L A N D 
w .\ r E R 
March 30, icjiG 
THE RUSSIAN MOVEMENTS 
By Hilaire Belloc 
THOUGH the Russian movements of the last fort- 
night have nothing decisive about them whatso- 
ever and can hardly be even preparatory to any 
delinite plan at so early a date as this, we shall 
better understand the main effort later on if we appreci- 
ate the situation North of Vilna as it stands now before 
the thaw. 
The great line from the Baltic to the Roumanian 
frontier consists of three separate sections. 
In the centre are the marshes of Pinsk in which no 
decisive movement can e\er take place. The enemy 
there holds a small number of more or less isolated 
positions which depend foi" their security upon the nature 
of the ground. One would almost tall these jxjsitions 
an archipelago, were it not that the wliole region is cut 
by a certain number of embankments, by a few causeways 
.and railway lines, and further traversed by ways which 
the inhabitants know and can use, and which are pieced 
together deviously along the harder stretches of ground. 
Our Allies hold, opposite to and watching these enemy 
positions, similarly discontinuous posts. The main supply 
of either of the two comparatively small commands 
watching each other from north to south of this detestable 
triangle is the railway which runs from cast to west 
through ' the very centre of the marshes from Kobrin 
and serves the town of Pinsk. The marshes arc, I believe, 
never so frozen as to allow for the unimpeded movement 
of armies ; they certainly have not been so in the course 
of this campaign. 
This area may therefore be regarded as a breach in 
the general continuity of the lines, such as does not exist 
upon any other front. It compels both parties to treat 
what is north and what is south of the marshes separateh', 
and it therefore condemns each to some considerable 
anxiety whenever its opponent takes the offensive. If, 
for instance, movements that look like a big 'Austro- 
' German offensive in the south develop, the ; Russians 
, cannot rapidly reinforce there from comparatively short 
distances. The rearrangement of forces does not proceed 
as it does in the west along a continuous line, but involves 
the bringing of large bodies over very great distances 
indeed. There are really two separate theatres of war 
on tlie eastern front, separated by the marshes and 
. supporting each other only in the most distant, difficult 
and belated fashion. 
When we contrast the ways in which this disadvan- 
tage weighs upon the enemy and upon our Ally, we dis- 
' cover the following points : 
First, the Austro-Germans can more easily and 
(|uickly move troops from the one field to the other 
because, although they do not hold any good lateral 
railway they ha^■e behind theni a much more comjilete 
system than have the Russians. In other words, they 
have to bring their men round in a big bend, but along 
. that bend they have plenty of rolling stock and se\eral 
double line railways Tiie Russians have no latera'Mne 
tliither. If either side held completely the Riga, 
Dvinsk, \'ilna. Lida, Luminetz, Rovko railway, that 
• side would ha\e an enormous advantage. It was for 
such an advantage that the Austro-Ciermans fought so . 
hard last September ; but neither side remained in such 
a position. Each cuts across that railway and holds only 
a part of it. and the Russians have no great lateral line 
for more than a hundred miles behind. 
On the other hand, the Russian organisation has, 
upon tliat very account, been arranged in perfectly 
separate groups. The Northern armies have their own 
bases and even their own factories sepai^ate from tin- 
Southern, and so far as the mere reinforcement in men is 
concerned, a suHicient delay permits of drafts from the 
interior which can be directed either to the north t)r to the 
south. Rapid redisposition of troops is impossible to the 
Russians, but then so is a rapid surprise movement of the 
encmv against them in such country. 
1 The second thing we have to note about the Eastern 
front is that as it is divided into three sections geo- 
graphically so it is divided into three distinct seasons for 
operations. You have the winter, in which decisive work 
can hardly be atteni])ted, but in which it is possible to 
move considerable bodies of men. \\'e must not conceive 
of this season as one long unbroken period of hard frost. 
If it were so, movement would be easier. There are con- 
stant intervals of partial thaw. 
Tnen comes a second season, brief, but of a sort quite 
imknown in the West of luuope, which is the spring thaw. 
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that during this brief 
season armies cannot move at all. Trenches are flooded, 
the low levels turned to morass or shallow sheets of watir, 
and the roads are merely deep masses of mud. It will be 
remembered how, about this time last year, the operations 
upon the Narew came to an end abruptly and remained 
suspended until early summer. Tile cause of this was 
the thaw. 
The thaw once over you get a season of at least six 
months in which operations upon a large scale arc possible. 
It was the period of the great Austro-Gcrman offensive 
last year. 
To this note on climate we nmst add the obvious 
fact that the southern of the three sections is open 
