LAND AND WATER. 
February lo, 1916. 
MilUairc be strongly tempted to o]>tain a decision where 
the conditions of ground favour early action. 
Now it is clear that tlie Western front here offers 
great advantages over the Eastern : Inniunerable roads 
(juite practicable in any weather serve on that front, and a 
great mass of railways. Supply can be brought up at any 
time and in any weather, and even infantry attack only 
has to wait for a dry spell. In this it differs radically 
from the Eastern front. The communications leading 
up to the Western front from the German arsenals and 
supply centres are not long and the great mass of the 
German forces is gathered there. 
It is next to be remarked that if Germany must get 
decision within a brief limit of time — or retire to shorter 
lines — the Western front would have another most obvious 
advantage over the Eastern. It is upon the Western 
front that the really formidable menace to the Central 
Empires exists. It is there that you have the over- 
whelming supply of munitionmcnt piling up ; it is there 
that you have much the greater number of the Allies 
present, and it is there that you have the most intense, 
complex and efficient civilisation opposed to the aggressor. 
It is again the Western front which is most nearly in touch 
with neutral supply and, in general, it is from the West 
that the German lines, if or when they weaken, must 
fear the worst peril of breaking. It is on the Western 
front, therefore, alone, that a true decision is possible ; 
in the near future, thoiigh later when the season has 
changed and Russian rcannament is completed, the 
difference between the liast and the West will be less 
marked. The argument is that knowing tliis and knowing 
that the delay within which such a decision is necessary 
to him is brief, the enemy's next great effort — the last 
one which he will be able to deliver in full force — will 
develop in France and Flanders. 
To these arguments there may be added one which 
the French study omits, but which would seem to be of 
considerable weight. An offensive in the West cotild be 
delivered leith German forces alone. 
An offensive in the East would demand the co-opera- 
tion of the Austrian service in a very large proportion. 
United though the control now is in Prussian hands, there 
is a lack of homogeneity necessarily present in any further 
operations in Poland. The strong stiffening of first rate 
German troops present nine months ago disappeared in 
the enormous losses of the summer lighting. 
An operation against Salonika again (it could not 
possibly be decisive of the war nor even immediately 
productive of negotiations for an inconclusive peace) 
would be still more heterogeneous in composition. The 
material conditions for undertaking it will be present 
when the Vardar railway is so thoroughly restored as 
to be capable of bringing up grea* masses of heavy shell, 
which riiay be in anything from a few days to a month. 
But the infantry, which would have to clench the artillery 
attack, would be of all sorts and conditions, principally 
Bulgar, perhaps partly Turk, and the whole thing com- 
plicated by political considerations highly divergent as 
between the Austrians, Germans, Bnlgars and Turks, 
with the further element of confusion presented by the 
. fact that Greek soil would be invaded. 
If then, the ^irguments in favour of the enemy's 
attempt of an offensive in the West are the strongest, as 
they clearly are, of what nature would such an attack 
be, and what would be the chances of its success ? 
Chances of Success. 
Here the answer can only be on the analogy of the 
past. Such an attack would apparently be an attack 
upon not less than two main sectors, the largest upon 
a front of not less than some fifteen miles, and more pro- 
bably twenty, the smaller certainly at least ten, and the 
two separated by so considerable an interval as to be 
sufficient to form a dangerously large salient, should the 
Allied line be bent back at the two separated points of 
attack. At each such point the preliminary to that 
attack would be the same massed lieavy artillery fire 
which the French were the first to develop in this" cam- 
paign a year ago in Champagne, and which the enemv 
ropied so successfully three months later upon the 
Dunajec. 
All analogies, by the way, with the fighting in front 
of Yprcs at the end of 1914 may iirovc misleading. At 
that time the " drum fire " of a vast number of heavy 
pieces concentrated on one comparatively small area was 
neither possible nor attempted. There has h:cn no rv- 
pericHcc yet in the West of the enemy attacking in this 
form. The present economy of shell practised by the 
enemy is no guide. He is certainly accumulating ammu- 
nition this winter as he did last. It is possible, or 
probable, that the artillery preparation would be pre- 
ceded by very active trench work ; the attempt to 
bite into and to weaken sections of the line by an in- 
crease in the number and rate of fire of the trench 
weapons. There is even a theory that the future of 
the war will see a modification of heavy artillery attack 
in favour of a great development in this concentrated 
short range work delivered from the trench line itself. 
It is a theory which cannot be judged by the observer 
at a distance. It is one which only practical experience 
can judge ; but it is already debated. 
At any rate, after such a preparation, mainly presum- 
ably of highly concentrated fire, long maintained from 
heavy pieces, will come, as it has already come from our 
side in the past, the massed infantry attack with a hope 
at the best of breaking the fine, at second best of occupy- 
ing, as the Allies occupied in September, a wide belt of 
first line trenches, capturing some thousands of prisoners 
and some scores of guns. 
Now the possibility of prosecuting such a plan 
depends upon two things : (i) The power to concentrate 
either unobserved or undisturbed, and (2) the inability 
or unwillingness of your opponent to create a diversion. 
The great French and British concentration before 
the attack of last September was imperfectly observed 
by the enemy because his air work was not adequate 
to the task. He certainly had information sufficient 
to make him obtain a rough judgment of tliat concentra- 
tion, but he seems to Iiavc missed the details of it. 
Further, he was in doubt as to the moment when the 
infantry attack would be launched. This was particu- 
larly tiie case in Champagne where the " drum fire " 
would be checked for a moment as though an assault 
were to take place, the German communication trenches 
would be immediately filled with men coming up to 
repel that assault, and once those trenches were en- 
cumbered with moving troops the drum fire would begin 
again with murderous results. 
On the other hand, the Germans last September 
were not in a position to check our concentration by an 
earlier counter-attack upon our line elsewhere. The 
number of their pieces, and of their men, and the amount 
of their munitionment collected on the West was calcu- 
lated to a minimum for defensive purposes. Their 
weight was in the East ; and they had just completed a 
very laborious concentration of weapons and munition- 
ment upon the Danube. 
It is clear that in both these respects the Allied line 
as against a German offensive in the near future would be 
in a very different position from what the Germans were 
in when they received the Allied attack of last September. 
The new German monoplanes have, partly and for the 
moment checked, but not in any decisive manner, the 
extended flights of obsen-ation still taken by Allied 
aircraft over the German lines. It would be quite im- 
possible to prevent the higher command of the French 
and British having a thorough and detailed acquaintance 
with the enemy's concentration of men and guns. His 
junctions, once sncli a concentration was in full swing, 
would be under bomb attack from the air and long range 
artillery attack from the land. 
In the second point also the Allies arc in a very 
different position from what the Germans were four 
months ago. They are not cut down to a bare defensive. 
They have a great superiority in number whether of men 
or of guns or of munitions. There is nothing to prevent, 
their meeting an enemy concentration by a violent 
diversion elsewhere. 
One side lesson would seem to emerge very strongly 
from these considerations, and that is tiie extreme im- 
portance of leaving our airwork at such a moment un- 
touched by any interference foreign to the military 
organisation which has given i such perfection. The 
keeping back of aircraft to calm the nen-cs of civilians at 
home, indeed any kind of publicity with regard to the 
production and^use of the machines or open criticism of 
that use would, at such a moment, be criminal and 
