May 31, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
without indemnity and without punishment, is license given 
lor, and tiiiinipli in, every crime of which u nation can be 
guilty ; lor rajie, for arson, for enslavement and for the rest 
which you j<now. Upon the left bank of the Rhine that same 
principal of a ]>opular vote after more than a generation of 
enforced colonisation, after a war which has ruined the man- 
hood of the oldest stock, after fifty years of a Prussian 
bureaucracy, would leave I know not what grotesque frontier — r 
and certainly the iron by whicli she can destroy us — to Prussia. 
Upon the narrow Danish belt the scheme quite certainly 
leaves Prussia the mistress of the canal between the two 
seas and possessed of the ]>ower, as in the case of Holland 
and of Belgium, at will and at any moment, to command all 
Denmark and the natural issues of the Baltic. 
All this can be effected. Prussia not only saved, but saved 
insolent and immune by a scheme that shall pretend to 
recognition of national rights at last, and to concede the ideal 
for whicIi the noblest have died, and in restraint of which the 
basest in Europe liave, thank God, in greater numbers, been 
killed. 
The best way to prevent — in the old and full sense of the 
word " prevent "that is, to come before and to stop — such a 
catastropjie, is to recognise its preparation, to be forewarned 
against it and to know its nature, not only for the hypocritical 
thing it is, but for the mortal danger to this country which it 
conceals. 
There is for all the West, and in particular for Britain, but 
one solution other than surrender and rapid decline. Mr. 
Asquith, has put it more simply and better than any other 
public man : The Allie;s must obtain complete restitution, 
complete reparation, and more important than either of these, 
complete guarantees. These three things, thoroughly 
achieved, make up victory ; less than this is defeat. 
To prophesy defeat or victory is the part of a tool, and it 
is a tolly in which this war has abounded upon every side — 
though more (as was characteristic) upon the enemy's side 
than upon our o\vnr'^ To define defeat and victory is another 
matter. It is the part of every man who claims to intelli- 
gence, and to a sense of justice in this world-wide affair, which 
will decide everything for our children and for their children 
and their children again. 
But there is still this ol^ection. Why should we say 
that there is thus only the vivid alternative of defeat or 
victory ? Why should we say that the enemy's apparent 
concession is a certain humiliating and disastrous defeat ? I 
propose in the last of this series to answer this question. 
The Russian Front 
f 
The Russian Revolution and its immediate consequence 
of confusion has led to a good deal of loose talking about 
the Russian front. I mean by "loose talking" talking; in 
general terms of advantages the enemy has obtained. without 
any detailed consideration of his real position. 
The uncertainty on this front has been recently modified 
to our advantage ; but it is still true that the enemy can 
count on a certain larger measure of relief. He cannot 
count on suck relief as this summer would have afforded him 
ij the old regime, strongly organised and united, had Concluded 
a separate peace. But he has at least the asset of divided 
counsels among those who oppose his Eastern front, and until 
such divisions are resolved the position will remain indeter- 
minate. 
Meanwhile, the problem is sufficiently determinate to permit 
of careful examination, and the conclusion of such an exami- 
nation is that — as things now stand — the enemy cannot 
afford to weaken his Eastern forces in any considerable 
degree. 
Looking , at the problem on its .very broadest lines, it 
is clear that with so uncertain a position before him a 
commander must at the very least safeguard himself against 
the future. 
Though the enemy's lines upon the Eastern front be reduced 
till it is only strong enough for the niere task of watching its 
opponent, it must at least be strong enough for that task. 
It must be able to garnish even the quietest sectors, and it 
cannot afford a gap anywhere. Now we judge very ill of the 
situation if we imagine that the watching of so immense a line 
is a negligible business, even though offence against it be 
delayed. Down to the Danube alone — that is excluding the 
Macexlonian front — the enemy is concerned with more 
than double the length of line he has to watch on the West, 
and he can afford no solution of continuity in that lint. 
Let us grant, then, as a first principle, that with matters in 
their present condition something more than a thousand miles 
of line or more than 1,700 kilometres* have got to be at the 
very least, guarded. Let us go into the detail of this task 
so as to protect ourselves against vague statements of an 
alarmist character. 
We must begin by ''dividing this great line into two distinct 
portions. 
There is a portion north of and a portion south of the Pripet 
river with its extensive marshes. These two portions af^ofd 
very different military problems and are treated by the enemy 
in very different ways. 
Roughly speaking, it is the south of the Pripet Marshes that 
the chief anxiety for the enemy exists. Roughly speaking, 
again, this anxiety increases — in other words the efficiency of 
the pressure he suffers or may have to suffer increases — as you 
go from the Pripet Marshes southward to the yEgean Sea and 
the Macedonian front, that is, from left to right. 
The Northern portion from the Pripet Marshes to the Baltic, 
which is rather less than half the whole, is that portion where he 
can afford to put his worst troops and to attempt a holding 
of the line with the smallest numbers. The Southern calls 
for greater and greater efffrt, and that in an increasing degree 
as the .(Egean is approaclled. 
* From the Danube to <hp Baltic the existing Une,.without allowing 
for innumerable localins and outs, and measured only in its simplest 
and most general form, is 1,640 000 metres lonM. 
There are for this position several cgiuses. 
There is first a political cause which it is not necessary to 
discuss at length but with which everyone is fairly familiar, 
including the fact that the Allied Western armies are in full 
strength upon the Mgea.n front and are untouched by the 
political situation in Russia. 
Next there is the constitution of the forces opposed to the 
enemy on this front, and their density ; next, there is the 
climatic condition. The Northern part of the front dries 
much later and the opportunities for action come from a 
month to six we«ks after similar opportunities for action in 
the South. 
There is, again, the strategical truth that the ^Egean front 
is vital to the enemy because it protects his communication 
with Turkey and the Roumanian front ; equally vital because 
it protects a considerable field of supply. 
I'lie Carpathian front in its turn, and that of Volhynia to 
the north of it he must regard more jealously than the Polish 
and Lithuanian front because it has immediately behind it 
territory the invasion of which would be very grave, and such 
points as Kovel and Lemberg further west, while immediately 
in front of the Bukovina you have the passes leading into 
Hungary. However much we -discount the chances of a 
successful offensive at any point here — and that is a matter 
of opinion or rather of judgment upon the internal affairs 
of our Ally — it is not ab.sent from the problem. It cannot 
de eliminated and it certainly cannot be neglected : nor has 
the enemy neglected it as we shall see in a moment. The 
Northern half, on the other hand, between the Pripet Marshes 
and the sea, covers only vast Polish and Lithuanian stretches 
of territory which, however important as a political asset to the 
enemy, are not part of his patrimony. A fluctuation of the 
line here, should it occur, would have no grave results for the 
enemy, unless it were on a very large scale. 
Lastly, we must note the geographical conditions. North 
of the Pripet River vast forests, marshes, and very numerous 
lakes and, for the last part of the line, a strong river obstacle, 
reduce to a minimum the number of men required to hold 
the line. South of the Pripet marshes, all the way to the 
Danube there is, save in a few special sectors, no natural 
obstacle on which the line can rest and, save on the extreme 
north next to the Pripet Marshes themselves, there is fairly 
open country. 
It is true, as against all this, that probably the ease of muni- 
tionment is greater ip the North so far as mere communications 
are concerned, but that is certainly more than balanced by the 
political situation, and the proximity of the revolutionary 
committees in the capital. 
As a consequence of this state of affairs we find that of four 
great army groups only one, that commanded by Eichorn, 
is concerned with the watching of the line north of the Pripet 
Marshes. From the River Pripet itself where this special 
sector begins, up to the Baltic, the German line extends over 
nearly 500 miles — 880,000 yards— if we take it in its simplest 
pcssible form, without allowing for any detail at all. 
If we were to take it in all its local sinuosities it would come, 
of course, to much more. 
In other words, we are dealing with far more 'than 800,000 
yards. Almost certainly — if we had every yard to measure — 
with more than 900,000 yards. 
Now to hold this very extended line the enemy has detached 
a great deal less than one man to the yard. Even if we allow the 
