LAND & WATER 
September 13, 1917 
The Line of Pskov 
By Hilaire Belloc 
THERE is a danger lest, In the present eclipse of 
Russian military power, the general military problem 
still presented by the war should be misunderstood. 
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 operations, that opinion should not falsely interpret thu 
fundamentals of the task upon which civilised Europe is en- 
gaged. 
The war is as much as ever a siege. 
It is a siege upon one sector of which the besiegers have 
yielded more and more against tiie pressure exercised upon 
them by the besieged. Upon this sector the besiegers have 
suffered a disintegration of their forces. Were the siege one in 
uhich the besieged could hope for external succour or were they 
slill in full force this failure would be disastrous to the whole 
Allied cause. As things are, however, the political collapse 
upon the Eastern front has not, and cannot have castastrophic 
consequences, and that for the two reasons indicated. First 
that there is no relieving force to appear upon that sector ; 
secondly that the forces of the besieged are insufficient to take 
full advantage of their belated political success upon this 
side. 
' 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 lortification 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 Ijy 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. They 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 present 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 \\ est. Whether 
such result will at last be obtained depends upon political 
factors in the Russian State 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. 
W'ere 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 w-eakcr, 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 final 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 
character — numbers, cohesion, material — does not modify 
the siege condition as a whole, and cannot modify it until, or 
if there be, complete and secure 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. 
That is the really serious thing. The -Allies have bv now 
actually killed (if we count deaths from disease, etc.), four million 
of their opponents — and half of these are Germans. But the 
rate of loss both in the Austrian and in the German armies, 
in spite of the regularly increasing severity of the Italian! 
French and British artillery fire, has gone down steadily since 
Russia first 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 be fully taken advantage of by him 
because of his failing strength. The phrase " failing 
strength " may be used loosely or conversationally to describe 
a condition approaching collapse. It is used thus, for instance, 
in the case of illness. It would, of course, be ridiculous to use 
it thus in the present matter, nor do I so use it. I use it in its 
strictest meaning. The strength of the Central Fmpires is 
declining and has been declining not only positively (that is true 
of all the belligerents) but relatively to his Western opponent 
for many months. They 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, h'rcnch or Italian armies, 
and they liave been compelled to put them in earlier than they 
intended ; while their power of production, which is simply 
a function of man ])ower like any other, has also declined 
relatively to that of Great Britain and her Allies. 
Lost Opportunilies 
We have had most striking examples of the way in which tlic 
Central Empires lack the numbers requisite to make full 
use of their opp_ortunitics upon the east It will be remembered 
how,two months ago, with the shameful collapse of the Russian 
7th army covering Tarnopol, the Germans and Austrian^, 
together with a couple of Turkish di\isions 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 ad\antage 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. Wc shall see the same phenomenon 
present wherever tlic Central Empires advance upon the East. 
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 evcrj-thing ; but nowhere 
will they have the strength to attain a decision. 
Now. why is this ? The answer to such a question leads me 
tq the third consideration suggested by the present position 
of the war. The reason the enemy cannot now develop a 
sufficient pow^r to obtain a decision on the East, and therefore 
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 whicli 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 admirabb,- led and organised 
Italian army ; now^ at last fully provided with heavy artillery 
and with munitionment. Not only has she to put more than 
half her available resources there but, as we have seen very 
clearly in the last f^w days, even that proportion is hardly 
sufficient to maintain her purely defensive and desperate 
struggle. She is in process of suffering defeat. The German 
Empire has more than two-thirds of its whole active force 
drawn into the defence of the line in France and Belgium ; 
and even so it suffers repeatedly and continuously upon that 
line from the continued superiority of its opponents. 
Even put thus the thing is striking enough. It is striking 
enough to remember that the whole weight of the Central 
Empires in mere numbers is on the West, where they are hold- 
ing desperately and with difficulty ; but when we consider 
other factors than the mere numbers the thing is more strik- 
ing still. What the disproportion is in enemy guns between 
East and \\'est it is difficult to say, but it is a disproportion of 
something like three to one at the least ; probably far more. 
The disproportion in aerial machines — one of the gresit tests to- 
day of superiority— is startling. It is something like ten to 
one ; for not much more than ten machines that you would 
find upon the Eastern front the enemy must use o\ cr a bundled 
