LAND & WATER 
January i8, 1917 
meadows by a'good double bridge (the only one for several 
days' march) at Badtaretul and join the second line at 
Tccuciiil. 
It is true that the Russians and Roumanians couki 
design, in time achieve, and have probably already 
sketched out, another unison between the two main rail- 
way lines liigher up the Scrcth valley ; but probably to 
this moment, certainly till quite lately, this little local 
U no, not more than twelve miles long, with its bridges 
and viaducts and road causeways across the Sereth and 
its marshes, was vital to a holding of the Putna and 
Sereth hnes. 
Now to seize that railway, to hold its bridges, and 
without too much delay to reach its termini would be to 
hamper the communications between the Russian right 
and the Russian left, and that is why the enemy must 
attack again, heavy as his losses have already been here 
in front of Focsani. In the very first days of his efforts 
on this sector, a week ago, he got across the Putna 
(which is not a considerable stream), and was m striking 
distance of this vital little railway (3, on Map II.). The 
surprise was effected in a fog. The Russians promptly 
threw him back again and he was or still is — last 
Monday night — on the further bank. 
The reason he is also considering his chances of 
crossing at the point of Fundeni is this. That Itirge loop 
in the Lower Sereth which contains Fundeni is the last 
hard ground before you come to the extensive marshes 
which stretch all down to the last reaches of the river 
to the Danube. The enemy feels that even if he should fail 
to force the extreme right by Galatz (and he has been so 
long about it that he has already failed, for there would 
be ample time to retire before Galatz was occupied) he 
might make a stroke by Fundeni. He has, as a fact, 
pressed forward in a sort of peak right up to the southern 
end of the loop. The Russians are on his left at Manescii, 
and on his right Cragenii (M and C on the map), but the 
enemy is on the edge of the southern bank of the river 
in between and is trying to get across. He is here 
holding what must be a most expensive and unhealthy 
little «dient subject to cross fire at quite short range, 
and he must go forward across the river quickly or go 
back. 
As for the operations in front of Galatz, though they 
can no longer be decisive the enemy laboriously continues 
them and their conditions are as follows : 
Between Bi.-aila and the Sereth there is a large marsh 
on the eastem side of which is a shallow mere, sur- 
rounded by q uite impassable wet soil and the rest of which 
gets gradually drier as one gets further from this mere. 
There is ilo road across the marsh, though one could 
BRAIIA 
easily be constructed over the drier western part, but 
there is a railway embankment which makes a great 
elbow corresponding to the limit between the drier and 
the wetter part of the morass. It is along this embank- 
ment, aided probably by a new road to the west of it, 
that the enemy has painfully proceeded during the last 
ten days, and is now fighting for the hamlet of Vodeni, 
which stands on a sort of a spit of dry land within 3,009 
yards of the Sereth. 
Beyond the Sereth the ground is hard and there is a 
good road nearly parallel to the river and leading into 
Galatz. Meanwhile the town of Galatz itself is under 
fire from the other side of the Danube. 
The operations of advancing upon and occupying the 
town should be a mere matter of plan to the force which 
possesses superior artillery, and threatens it from two 
sides, but the chance of doing this with sufficient rapidity 
to break the Russian left flank and so tufn the whole 
line has gone long ago. 
The Macedonian Front 
There has been a great deal of injudicious writing 
in our press iipon the Macedonian front, criticism of the 
Salonika operations as a whole, and even the suggestion 
that they do. not now fulfil any strategical purpose. 
With regard to such criticism and suggestion it is 
sufficient to repeat that the conduct of this war is, happily, 
not 3'et fallen into the hands of newspapers or even 
politicians. 
The military reasons for and against the presence of 
such and such a number of men and materials in Mace- 
donia, and the line they shall hold at any moment are a 
product of very many factors, all of which have to be 
allowed for and balanced one against the other. So 
many Bulgarian and Turkish troops are held : such is 
the danger of their reinforcements within such a mini- 
mum period of time : such is the cost per man in tonnage : 
such and such are the most recently observed movements 
of the enemy's troops in the Balkans — and so forth. 
No judgment worth a rap could be formed by the 
best professional trained observer on the spot if he had 
not these factors before him. Even with all such factors 
available no one but men trained to the higher command 
can put them together usefully. 
But of their nature these things must be kept secret. 
The elements are therefore lacking for any civilian 
opinion — let alone newspaper opinion — upon the matter, 
and the less of it there is, the better. 
One thing is perfectly clear and it is astonishing that 
even general opinion has not seized it yet. No attack 
can be made upon the Macedonian front which shall pro- 
duce an effect of surprise. 
There are two reasons for this. First, the oppor- 
tunities the enemy has for massing upon that front are 
very much less than the opportunities of the Allies for 
retirement. 
Secondly, the exhaustion of the enemy is such that 
no offensive can be undertaken in Macedonia before the 
abandonment of the corresponding movement in Rou- 
mania. 
For the massing against us upon the Macedonian 
front (which means much more the bringing up of heavy 
guns and the establishment of a head' of shell than it 
docs the movement of troops— though the latter would 
have to present a 50 per cent, increase at least before an 
attack could be made) the enemy has only one single 
line of railway and one mountain road : The railway 
down the Vardar valley and tlie road over the Babuna. 
\Ve remember what a number of weeks were required 
for the concentration of the Trentino, with large depots 
already established and with an international double 
line of railway feeding the enemy. Under such con- 
ditions as those of the Macedonian mountains in winter, 
a prolonged effort of this kifid would lie before the 
Intelligence of the AlHes, exposed in every detail. 
The alternative, a concentration upon the enemy left 
against the British troops in the Struma valley, which has 
