1.AND & WATER 
September 13, 1917 
The Line of Pskov 
By Hilaire Belloc 
THERE is a danger lest. In the present eclipse of 
Russian military p<jwcr. the Rcnerai military problem 
-till presented bv the war should Ix; misundcrsto<xl. 
There is danger lest the nature of the Russian weak- 
ness itself should also be misunderstood : and it is important 
before winter comes on us, with its probable tedium and delay 
in op<.'rations, that opinion should not falselv interpret the 
fundamentals of the task upon which civiliv.d Europe is en- 
gaged. 
The war is as much as ever a siege. 
It is a sieg<- upon one s<-ctor of which the besiegers have 
yielded more and more against the pressure exercised upon 
them by the besieged. I'pon this sector the besiegers have 
suffered a disintegration of their forces. Were Ihs siege one m 
uhich the hesief-ed could hope j or external succour or were Ihcy 
still in full force this failure would be disastrous to the whole 
Allied cause. As things are, however, the political collapse 
upon tlie Eastern front has not, and cannot have castastrophic 
consequences, and that for the two reasons indicated. Virst 
that there is no relieving force to appear upon that sector; 
secondly that the forces of the besieged are insufticicnt to take 
full advantage of their belated political success upon this 
side. • u ♦ 
A parallel from the common type of siege — which is that 
of a single stronghold— will make my meaning clear. Take 
an army contained within works of loj-tification such as those 
of Paris or Metz in 1870. If one sector of the surrounding 
force is ill-defended, .so that the besiegers there are pressed 
back and back by successive sorties, the strategic advantage, 
as distinguished from the advantage in supply to be obtained 
by the besieged from such a success, will be one or both of two 
things. Tliey will perhaps at last annihilate the military force 
of their opponents upon that side, and so be able to bringe 
their full force to bear against the remaining besiegers upon 
the other side, and with that full force perhaps defeat them 
in turn ; secondly they may hope upon this side, when they 
have begun to be successful, for the reception of a relieving 
force, such as was the army of the Loire in 1870, which will 
reinforce them and decide the issue. 
We must be careful to note that neither of those conditions 
is prest!nt in the case of the enemy's Eastern front against 
the Russians. 
No Separate Peace 
There is no immediate prospect, apparently, of the enemy's 
putting the Russian armies out of action and of thus freeing 
his forces upon this side for work against the VV est. VVliether 
such result will at last be obtained depends upon j)olitical 
factors in the Russian Stat(; of which we know very little ; 
but at any rate, the existing organs of government (such as 
they are) do not propose even to approach a separate peace. 
Were a section to try for peace there would be nothing still 
in any such arrangement ; while the destruction of the Russian 
army and the consequent necessity of Russia accepting peace 
is not a possible contingency. It may grow weaker, it may 
continue to yield ground, it may continuously suffer in mpral 
and in munitionment ; but the spaces are too great, the op- 
portunities for retirement too vast, and the ultimate reserves 
of human material, however shaken, are too considerable for a 
decisive and hiial defeat to be inflicted on Russia in the pre- 
sent condition of the enemy's armies. 
The second definitive advantage which a situation of this 
kind gives the besieged is also lacking, for even with the siege 
actually raised, on this front there is no prospect of relief. 
Of relieving forces giving accession of total combined force 
to the besieged— which a breach in the besieging line permits 
— there are none. 
In general terms, the retirement of the Russian armies 
before what is now an enemy superior in every militarv 
cliiirarter-- numbers, cohesion, mat(M-ial -does not modify 
the siege condition as a whole, and cannot modify it until, or 
if there be, complete and Mcine cessation of hostilities upon 
this side. 
In general terms, again, the most significant effect of the 
Russian breakdown is the diminution of his wastage which it 
affords the enemy. 
Tliat is the really serious thing. The Allies have by now 
actually killed (if we count deaths from disease, etc.), four million 
of their opixments and half of these are f iermans. Hut the 
rate of loss both in tlie .Austrinii .uid in the ("lerman armies, 
ill spite of the regularly incicusing severity of the Ituiiau, 
French and British artillery- fire, has gone down steadily since 
Russia hrst began to give way eight or nine months ago. 
The diminution- has been especially noticeable since the re- 
volution of last March. 
Now let us consider the other aspect of the situation already 
alluded to. Even such opportunities as the Eastern situation 
gives the enemy cannot he fully taken advantage of by him 
because of his failing strength. Tne phrase " failing 
strength " may be used loosely or conversationally to describe 
A condition approaching collaijse. It is used thus, for instance, 
in the case of illness. It would, of course, \y.t ridiculous to use 
it thus in the present matter, nor do I so use it. I use it in its 
strictest meaning. Tiie strength of the Central Empires is 
declining and has been declining not only positively (that is true 
of all the biflligerents) but relatively to his Western opponent 
for many months. Thev have already been compelled to 
put into the field lads of younger by a full year and more 
than those at present in the English, French or Italian armies, 
and they have been compelled to put them in earlier than they 
intended ; while their power of production, which is simply 
a function of man power like any other, has also declined 
relatively to that of (ircat Britain and her Allies. 
Lost Opportunities 
We ha\e had most striking examples of the way in which the 
Central Flmpires lack the numbers requisite to make full 
use of their opportunities upon the east It will be remembered 
how.fwo months ago, with the shameful collapse of the Russian 
7th army covering Tarnopol, the fiermans and Austrians, 
together with a couple of Turkish divisions found themselves 
not only upon the flank of, but actually within striking dis- 
tance of, the communications of the Russian 7th army. Yet 
they were unable to .take advantage of so extraordinarily 
favourable a situation. I printed a sketch map in these 
columns at the time, in which one saw the enemy advance 
like a great curling wedge, not merely breaking the general 
Russian line, but getting right round behind the southern end 
of it. In spite of this Korniloff got his large forces away 
securely without disaster. I think it is true to say that there 
is no example in military history of a situation so advan- 
tageous bearing no fruit. We shall see the same phenomenon 
present wherever the Central Empires advance upon the li-ast. 
They can advance pretty well where they please. They have 
but to choose the sector upon which they will strike, and they 
will there find themselves wholly superior in gun-power and in 
formation which is the root of everything ; but nowhere 
will they have the strength to attain a decision. 
Now, why is this ? The answer to such a question leads me 
to the third consideration suggested by the present position 
of tlie war. The reason the enemy cannot now develop a 
sufficient power to obtain a decision on the East, and tlierefore 
to concentrate next wholly against the West, is that the task 
set him upon the West is out of all comparison with anything 
that is going on in the marches of Russia. 
It is this — the overwhelming preponderance of the West— 
which must be steadily borne in mind, and which most thorough- 
ly rectifies our judgment of the whole situation. Austria is 
compelled to put more than half -much more than half — 
her remaining forces against the admirably led and organised 
Italian annv ; now at last fully provided with heavy artillery 
and with munitioninent. Not only has she to put more than 
half her available resources there but, as we have seen very 
clearly in the last few days, even that proportion is hardly 
sufficient to maintain her purely defensive and desperate 
struggle. She is in process of suflering defeat. The German 
lunpire ha^ more than two-thirds of its whole active force 
drawn into the defence of the line in France and Helgium ; 
and even so it suffers repeatedly and continuously upon that 
line from the continued superiority of its opponents. 
Even put thus the thing is striiking enough. It is striking 
enough to • iXMHeaiber tliat the whole weight of the Central 
luni)ires in mere numbers is on the West, where they are hold- 
ing desperately and with difficulty ; hut when we consider 
other factors than the mere mnnbers the thing is more strik- 
ing still. What the disproportion is in enemy guns between 
J'last and West it is difficult to say, but it is a disproportion ol 
something like threi- to one at tlie least ; jMobalily far niofc. 
The disproportion in aerial machines -one of the great tests to- 
day of suix>riority— is startling. It is something like ten to 
one ; for not much more than ten machines that you would 
tmd upon the Eastern front the enemy must use over a hundied 
