April 20, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
the main and perhaps only defensive line covering 
'Ircbizond which is that of the Kara Dere, and is about 
15 miles from the town itself. The left, eastern, or 
further bank of the Kara Dere had been verj' thoroughly 
strengthened by the Turks imder (icrman guidance. 
BLacL Sea. 
TREBlZONa 
TarAtsA- 
onSahuuai/ or 
Suiuiay.April:s^s°- 
This river, like all those shorter ones which run from 
the escarpment of the high plateau down into the Black 
Sea, is in most of its course a torrent running through a 
deep and difficult gorge. The country becomes possible 
for troops somewhere about the point A on Sketch II 
above. Immediately upon the sea this rapid and 
dark stream (now swollen with the snow melting upon its 
higher sources) passes through a belt of marsh just east of 
Cape Erekli, but between the gorge (flanked by summits 
about 6,000 feet high) and the marsh, there is a front of 
quite ten miles and perhaps more upon which our Allies 
can attack. To have turned the line of the Kara Dere 
by its right or south was not practicable. The moimtains 
were too diflicult. It had to be forced by a frontal 
attack. 
So far as the very brief message which has reached 
London informs us, the Russians have carried a portion 
at least of this fortified front. At any rate some elements 
of their force seem to be established upon the further 
bank. So far as can be gathered from the message re- 
ceived this success was scored last Saturday or Sunday. 
The remaining distance of the advance to Trebizond has 
no obstacle comparable to that of the Kara Dere. There 
is immediately to the west of the Kara Dere, coming out 
by Cape Falkos, a smaller but similar stream flowing 
down from the mountains called the Jambolu, but its 
shores are flatter and the western bank does not dominate 
the eastern as is the case with the Kara Dere. Then, 
after three small streams, one comes upon the last true 
defensive position covering Trebizond, which is a double 
range of hills at B with a saddle between, and to the south 
the same high mountain lands as everywhere marks this 
region. But it is very near the town, not continuous, 
and overlooked entirely from the south-east. Only 
those on the spot can tell whether it can be defended or 
no. Beyond this position nothing could save the 
town, or at least the use of the roadstead, because it lies 
right under observation and fire. from. these hills, while 
the considerable stream running immediately east of the 
city is too close to it to give a true defensive line. 
OPERATIONS BEFORE VERDUN 
After the great attack of last Sunday, the 9th (which 
was comparable to the first German blow of two months 
ago in intensity and not far inferior to it in numbers, 
which continued throughout a great part of Monday 
and which failed with exceedingly heavy losses), the 
enemy remained a whole week reorganising his broken 
units, probably bringing up new men and certainly 
replenishing his stock of munitions. 
It seemed probable that lie was preparing an advance 
still further to the west. The time required for moving 
big pieces a few miles westward would account for so 
very long an interval of inaction. It has always been 
evident that the heavily-wooded country between Mont- 
faucon and tlie Argonne, lying as it does upon the very 
edge of the salient of Verdun, offered him a chance of 
concentration which he has not yet used. But at the 
moment of writing there is no sign of this development 
of the battle westward. On the contrary, it was renewed' 
at two in the afternoon of Monday last, the 17th, upon one 
of the old fronts in the old fashion and with the old 
result. The usual allowance of twenty men to the yard, 
the front of about 2,000 yards, the crushing losses, the 
retention of the few yards of ad\'anced trench. The pick- 
ing up by the enemy of a certain number of wounded, and 
less unwounded, prisoners in the small section of advanced 
trenches reached, the grotesque exaggeration of their 
numbers in an official Berlin communique, and all the 
rest of it. The thing has become a sort of type or model, 
and the story of one such attack is the story of half a 
dozen others : particularly in the reiterated and violent 
falsehoods in the enumeration of prisoners which — on 
such a scale — is a novel feature dating from last Feb- 
ruary. 
In this particular case the blow was struck in the 
centre of the segment from about the middle of the Cote 
du Poivre through the ruins of Louvemont and through 
the little Chauffour Wood to a point slightly to the east 
of that wood, and the small section of advanced trench 
which the enemy entered was a little salient just south of 
Chauffour Wood at the point marked A in sketch III here 
appended. 
The affair is of no significance, but it affords an oppor 
tunity for discussing the \yhole French motive and type of 
tactics before Verdun in some detail. 
The French Tactic at Verdun 
I said recently in these columns that the question every- 
one was asking,^ll over Europe, about Verdun was, " Why 
was the Germaii attack continuing ? " Seeing that the 
original attempt to break the French line at the best, or 
at the least to put out of action a very much larger 
number of Frenchmen than the operation should cost in 
Germans had failed, the reason for continuing so expen- 
sive an offensive puzzled everyone. It puzzled the 
German critics just as much as the neutrals and the Allies, 
and the proof that it puzzled them was that they gav« 
all manner of different answers. 
I said, in connection with this question, that I did not 
pretend to answer it, and that I only suggested certain 
possible answers, two of which seemed .to me the most 
probably true : two that might both be true at one and 
the same time. 
The first was that the political importance of putting- 
troops into the geographical area called " Verdun " 
was considerable for the enemy. He had fixed attention 
at home upon that point. Civilian attention abroad 
was also fixed upon it. The attention of all neutrals 
was fixed upon it ; and in varying degrees, the attention 
of his enemies was also fixed upon that mere geographical 
expression. However meaningless as a military opera- 
tion, the thing had become what hundreds of other similar 
operations have become in the past, a symbol disturbing 
and cutting across the purely military problem. 
Secondly, the enemy probably believed — and still 
believes — that this constant hammering will at last 
produce a break-down upon the French side. He may be 
exaggerating the value of his infantry, but he certainly 
puts that value very high. He hopes that the enormous 
expense in German armed men which the hammering 
process costs him will be recouped by the sudden much 
larger expense in French armed men which the collapse of 
his opponent at the end of the process would involve. 
All that ground we have already gone over. But there 
