L A xN D AND WATER. 
January G, 1916V 
LEMBERG 
5& 
If we recollect how matter?; stand in the- 
Balkans ; if we further recollect that Roumania 
is the great unknown factor and that the Rou- 
manian army would make all the difference to the 
immediate future of the campaign one way or the 
other from the three factors of its position, its 
numbers and its freshness ; if we add to all this a 
consideration of the main truth which every General 
Staff in Europe has first in mind— the enemy's 
anxiety in the matter of numbers— we shall see the 
purpose of such an offensive as Russia has appar- 
ently undertaken, though perhaps only local and 
temporary, upon the southern end of her line. 
Russia in Bessarabia threatens to some extent 
the enemy position in the Balkans. It is all very 
well to say that we do not believe Roumania will 
allow a march through the Dobrudja or that no 
considerable Russian forces are massed near the 
mouths of' the Danube, but the mere fact that 
Russia can concentrate there quickly keeps the 
enemy— Bulgarian and Austro-German— on the 
watch and under the necessity of leaving troops 
watching the frontier along C.C.C. in sketch III. 
Meanwhile, along comparatively short lines of 
communication in Bessarabia, Russian forces can 
strike at or threaten either end of the com- 
paratively short arc A-B in the same sketch. The 
same time, or immediately afterwards, another 
separate offensive of the Russians along the arrow 
3 towards Buczacz developed. At the moment 
of writing (upon Tuesday evening, January 4th) 
these two offensives in the south have become 
much the biggest part of the activity along all this 
southern portion of the Russian line. 
Each side claims comparatively small numbers 
of prisoners. There has been a slight advance 
of our AUies along their two main lines of attack 
(2) and (3) in Sketch I, but nothing in any way 
conclusive or definite has yet developed. 
It is perhaps not too much to suggest that the 
real objixt upon the Russian side of this new- 
offensive, which has thus suddenly attracted the 
attention of Europe, is for the moment no more 
than to compel a corresponding concentration 
of troops upon the enemy's side, and that with 
an object quite as much poUtical as strategic 
enemy front to the corresponding Russian front 
runs north from the Roumanian frontier, and is 
roughly that of the dotted line on Sketch III. The 
Russian forces now gathered in Bessarabia are 
in the position to compel the enemy to concentrate 
with difficulty over very long exterior lines. 
A comparatively slight movement upon their 
part towards A or towards B compels movements 
by the enemy along the much longer ine D.D.D. 
Whether a n.ovement towards A, such as now 
appears to be taking place, is a feint to be followed 
by a movement across the Danube, or whether it 
is a main attack the enemy cannot tell. By an 
alternation of pressure or by threatening at either 
end A and B of the shorter arc the enemy is com- 
pelled always to anxiety and sometimes to concen- 
tration at "either end of the longer arc D.D.D. 
That is the advantage which the strategic 
possession of Bessarabia and of the Russian forces 
in it, gives to our ally at this moment. 'Ihc 
