Jxme 29, 1916 
LA.ND & WATER 
or he can move up towards the north-west, threatening 
GaUcia. 
The conception that the portion of the southern Austrian 
army retreating towards the Carpathians here is doomed 
—a conception which has appeared often enough in the 
commentaries of the last few days — is not borne out by 
the map or by common sense. This force has a good 
road and railway along which to retire (Czernowitz- 
Gura Hamora-Kimpolung-Dorna Watra), and our Allies 
have nothing more rapid wherewith to cut it off. Even 
if the railway has not been continued over the Borgo 
Pass during the course of the war — which would have 
been an absurd piece of negligence upon the part of the 
Austrians — there is an excellent road which takes a 
column in two normal marches from the rail-head on the 
one side of the mountains to the rail-head on the other, 
and the pass is quite low and easy. ' 
It is more likely, however, that the Austrians will 
make a stand successfully upon the eastern side of the 
hills, because, as I have said, the Russians can hardly make 
their attack here the main operation. 
The accompanying Sketch Map will, I think, sufficiently 
show the difficulty our Allies are under of putting out of 
action any considerable section of the retreating Austrians 
in this region. 
From Czernowitz southward there run to the foot of 
the Carpathians an excellent road and railway, which 
serve Sereth, Gurahamora, Kimpolung and ultimately 
Dornawatra, the old railway. 
At the latter point you are already deep into the Car- 
pathians. Beyond goes the road over the Borgo pass 
towards the Hungarian plains. 
Now the Austrians may not have completed, as they 
should have done, a railway over this low and easy pass, 
for the purposes of the war. But even so what chance 
has a pursuing Russian force of cutting them off in 
their retirement ? There is a long mountain road, 
running from Kuty, through the woods and up hill and 
down dale to Kimpolung. Cavalry could cover the 
whole distance in three days, but the rear of the Austrian 
column was past Kimpolung, if I am not mistaken, 
before the Allies entered Kuty. 
A map is only a mechanical guide, but reasoning from 
a map it is not easy to see how this remnant of the 
Austrian southern army can be seriously endangered, 
nor even why it should not be sufficiently reinforced to 
turn and stand. 
No, the real test is Kolomea. With the Russians in 
Kolomea the fair begins. The ball opens. With the 
Russians kept out of Kolomea there is a halt corre- 
sponding to the halt upon the northern salient, the Lutzk 
Kovel region. 
Enemy Advance before Verdun 
The recent activity of the enemy in front of Verdun 
may^be misunderstood if we forget the fundamental prin- 
ciples underlying everything which takes place upon that 
front. 
At a great risk of tedious repetition I will very briefly 
recapitulate these. 
There opened upon February 21st last an action, the 
object of which on the enemy's part was the forcing of 
the French back upon the flooded river of the Meuse, 
obtaining a local decision by the unexpected violence 
of their blow and the unexpected density of their con- 
centration, both in men and in guns. This initial action 
was lost by the Germans in its first week. By February 
28th it was clear that they had failed to make good. 
But the battle was not over, nor was it even as a defensive 
action won. A defensive action is won whenever — • 
whether the period be precise or indeterminate — it is 
clear that the offensive can no longer obtain a decision. 
When it is determined that the defensive hne stands 
and will in future be a machine destroying its opponents 
regularly in a proportion far exceeding its own loss, the 
defensive action has accomplished its end. 
The enemy still hoped, in spite of his initial check 
after the first week, to break the French front by in- 
filtration and repeated local assaults. The first and 
heaviest of these upon the new plan was delivered upon 
March 9th, and thenceforward for some three weeks or a 
month the enemy still hoped to break the French re- 
sistance and achieve a local decision. 
It is not possible to say definitely at what moment this 
rapidly diminishing hope disappeared, but roughly the 
great assault on April gth and loth will serve as a date. 
At that moment most continental students of the war 
agreed that the battle of Verdun was won, and Colonel 
Feyler's judgment to that effect was given first and 
proved the wisest. There was, however, a lull during 
which it was not certain what the ultimate issue might 
be, but within at any rate ten days after that last great 
assault the thing was fixed. The defensive action of 
Verdun was won and the French line was perfectly safe. 
There has followe(i thenceforward — even for more than 
two months — a series of actions quite different in con- 
ception and object. The enemy has no longer had the 
intention of breaking the French front or of achieving 
a decision. He has seen it to be impossible. But 
partly because he is so deeply engaged that he cannot 
break off with any useful chance of really strong action 
elsewhere, partly because he has made the name of 
" Verdun " (which is not a fortress, which does not even 
represent an invested area, but which is merely a town 
happening to stand within a flatfish salient) a symbol 
for his own soldiers and for his civilian opinion at home. 
as well as a symbol for neutrals ; partly because he hopes 
that the moral of the French will be affected by his con- 
tinued offensive ; partly because he hopes to exhaust 
munitionment, and partly because — perhaps mainly 
because — he desired to provoke a premature counter- 
offensive, he continues his attacks, which are merely 
attacks of usury and achieve no conclusive strategic 
advantage. 
In all this time the French thesis has been that the 
enemy by this continued offensive was losing more men 
than he could afford and was inflicting loss less than he 
expected and less than could affect the final issue. The 
German thesis has been that the moral effect upon his 
own troops, upon neutrals and even upon the unin- 
structed masses within the beUigerent countries of 
putting his men into the houses of Verdun would be 
worth the enormous expenditure entailed. 
These two theses have been in conflict quite as much as 
the individual men have been in conflict upon that tre- 
mendous line, and the future will show which was right. 
If the Germans have calculated well, if the uninstructed 
opinion even of the beUigerent countries, and especially 
of this country, be so much affected by an approach to the 
geographical area of Verdun, as to confuse the issue and 
to .weaken the determination of the governments in- 
volved, then the Germans have done well to continue. 
If, on the contrary (as would seem more reasonable) 
the purely military consideration should have weight, 
then he has committed and is continuing to commit a 
fundamental error, and the French will prove to have 
been right in the gradual retirement throughout which 
they have made the enemy pay the highest price possible 
for every small area successively occupied by his troops. 
The movement of the last few days has. been that 
sketched upon the accompanying map. 
If we regard the plateau in front of Verdun town, not 
by its precise contours but by a distinction between the 
high ground and the valleys running up into the high 
ground, it is somewhat the shape upon the sketch. The 
line ran, before the last assault (which was delivered with 
effectives equivalent to about si.x divisions), as does the 
dotted line in that sketch. It affected the occupation 
of the work erected round the farm of Thiaumont and 
of part of the village of Flcurj'. It is, therefore, at these 
two points in a sort of saddle of the general ridge. To 
the north the enemy already held the head of certain 
ravines, such as that marked D D, which point straight 
down to the Meuse below. At Fleury he is just at the 
head of one such main ravine A A. Further south the 
line points eastward, runs south to Vaux fort, and so on 
to the edge of the plateau beyond. Above the saddle 
which he has reached by the occupation of Thiaumont 
