JNovember ib, igy^^ 
LAND & WATER 
of Bcaucourt were at its apex) but that is of no vast 
significance. A comparatively narrow area of salient, 
like this, was a disadvantage to the enemy.' 'What is of' 
moment is the spreading of the pressure over another 
live miles of front, for the larger the sector upon which 
the enemy loses and upon which he must continually con- 
centrate his forces, the greater the effect of the attack. 
But perhaps the most significant thing about the whole 
affair is its date. The one thing the enemy most needs 
(and, as he takes his wishes for realities, the one thing he 
believes in), is the " winter lull." The race between his 
wastage and his recruitment is directly connected with 
this supposedly necessary phase in the course of hostilities. 
Last year he had it, and it built up his new reserves. 
After the occupation of Serbia there were four full months 
in which his entries into hospital fell lower and lower, 
his discharges as continually rose, his class 'i6 could be 
trained with ample opportunity and leisure. Tne lull 
was due to the Allies preparation of munitionment and 
arms. Itwasnot broken till he himself chose to break it 
on the 2ist of February by the initiation of the Verdun 
offensive. He has calculated on a repetition of the affair 
this winter. His training of igiS and the " combed out," 
his return of convalescents, is based on the expectation of 
such a respite. It will not be given him. Here in mid- 
November he is again stuck as hard as ever he was in 
the summer, and every patch of dry weather will put 
him in peril again. 
Saillisel 
Only next in importance to this heavy stroke delivered 
on the apex of the Beaucourt salient, is the capture of 
Saillisel. 
My readers are by this time well acquainted \\ith the 
tactical importance of this point. Its characteristics 
have been repeated several times. You have the village 
of Sailly, like the cross bar of a " T " along the main road 
from Peronne to Bapaume ; coming out like the standard 
of the T and running eastward you have Saillisel, 'and this 
' long line of ruined houses perpendicular to Sailly and 
running eastward flanks the big wood of S. Pierre Vaast. 
With the whole of Saillisel securely held, the wood of 
S. Pierre Vaast becomes untenable. But if again the 
French can obtain full possession of the wood of S. Pierre 
Vaast they get over the ridge which may be generally 
called the ridge of Malasisse and directly overlook the 
valley of the Tortille. They, therefore, can then have 
direct observation of the German batteries hitherto con- 
cealed in that depression, and specially of the German 
batteries, far off indeed, but in full view, hitherto con- 
cealed on the north eastern side of the Mont S. Quentin, 
which is the strongest point and the best piece of cover 
ill all the region of Peronne. 
It is clearly of the first importance to the enemy to 
try and recover the straight line of ruins still calledi 
Saillisel, . and probably upon his failure or success to 
recover it will depend the ability or inability of the French 
in the near future to command the ridge and thereby to 
compel the withdrawal of the German guns from the 
valley of the Tortille and from S. Quentin, 
It is a point locally and tactically of extreme im- 
portance. Ultimately Peronne depends upon it and, 
with Peronne, the whole southern sector. 
THE SERBIAN ADVANCE 
In tlie region of Monastir there is passing a series of 
events which singularly emphasise the character of the 
modern defensive. 
Had you shown to the soldiers of any modern cam- 
paign, before this great campaign, at any rate, the 
soldiers of, say, a generation ago, the soldiers of the 
Russo-Turkish war or of 1870, a relief map of the Monastir 
region and premissed an attack upon it from the south, 
such as the forces based at Salonika are now delivering, 
the very first thing that would have struck their eye would 
ha\e been the great gaj) of the jjlain in front of Monastir 
itself. Here are two mountain regions, east and west, 
separated by au open space some seven or eight miles 
broad, through which the railway and the roa;d to 
Monastir run. The one to the west is very steep and 
rugged, running up to a ridge 6,000 to 7,000 feet above 
the sea, or 4,000 to 5,000 feet above the plain (which is 
from i,(joo to 2,000 feet above the sea. 
The one to the east is more gradual and not so high — it 
reaches only 4,500 feet some way back — but broken by 
rocky escarpments and covered by a rapid mountain 
river the Cerna. It would have been apparently obvious 
ertW':-.-'V-"-?-9 
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a 
MiUs 
that the shock of the armies could only have come in the 
plain. The mountain region upon either side would 
have secured the flanks of the combatants and anyone 
estimating the situation would have foretold with justice 
a frontal attack, a " parallel action " — probably a decisive 
one so far as the fate of Monastir was concerned, taking 
place in the neighbourhood of Kenali. 
What we have seen in the course of October and the 
first half of November has been something very different. 
The strength of the modern defensive is such when it 
has full opportunities for entrenchment, that easy 
ground like that of the Monastir plain is precisely the 
terrain upon which movement is rendered impossible, 
and it is the movmtain land, where continuous entrench- 
ment is more difficult, and where local success often gives 
one as a reward direct observation from a commanding 
height, that has permitted movement' to take place. 
The plain has taken the place which the mountains 
would have held a generation ago. It is the plain that 
offers resistance. It is by way of the mountains that the 
line across the plain is taken. 
Ever since the failure of the Allied attack in the middle 
of September upon the line of Kenali that line has held 
quite unbroken, and the effort of the Allies, in this 
sector of the Serbian contingent, backed by the French 
artillery, has been across the great bend of the Cerna 
and in the mountain mass which overlooks the plain of 
Monastir to the east. 
That mountain mass throws out towards the bend of 
the Cerna two main masses, each with its culminating 
ridge and separated by a deep ravine. These I have 
marked on sketch III. with the letters A and B. A 
being known as the " Chulke." 
The action, successfully fought by the Serbians last 
Sunday, is an excellent example of the way in which 
the bare hard mountains are to-day more vulnerable 
than the easily dug plain. What they carried was 
this ridge of the rock\% sharply escarpmented hills 
called the Chulke region overlooking the Cerna river. 
When they had carried this ridge they had immediate 
observation of the combe running from the main valley 
that flanks it upon the west. At the head of one of these 
combs stands the village of Polog, and in the depression 
which it commands had been concealed the chief con- 
centration of guns formed here by the enemy, including, 
it is believed, German guns served by German gimners. 
When the Chulke ridge was carried and the bare brown 
uplands were in the hands of the Allies, they looked 
right down with direct observation upon the green valley 
floor and the low pocket of cultivated fields round Polog. 
These concealed depressions were no longer tenable. 
The enemy retired from them with the greatest haste, 
withdrawing perhaps the greater part of his guns, losing 
16 of them, and the village itself was entered by the 
Serbiiins' before evening. 
It is (ilear that a successful advance, even so late in 
the seastiti northward through this bleak mountain mass 
within the loop of the Cerna, outflanks the Kenali line 
iacroys the plain. 
So far'the advance made has been rather on the extreme 
