January i8, 191, 
LAND & WATER 
run along just under the mountains up the Moravian 
plain, or near Fundeni, or at both points. 
Prussian strategical concepts never vary. They 
always follow a book plan laicl down after some success 
in the past, even if the plan has already led them to 
disaster ; and they are doing here what the successes of 
more than a generation ago led them to do at the Marne ; 
of course, under conditions quite different from those of 
the Marne. They are acting upon a wing and they 
are trying to force a point in the centre. The wing 
upon which they arc acting is the Lower Sereth and 
tlie point of Galatz. The centre where not only the 
enemy is acting but where he musl act is the sector of 
Focsani, and meanwhile he is seeing whether he can 
achieve anything at an intervening point, that of Fundeni. 
Of these three points by far the most important is that 
of Focsani. The town of Galatz, on account of its size 
and commercial importance, has naturally attracted 
attention in our press, but strategically it only means the 
left wing of the Allies. The point of Fundeni has been 
hardly heard of, though, as we shall see in a moment, it 
is very important.' The point of Focsani, that is, the 
sector in front of the town of the line of the Putna.has 
not seemed as important to most people as the mere 
town itself ; it is far more important, for it it is forced 
the results would be considerable:. 
Let us consider the three efforts in the order of their 
importance, referred to the above Sketch IL 
\yhy must the enemy make a special effort in front of 
Focsani, where he still keeps the remnant of his fine 
Alpine corps ? Because he is there caught in a sort of 
buckle, between the bending course of the Purtna and the 
hills to the east, so that he is exposed to the chance of an 
offensive against the right flank of that particular sector. 
That is his negative reason for getting out of a restricted 
and, what would be against an enemy equally armed, a 
dangerous piece of the field. He must go fcrward or 
backward here, and obviously it is his opportunity and 
design to go forward. 
But there is also a positi\-e reason for making Focsani 
lus principal effort. At a range which at its minimum 
is less than 8,000 yards behind Putna, runs the only 
railway uniting the two main lines of comniimicatioii, which 
serve respectively the left and the right of the Russian 
forces. The railway dispositions of Moldavia are such 
that one main line running down the valley of the Sereth (i ) 
and another quite separate running down the valley' of 
■she Barladu, (2) are the only means of supplying the front 
r'.iong the Putna and the Sereth with shei I and supplies. 
At the narrowest point between these two railways there 
run a road and a railway. They leave the first railway 
at Mararestii, cross the Sereth and its marshy valley 
