December 28, 191 7 
'LAND & WATER 
and nodal point, then it will be some other national, cviltmc. 
It will certainly not be an international Committee for long. 
Neither will it be a new Universal State. Of such a thing 
as that th3 present holds no promise at all. 
To return to that important example of what historical 
geography means : 
Another heavy modification produced by modern strategics 
in the old ruts of warfare is the difficulty of landing ; it is 
one of the innumerable ramifications of the modern defensive 
b\' land. Ever since recorded history begins, whoever could 
sail in security with transports to a shore could land. His 
fate then depended upon whether he won or lost his battle 
upon the earth and upon his power of keeping up communica- 
tions. The Britons landed in Gaul against Caesar ; Cjesar 
himself in Britain, and then the Empire following him ; the 
Crusaders in Asia, long before them the Asiatics in Greec3 ; 
the Normans in Southern Italy and in England : the Frisian 
and Danish Pirates (called Anglo-Saxon) in the fifth century, 
in this island ; the Scandinavians here and in Normandy ; 
The Black men of Morocco in Spain — and so on — it is an 
interminable list. Suddenly there appears for the first time 
in histor\- a check — and we have seen that check in this war. 
It bears t*he names of the "Coast of Belgium" and in a 
modified form of " The Dardanelles." 
Connected with this change, though of a somewhat different 
character, is the closing of the two great inland seas of Europe ; 
which may be followed, perhaps many years hence (as we 
mav note for future studv) by the closing of the Mediterranean 
itself. 
In the old days a strait of water had to be very narrow for 
it to be closed to a determined offensive ; or if not very 
7iarrow then very ill-defined. But to-day a passage even 
some thousands of yards broad is as true an obstacle as was 
in the old days a long river entrance to a port. The Baltic 
has been nearly closed ; the Black Sea absolutely close d to 
the action of the Western AUies. I think it is a point which 
has not been sufficiently insisted upon by the students of this 
war that any sheet of water with a fairly narrow entrance 
will, in future, or, at any rate, as long as the present con- 
ditions endure, be at the mercy of the power that holds the 
gate. 
And here again we have an immediate and practical 
application, for surely one of the great tests of victory or defeat 
which the near future will show will be the ability or inability 
of European civilisation to make certain of the Black Sea 
and the Baltic against that hotch-potch of peoples run by 
Prussia, which calls itself " Middle Etiropc." If, at the con- 
clusion of the war, the Sound and the Dardanelles and 
Bosphorus are in theifhands then, without a doubt, they ha\e 
defeated us. 
Minor modifications will also be noted. The Pyrenees, for 
instance, one of the great obstacles to military movement 
playing a great part in so much of all history, have not only 
not corne into this war, but probably cannot of their nature 
come into it. This war's offensives and defensives do not lie 
upon axes which bring in the Pyrenees as a transversal. 
There is a corresponding, though somewhat different, point 
to note in connection with the Alps. All through European 
history hitherto the Alps have been a passage, not an obstacle. 
It is an astonishing paradox, but it is true. The Roman 
Power poured over the Alps, so did the Gaul and the 
Carthaginian ; so did the Frencli in the Middle Ages j so did 
the German for three hundred futile years, between Otto 
the Great and the last and most civilised of their leaders, 
himself virtually an Italian. 
Napoleon won his victory against Austria on the Plains, 
and had not even to challenge the mountains. Later he 
crossed those mountains and re-crossed them almost at will. 
To-day, by an accident which is pohtical and not military, 
they have suddenly and for the first time, played an immense 
role as defensive obstacles although that role would seem to 
have been assigned to them by nature from the beginning. 
Tlie whole story of the Italian campaign in this war has been 
the story of occupying, or attempting to occupy, the Alpine 
Passes, coupled with an inability to force them. The whole 
of the last chapter, tlie perilous business of Caporetto (the 
ultimate effects of which we cannot yet judge), was the story 
of the Alpine barrier turned with great difficulty, and indeed 
unexpectedly. 
These arc but notes suggested by the present aspect of the 
campaign and deal only with its largest lines. But we may 
note one last curious and not easily resolvable puzzle. 
With the exception of the Dardanelles there has been no 
prolonged resistance upon a nodal point. 
Hitherto in all wars whatsoever (with the exception of 
wars that ha\e been a walk-over — wherever, that is, there 
has been a serious defensive) , one or more nodal points where 
communications minor or major converged, have by 
resistance held up the campaign : Witness in modern time's 
Metz, Paris, Plevna— and for centuries pa?t any number of 
similar names. In this war no such name has appeared. It 
is an accident due partly to the fact that these vast siege fines 
have not admitted of particular isolated defences, partly due 
to the fact that — with the development of aircraft and the 
mobility of heavy guns, permanent defences had not in 1914 
caught up the new powers of attack ; partly due to the way 
in which the movements of the war swung. The nearest thing 
to a great nodal point (except the Dardanelles) appearing in 
this war, were the two cases of the river-railway crossings and 
road-crossings of Liege and Belgrade. Verdun, which some 
have quoted as an example, was nothing of the kind. It 
was but one sector on a front, and it was attacked, not because 
it was in any sense a fortress, still less a centre of communica- 
tions, but because it was the jumping-off place for a counter- 
cffensivc ; because it offered great facilities for concentration 
against it, and because it offered opportunities for surprise. 
Mt. Asolone 
The Austro-German thrust between the Brenta and 
the Piave, designed to turn the Italian positions between 
the mountains and sea, continues to be the principal action 
in the opening of this fourth Christmas week of the war. 
Though it was only a matter of conjecture that the chief 
enemy effort would continue to be made in Italy, the con- 
jecture was reasonable ; and the logical foundation for it 
was given at some length in these columns last week. The 
enemy could, if he reached the Plains and threatened the 
Itahan communications, achieve such a result here as he could 
not hope for at the same price anywhere else in the West. 
The very fact that he was openly advertising his intention to 
transfer his strength elsewhere was a reason for believing 
that his main effort would continue to be against the con- 
venient flank which conditions of ground and the final 
decision not to retire to the Adige had created for him in 
Italy. 
One of the considerations which must here be specially 
insisted upon is the effort represented by a great accumulation 
of shell in a mountain country. When you are using, as the 
enemy is here using, something over 4,000 guns, first and 
last — of which as many as 2,500 have been found concen- 
trated upxjn some 20,000 yards of line — and when this enor- 
mous mass of artillery is delivering one intensive bombard- 
ment after another, it means an accumulation of heavy 
material which pins the offensive down for a long time to the 
sector it has chosen. It is like locking up money in an 
investment. You arc tied to the plan which you have im- 
masked and you nmst carry it through. To form such an 
enormous concentration of heavy pieces and their munition- 
ment in exceedingly difficult country and not to try and 
carry through the object for which so vast an investment of 
energy' was made, would be strategically nonsense ; for it 
would take almost as long to dis.sociate the elements of such 
a concentration as it did to associate them. 
We may take it, then, that the enemy is putting forward 
every element of strength which he can locally bring to bear, 
with the object of reaching the Italian Plains. And the next 
two things for us to note are first that he has gradually 
approached his object, gaining point after point, and never 
suffering a serious or permanent check ; secondly, that the 
last step towards his objective is now, in one critical point, 
a very short one. That point is the crest of Mt. Asolone. 
As has been pointed out previously in this place, the one 
great avenue of approach between the Adige and the Piave 
for any considerable force with its wheeled vehicles and 
pieces from the mountains to the Plain, is the valley of the 
Brenta. 
That valley has two excellent roads running down it on 
either side of the stream, a railway which we may be almost 
certain now connects — in spite of destruction under retreat -- 
with the main enemy system. Once the mouth of this Brenta 
valley is secured for debouching at Bassano, this capital avenu(> 
could be used to pour men and supplies upon one point in 
numbers far greater than they have been concentrated 
hitherto since the enemy pierced the Italian line at Caporetto 
on the fatal 24th of last October. The mere threat of such a 
thing, when that threat became acute, would be enough to 
compel the retirement of everything to the east of Bassano — 
that is, of the whole Piave line. 
Now the elements of the ground in this lower part of the 
Brenta Valley are these. You have a wide trencli, too wide 
to be called a ravine or a gorge, the flanking hills of which 
are some 4,000 feet above the sea. On the eastern side this 
boundary range is crossed by certain passes which lie very 
high np on tlie ridg(>, such as the pass called tlic Pass oi 
