LANU & WATER 
Ma\ 3, 1917 
Strategical Variations on the Eastern Frtot 
By Colonel Feyler 
T<J .new fjicls, a proverb says, new couns«'ls do hdouj,'. 
Tactics and stratc},'y arc a constaut application of it. 
The resultant variations constitute tin- art of war. 
In tliis respect the operations on the I'-astern I'ront 
are a rich mine for study and iiistrwction. One recalls the 
period — at the enil of 11)14 when the armies of the Grand 
Duke Nicholas, having con<iuered (iaiicia and threateninj; 
Cracow and the sources of the Oder, fornietl a front of columns 
to the left and marched off to surmount the Cari)athians. NVhy 
tlid they do that ? \\'as not the <iernian'annv the principal 
adversary, whose defeat would inevitably entail the destruction 
of the Austro-I hmgarians who already were more than shaken ' 
NVhy did they leave the sul)stance for the sliadow and turn 
away southward when the essential object was westward, 
and in almost inmiediate proximity .■" 
The nianctuvre may have had some jiistilicatitm which will 
become apparent when docuinentarv- investigation shall 
e'nable us to get precise knowledge of all the fads. It would 
seem, howexer, that the principle was disregarded which 
requires that the ])rinci))al advers.irv' shall b(- collared at 
the first possible moment, and that metliods which will make 
an end of him directly and promptly shall always be pre- 
ferred to indirect methods which will not mature at once. 
Since that period the Kastern l-'ront has been consider- 
ably extended. The first extension was the result ()f the 
Ottoman Alliance. It is true th;re was a breach of continuity 
in the Balkans, but it was not absolute; comnumication was 
possible across neutral territory. Oil the other hand the Central 
Jimpire's grip upon the Straits of Constantinople entirely 
severed anv convenient conniumication betwen tlie Allies of 
West and Kast. Finally, and more than all, the lengthening 
of the (lermanic front towards the south-east constituted an 
eccentric but nevertheless sericnis menace to the Russian 
extreme left and to the.\nglo-I'"rench right in I'-gypt. 
It looked therefore as if the region of the Straits were a sensi- 
tive point in the front of the Central Kmpires. Its occupation 
by the .\llies would separate their own main groupings, the 
one in Europe, the other in Asia. At the .same time it woukl 
entail speedy exhaustion of the Turks by depriving them of 
supplies from the German Kmnire, their real military base. 
At once the double menace upon the Kussian extreme left 
and the Anglo-l-'rench extreme right would disap])ear. Com- 
plete freethnn of movcmenr wouldAie restored upon both 
Ironts of the Allies. Hence the Dardanelles expedition, 
quite sound in princii)!e but def<-ctive in execution. 
Jleanwhile, in the spring of i()i5, the Austro-German 
offensive in Poland and (iaiicia began. The Russians were 
turned out of the Carp.ithians.out ol Poland and out of their 
Baltic provinces, and driven back to more than three hundred 
miles from the source of the Oder and from the borders of 
Silesia wliich they had reached the year before. When 
autumn came the front was established on the very threshold 
of Great Russia. It was then that the intervention of Bul- 
garia repaired the breach in the continuity of the (iermano- 
Turkish front in the Balkans. With Serbia conquered, the 
front Y'as virtually unbroken from the North Sea on the one 
hand and the Baltic on the other to the Armenian Caucasus, 
the Persian l^iulf and tlie Suez Canal. 
Once more the situation underwent a change. The Salonika 
expedition liad succeeded ,to that of lh.> Dardanelles. 
It was holding up enemy forces in the southern Balkans. 
IClscwhere, the reverses sul'fered by the Turks in .\rmenia and 
on the Suez Canal, the disturbances in Arabia and, lastly, the 
necccssity of occupying Mesopotamia all these things 
had reduced the value of the Ottoman Alliance for the Central 
Empires. They themselves had Ix'cn relatively weakened as 
a consequeiKe of the intervention of Italy and by their reverses 
in Volhynia. the disaster of \'erdun and the wastage on tlu; 
Somme. The c|uestion arose once more of hnding a sensitive 
point upon the Itastern Front at which 't wouhl be advantage- 
ous to attack the Central Empires. 
There was room for hesitation -less perhaps about locali- 
ties than about ways of ])rocee(ling. I mean that there could 
be differcnct of opinion as to whether recourse should be hatl 
to pohtical rather tlian to strategical considerations. The 
front was again more or less innnobilised in X'olhynia and 
tialicia, before Kovel and before l.emberg ; but in Bukovina 
and in the Eastern Carpathians Hungary was again menaced 
as she had been at the end of I()i4, with the further t)bligation 
imposed upon the Hungarians of upholding the Habsburg 
Jimpire before the Italians and the Hohen'.ollein Empiric in 
the Balkans. The Hungarians were fairly entitled to 
ask themsehes what they were doing in all the squ;d:»bl(> 
and what reason they had to be fighting at all. BukMria, 
ior her part, seemed to have the least resistance of all 
the Allies of the central camp, owing to the 'paucity ' of 'Ikjt 
own material resources. . . ';., f 
The Russian ollensive in Volhynia had still too long a course 
to run for it to appear an imminent menace to the eyes, of 
Germany. At the end of 1914 an attack on the Germans pre- 
sented tiie (|uickest road to success and an attack on .Austria- 
Hungary the most round about and 'longest. In i()U)theAustro- 
Hungariaiis appeared as the most immediately oi)en to attack 
and as opening up the prospect of the earliest exiuiustion of the 
enemy. J5ut it was also a fair (inestion whether it would not 
be advantageous to make the turning movement a wider 
(me by enlisting the aid of the Salonika army and by first 
putting out of action the Bulgarians who were further out of 
reach of sujiport fioin thetjcimans than the' Hungarians were. 
Political Objectives 
Thus arose the dispute as to whether tlie political or the 
strategical method should be adojited. The object of the 
latter was the defeat of the Bulgarians, which would have 
entailed the simultanetnis supi)ressioii of the Turks. The 
object of the former was a separate peace with the Hungarians, 
which would have exposed the flank of the Austro-Gennans 
and reacted by shaking the entire Balkan front. This 
second method having had to be discarded, the strategical 
method won the day. It entailed the entry of the Roumanian 
army into the arena, but of a Roumanian or Russo-Rou- 
maiiian army, whose objective should have been that indicated 
l)y strategy -namely, the widest- possible turning movement, 
I'ringing about the defeat of the Austro-Hunganans through 
the defeat of the Bulgarians 
This chapter of military history still remains to be written, 
as indeed do all the other chapters of (lie present war. All 
we can see is the event which has brought about a fourth 
transformation in the general situation on the Ea.stern Front 
and once more, as every transformation does, raised the 
problem of hnding the sensitive point. 
.\l the present moment the situation is as follows: Tlie 
Russian front properly so termed has gained a'little gi^ound 
on the right wing, to the west of the Dvina, where it now 
stands about a hundred and fifty miles from liast Prussia. 
It seems, moreover, to have become immovabh^ again. In 
the centre it still i)asses through the Pinsk marshes. Further 
to the south it remains a menace to Kcnel and Eemberg. 
Finally, it .scales the Carpathians, a little to the north of 
Bukovina. and follows the crests along the Hungarian frontier, 
coming down again on the eastern slo])!' in the region of the 
Bistrif/a and the Trotus. western tributaries of the Screth. 
.\long the hue of these livers and on the Lower Danube to the 
Black Sea, it forms the Kusso-Rouinanian front, which also 
has been stationary since the middle of December, 1916. 
' If we leave out of account tactical difficulties, which can 
never be accurately estimated except on the spot, we sliall 
be led to regard the Hungarian sector of tjiis immense front 
as one of the sensitive points of the Central Empires. After 
the actual battle line w-as removed from German soil in 1915, 
the sensitive point was fixed first in the extreme European 
south, where it could be sought to sever the Ottoman Empire 
from its (ierman supports, and afterwards it was shilted 
northwards, as has just been shown. It was fixed in Bul- 
garia when that country seemed to be tlangerously exposed. 
To-day it is fi.xcd in the borders of Hungary, for the following 
reasons : 
The degree of moral exhaustit)n reached by the peoples ol 
the Central Empires and their manifest desire for peace do 
more than suggest that an' invasion of their territories, which 
hitherto have been immune, would come ujion them as a 
IiarticiUarly intolerable evil. But German teriitory is still 
remote, wjiereas Hungarian territory is close at hand. The 
moral effect to be looked for from invasion would be felt at 
once in Hungary and would react all the more quickly 
Ixxause the Germans, held up in the West would be mucii 
less able to give them any help than they were in 1915. 
This argument of political and moral import is reinforced 
by another of strategical import. No offensive victory could 
lia\e a greater effect upon the situation on the left wing of the 
Eastern l-'ront than one which would bring the victor from the 
north to the south on to the rear of the line of the Sercth. Not 
only would the dream of a march ujion Odessa, which has- 
been cherished in (iermanv, have- to be abandoned, but the 
Koumanians would regain hope of recovering Wallachia, 
while the Bulgarian*, would for the fur-t time iH.come appre- 
hensive about the substantialness of their conquests. They, 
too, in their own private interests, would be disposed to open 
negotiations. with their enemies. 
