LAND t*t WATER 
June Jii, 191O 
Kovel and Lemberg 
By Hilaire Bclloc 
THK bcsl iiitnrnu'd ami tlii' umM na-uiiable of the 
(lormiiii students who arc folluwinn this war and 
pnhlishini,' their conuuentaries upon it, is .Major 
Moraht, whose stu(hes in tlie Berhn Tagcblalt 
liave ofton been aihided to in thise (ohuims. 
In the evcninfi ot Monday tlie 3th of Jnne, when the lirst 
news reached Berhn of the Russian blow upon the south- 
eastern front, this eminent authority committed himself 
to the following )ud};menl wln<li ai)peared over his name 
in the issue of the paper of the next day. the (itli of June. 
, . . It uill need a Russian Annv of several 
millions to create anv serious menace a^ainsl our seientifieallv 
eonsolidalcd and extremely strong front. They can luiv: 
no success unless they conifyel us to brinj; troops from 
other theatres of the war. Hut that will not l)e necessary , 
for a e are ijuite strong cnou-^h there to hold on the defensive, 
and this last adventure of the 'I'sar's armies remains an 
error in calculation." 
' We all know what followed. The enemy writer's judfi- 
ipent was at fault- and the fault was characteristic ! 
hor the mark of all Prussian oj)inion throughout this war 
ftas been a strauf^e attempt to supplement what (iermans 
cull " objecti\'e reality '" by somethinn else exceedingly 
•' subjective. " In plain F.nglish, to bolster up real misfor- 
tune by cr\ing an imaginary \ictory. This conce|)tion that 
thinking about external things in one's own fashion will 
change the nature of those external things is, luckily for 
us, very deeply rooted in modern (iermany ; it is not im- 
known elsewhere. 
At any rate, we all know what really happened. Within 
twi'lve days of the evening on which those lines were written 
the Austro-dermans on the south-eastern front had lost at 
1r^» 
' ' ' • fc- ^ ♦ /^/r ^ 
called the effort in the region of LutsK 
least a third and pei \ui\» nearly half of their strength and 
had seen an advance by the Russians at a critiral point of 
nearer fifty than forty miles. They had also seen the 
loss of the Hukovina and the complete transformation of 
the whole situation between the Marshes and the Rou- 
mania^i border. 
But if we are to follow the great operation, to measure 
the amount of the Russian success, and to estimate its 
future chan cs, we must go into some iletail and not 1)C 
content with the general imjiression of the advance. 
For the purposes of such detail we shall do well to regard 
the whole oiieration as composed of three main actions, 
which 1 will separate on the accompanyiug sketch map 
and tabulate as follows : 
(i) The elfort upon the north or right Russian Hank, 
which may be 
and Ko\ el. 
Here the Russian object is twofold. 
(a) To reach the railway junction at Kovel so as to 
])aralyse or at least gravely interrui)t communications 
between the northern and the southern portion of the 
enemy's line aiul the o|)i)ortunities for reinforcement from 
the north in men and in material. (/)) To strike down 
smith-westward so as to begin tlu" eu\elopment of the 
central enemy body — that massed east of Lemberg — and 
either (at the best) capture it, or (at the worst) compel it, 
under the threat of en\elopment, to fall back. 
(2) The action upon the other Hank end of the line, 
the left or southern wing : Here the Russians ]>roj)osed to 
themselves the mastering of both banks of the Dniester 
right up to the mouth of the Strypa ; the occupation of the 
railway centre, Czernowit/, and thence of all the Province 
of Bvikovina : Operations which w'ould put them upon 
the right or southern (lank of the main Austro-CIerman 
central body abo\e-mentioned, j\ist as the operations of 
tlie Kovel-l.utsk region woiild put them upon the 
northern or left Hank thereof. 
(3) The action in the centre : From tlie region of Br<xly 
to the region of Bucacz : That is, the points covering 
the four railways and the four main roads which converge 
from the east upon I.emberg. 
In this central field the Russians have maintained them- 
selves with less strengtii than on the two wings. They 
are there, especially at the chief point in front of TarnopoJ, 
subjected to the pressure of the Austro-Germans. These 
attempt to relieve the increasing peril upon their two 
Hanks by forcing the Russian centre. Such is the order 
of the great battle 
I. 
The Lulsk-Kovcl Region 
Turning to Skt>tch Map I we see that the main advance 
of the Russians has been in this region of Lutsk. 
Starting from the region of Olyka last Sunday fortnight 
they have pushed on until they have arrived just fourteen 
days later to the point marked by the dotted line on Map I 
which shows the general limits of their advance at the* 
time of writing. 
The Russian pressure here makes a great bulge into 
the whole of the old Austro-Cierman jwsition, shifting the 
line back by an indentation now over fifty miles deep. 
Now this indentation can be used in two ways and i^ 
undoubtedly intended by the Russians to be used in both 
those ways. In the lirst place along the arrow (a) it 
threatens Kovel— the value of which will be explained 
in a moment ; in the second place — and more important 
— it creates a new northern Hank whence the whole 
Austro-tlerman centre, co\ering Lemberg and in front ol 
Tarnopol, is threatened along tlie arrow (b). 
Whether the Russians will be able to use either or both 
of these two opportunities only the future can show. 
But whereas their action down southward and w estward 
against the new Hank has not yet developed, and 
the line of resistance which thev "will have to meet 
