LAND & W A TE R 
June 15, 1916 
The Russian Offensive 
By Hilaire Belloc 
THE new great Russian offensive upon the southern 
part of thf Eastern front has now so far developed 
that we are capable of understanding its nature 
and appreciating the alternatives before it. 
It is, of course, upon the same model as the other four 
great offensives of the series in which it forms the fifth, 
the other four being the Austro-dennan offensive upon 
the Dunajetz undertaken on the last day of April, I()i5 ; 
the combined Allied offensive in Champagne and Flanders 
undertaken last September : the (ierman offensive upon 
the Verdun sector imdertaken upon the 21st of last 
Ecbruary, and the Italian offensive in the Trentino 
undertaken on the 14th of May. 
The lessons previously learnt in the course of the war, 
notably through the partial French offensives in Artois 
during the spring of 1(115 'ind during the (ierman un- 
successful offensives against the lines of NN'arsaw at the 
same time, have been ajjpreciated by all the belligerents 
and" may be tabulated as follows : 
<""(i) A modern defensive line upon which sufficient time 
has been spent for its consolidation and equipment with 
defensive weapons, for the examination of the ground 
in front of it. and for the perfecting, if necessary, of com- 
munications leading to it from the bases and of lateral 
communications, can be held with a minimum of about 
or a trifle less than two men to the yard run. That is, 
rather more than 3,000 men to the mile, which figure 
tovers, of course, much more than the mere defensive 
line, including all local rescnes and also, of course, every 
branch of the ser\-ice in the armies holding the front, 
but excluding the men upon main comnumications. 
When we say that this minimum of men will " hold " 
a modern defensive line we mean that this is what ex- 
perience has proved to be the minimum in the present 
war for the withstanding of such shocks as have been 
delivered when conditions of armament were fairly 
fequal between the two sides. 
(2) Such a line being established and reposing upon 
flanks which cannot be turned, can, it is presumed (but 
hardly yet proved) be broken by a combination of two 
offensive factors : 
(a) Prolonged and intense artillery preparation : That 
is, the delivery of a \ery great weight of high explosive 
lafge calibre shell, far superior in amount for the space 
and time in question than had ever been prepared for 
Yintil the later phases of this great campaign. 
■ Thus, the Allied artillery preparation of Champagne 
last September was quite tenfold or more than tenfold 
the artillery preparation of nine months before. 
To this preparation by heavy artillery, which flattens 
tout the advance trenches, interrupts more or less all 
communication with those trenches, bewilders, confuses 
and throws into disarray the men defending the line, is 
added intense work from the field guns against the 
obstacles before the trenches, especially with the object of 
destroying the most effective of these obstacles, the 
barbed wire entanglements. 
(b) The launching, immediately after this artillery 
preparation ceases, of great masses of infantry which 
fccupythe region devastated by the artillery, capture 
, he sur\'ivors of those who held the advance lines and 
push forward as far as they can towards the second line 
of defence beyond. 
Each of the great offensives has been based upon these 
two main principles combined. They are no more than 
the extension, upon a prodigious scale, of similar princi- 
ples which have governed all siege work since the intro- 
duction of artillery and firearms in general. It is onlv 
the vastly increased mass of shell that must be delivered 
. within a given period and over a given area as well as the 
•vastly increased effectives for the infantry work following 
which distinguishes this attack upon the modern defensive 
from the older siege model. 
The object of such an offensive is immediately the break- 
'ing of the enemy's front and ultimately the envelopment 
of so great a portion of his armies as shall leave the 
remainder in a position of manifest inferiority. Such 
an ultimate result, were it ever attained, would be a 
true ." decision," that is, the campaign would, in that 
field at least, be won by the belligerent who should attain 
that ultimate object. 
So much being said with regard to the main principles 
now discovered to be essential to a great offensive against 
modern entrenched and unturnable lines, there remain 
to be considered a number of points in which the great 
offensives ha\e differed among themselves, partly through 
the accumulation of experience after each attempl and 
the consequent development of or changes in the methods 
of attack ; partly through the different conceptions of 
war held by the various commands. 
The Element of Surprise 
Thus it is clear tliat the element of surprise is of great 
value. If a complete surprise could be effected it would 
be decisive. But it is also dear that the element of sur- 
prise has been largely eliminated from modern warfare 
by the use of aircraft, while it is further evident that the 
accumulation of ^■ery large pieces and their munition- 
ment is an affair so slow and ponderous that rapidity, 
a main element in surprise, is largely eliminated. 
Roughly speaking, the Allies have attempted to produce 
this element of surprise by prefacing their o'ffensives with 
general bombardments all along the line, which might 
leave the enemy in doubt as to the sector to be ultimately 
attacked in force, while the Germans have regarded 
expenditure of ammunition along the whole line as a waste, 
believing apparently that no true surprise is possible. 
Their preparations against Verdun were not prefaced 
by a general bombardment ; neither were their prepara- 
tions against the Dunajetz nine months before. On the 
other hand, the Austrian accumulation of munition and 
guns in the mountains before their recent offensive in the 
Trentino was certainly capable of concealment from the 
Italians in some large degree, and the element of surprise 
entered considerably into the first success of that offen- 
sive. Before \'erdun and upon the Dunajetz the Ger- 
mans made their preparations in such fashion that whether 
through their own fault or from their contempt of the 
element of surprise, the Allies were well acquainted with 
those preparations weeks before the offensive was de- 
livered. 
Again, there has been development in, and also dis- 
cussion upon the size of the sector against which the 
offensive should be delivered. On the whole, the Allies 
have depended upon the theory of attacking large sectors 
and the enemy upon the whole has believed in attacking 
smaller sectors. The .A.llies in Champagne attacked upon 
a front of nearly 17 miles, and at the same time attacked 
in the north upon a front of at least 8, if my memory 
serves me right, making a total of 25 miles. The two main 
thrusts on tte Dunajetz by the Germans and Austrians 
were nothing like so extended, and the thrust upon the 
sector of Verdun originally covered less than eight miles' 
The difference between the two schools lies in this : 
The one maintains that if you attack upon too narrow 
a sector then, should you break through, there is danger 
of your troops that have got through being cut off by the 
re-closing of the enemy's line. Thev point out thai the 
flanks of the gap being still open to' attack, if the gap is 
too narrow it may develop into what the French call a 
" hernie " that is, a sort of pocket or trap for the attackers. 
The enemy's thesis would rather seem to be that though 
an attack on an average sector has to be of this extended 
nature to be safe after its success, yet if you carefully 
choose a particular sector where' circumstances are 
favourable to you, you may safely attack on a 7iarrow 
front with the added advantage, of course, of much greater 
concentration of lire, and a greater weight of men per 
yard. Thus, each of the Austrian attacks in the Trentino 
