repetition. 
Any strategic position wherein fate has given 
the advantage of mobility to one side is only of 
value if a moral element Idc present for the use of 
this mobility. And that moral element is Unity 
Of Command. It is no good having three days' 
advantage over my enemy in the capacity of 
rapidly concentrating troops upon a particular 
point if I am condemned to spend a week in 
arguing the matter before starting. It is even 
true that mobility is a snare rather than an 
aid when unity of command is lacking. The 
very fact that you know that you can in the last 
resort move more quickly than your enemy, 
tempts you to negotiation and delays if unity of 
command be lacking. Just as an undecided ancl 
unpunctual person is more likely to miss his traiiy 
if he has a motor car to a distant station than if 
he is compelled to walk — because he has always at 
the back of his mind the idea that a very rapid 
move at the last moment is open to him— so a 
higher command which knows that in the last 
resort it has rapid means of communication open 
to it, will, if divided, only the more tend to delay. 
To say that unity of command is vital does 
not mean that its absence necessarily connotes 
disagreement, but what it does ahcays and 
necessarily connote is difficulty and therefore 
delay in co-ordination. Even if no time is lost in 
discussion from lack of unity of command, time 
is lost from the necessity of co-ordinating the 
plans of A with the plans of B, when A and B 
have an equal authority. 
In plain English the advantage now enjoyed 
by the Allies in the Levant, and it is for the moment 
very considerable, is directly conditioned upoii 
the control of that advantage lying in one will. 
Lacking this all the advantage is thrown away. 
THE SIX FRONTS. 
Of the six fronts, actual or threatened, upon 
which the great war for the moment turns (i) (the 
French, (2) the Italian and the (3) Russian, the 
(4) Balkan, the (5) Syrian and the (6) Meso- 
potamian) only one has in the news of the last 
week shown any movement worth recording. 
One has produced a pohtical result (that of the 
Balkan in the matter of Montenegro) : one has 
been the scene of very great activity (the Southern 
Russian front) but without anv corresponding 
fluctuations of line. Only the last, the Mesopo- 
tamian which, for all the exiguity of the forces 
