LAND & WATER 
July 12, 1917 
The Battle of Jezupol 
By Hilaire Belloc 
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THE chief military event of the week has been the 
attack deUvered by the Russian armies upon the 
southern end of their present offensive front. Up 
to the moment of Monday noon, described in the 
despatch reaching London late on Tuesday afternoon, when 
these lines were written the operation, evidently still in 
progress, had achieved the capture of jezupol, the forcing of 
the lines upon the Black Bystrzyca, the advance of the 
Russians at one point as far as the river Lukwa, and 
consequently the presence of the Russian forces right upon 
the Hank of the enemy forces in the important point of 
Hahcz, with the capture of no less than 48 guns, including 
12 heavy guns and of 131 officers and 7,000 of the rank 
and file of the enemv. 
Before considering the nature of the ground over which 
this operation has proceeded, we must consider the object of 
this, as indeed of every other offensive undertaken in the 
present phase of the war. It is an error to regard these actions 
as being mainly undertaken for the reduction and occupation 
of certain geographical points. It is an error also to think 
that these points are of no importance. Certain of them are of 
high strategic importance t>ecause they form the pivot upon 
which alone an orderly retreat can be planned, or because 
they command great river crossings, or because they arc nodal 
points at wliich a number of railway systems and road systems 
meet. Certain of them are also at this stage of the war of high 
political importance. Therefore the occupation of them re- 
presents in each case both a military and a political success 
of the Allies and a corresponding approach to their ultimate 
goal. One may say with justice, for instance, that the great 
victory upon the \Vhite Sheet or Messines Ridge (upon which 
there has hardly been placed sufficient emphasis — it was one of 
the greatest feats in the military history of this or any 
other country) was of much value in threatening the ground 
to the North of Lille ; for Lille is essential in the military and 
in the political sense to the German position at this moment. 
We may say in the same way that the violent German re-action 
two months cigo was conducted with the object of saving 
Douai ; and one may say that the present Russian operations 
as a whole threaten Lemberg, and that this last one particularly 
threatens Halicz. But it still remains true that the largest 
object of the various offensives is not the capture of such 
positions, but the dissolution of the enemy's siege lines. To 
quote the phrase used by Mr. Dane in this paper and else- 
where, the enemy has " anchored " himself, and his fixed lines 
are being subjected to blow upon blow with the object of 
compelling their dissolution by numerical loss, and by the 
shaking of moral. In whatever form th6 end might come that 
form could ultimately be called a dissolution. It-might take 
the form of a rupture in the lines, creating flanks and "rolling 
them up." It might take the form of an attempted retreat 
upon a large scale, which a vigorous pursuit would disorganise, 
and upon which such a pursuit would inflict losses so great 
and demoralisation so considerable that a rupture would 
succeed to the retreat as an indirect consequence of it. It 
might even conceivably take the form- of a war of movement 
in which the enemy, no longer a united body, would go down 
in detail, but only after a number of separate actions. But 
though the nature of the dissolution, the exact form it would 
take, is unknown even to those who are responsible for the 
plans of attack, the cause of such a dissolution is perfectly 
well known. It would be arrived at by the pressure upon him, 
which is rapidly increasing, becoming greater than he can bear. 
Though of one blow it may be said that no clear geographical 
objective is before it, of another that it did not produce the 
results expected, of a third that it is a battle " for" such and 
Such a place, all have this in common : That they are 
blows suffered by the enemy, who is compelled to remain 
upon the defensive ; that they are blows after which 
he has to choose between ruinously expensive reaction (as 
on the Aisne to-day), or inactivity (as East of .the Messines 
Ridge to-day) : That they are blows leaving him more and 
more in that position which the text books describe as " in- 
voluntarily suffering the increasing superiority of the 
opponent. " 
With so much said on the general nature of these operations 
lest we should regard this particular battle of Jezupol as being 
essentially a fight for the obtaining of Halicz (which it is 
not, though Halicz may ultimately be the local prize won) I 
will proceed to describe the ground. 
The Russian front in Galicia as a whole ran when the 
offensive began on July ist from North to South, leaving 
Brody in Russian hands, Brzezany in enemy hands, Halicz 
also in enemy hands, and so on to the Carpathians. 
The pounding upon that front first in one place and then 
in another, the catching, if possible, of one sector after 
another unawares, the reduction of the enemy numbers and of 
his guns and of bis moral, the compelling of him to abandon 
positions strengthened throughout the best part of a year 
and to fall back upon weaker because newer entrenchments, 
the compelling of him at the same time to reconcentrate con- 
tinually against this and that threatened point (a task the 
more difficult because of that mixture of races in his 
army, of which we shall speak in a moment) — all this is 
General Brusiloff's task. He resumed active operations ten 
days ago. He has already accounted for some thirty 
thousand prisoners and for a very Targe number of enim; 
losses not calcvilable by us because we lack the elements 
of making an estimate. The first attack, it will be 
remembered, - came off against the sector of Brzezany. 
This was the battle of July ist, and July 2nd. At 
the end of that battle, which lost the enemy the lines of "the 
Cchiovvka, biit did Dot drive him from the heights covering 
Brzezany, he continued to applv considerable pressure 
against these heights, but developed his attack up towaids 
the nortli.^lhe effect of this was tmdoubtedly to deceive the 
enepiy's l.ygher command up(2i the point where the next blow 
should be struck. ,. In spite" of a great superiority in ob- 
servatiqn whidi the enemy' poissesses upon this front, "it is clear 
that tl«re wasan importaht element of surprise in the affair 
that flowed -exactly 5 week after the main fighting in front 
of Br^zany. -For this attack developed y.'ith great sudden- 
ness i|bt towards t he north but towards the south, or left 
of thaGahcian front. It took the form of an overwhelming 
attack by General KorniJoff's armv, the VHIth, South of 
the,Dniester uponjhe .sector in front of Stanislau. 
^he ground here presents the following features. 
..JSixe-£iy£cIku£sterjun.s,in a rather deep trench from north- 
west to south-east, about 25 miles south of Brzezany at its 
