Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/496

The Western Front.

The elements of the situation in the West—as has been previously remarked in these notes—are of a very simple nature. If my readers are not familiar with them by this time all I can say is that I am not to blame. Nevertheless, let us reiterate. You have two forces opposing each other upon a front that reaches from Switzerland to the North Sea. This is not a Campaign of Envelopment or of Encirclement: there is no immediate prospect of its becoming a Campaign of Central Disruption (a decision, as I may have said before, can only be achieved by piercing or turning the enemy's line); it is a Campaign of Cumulative Propulsion. In a word it is chiefly a matter of shoving. This point is admirably illustrated by an incident, reported in the official communiqué of Thursday last, which on a small scale gives the key to the whole.

This incident occurred in the sector Cuielly-la-Maison, in a small salient, which has been held by the French (as a point d'appui) since the afternoon of November 17th. It is a part of the line remote from human agglomerations (nothing would induce me to say towns) and the subsoil varies to some extent. The entire front affected was only twenty-seven yards, and the forces engaged cannot have been excessive, but it will be worth our while to examine this little action (which the German wireless reports, by the way, have absurdly compared with Auerstadt).

Here you had part of a platoon of French Territorials in occupation of a short railway embankment just south of Cuielly-la-Maison station. I must describe the terrain in detail. To the west of the embankment a little octagonal meadow of about 4¹⁄₂ acres runs north and south, and the subsoil is, for the most part, clay. The surface of the meadow is undulating: it contains an old poplar tree in the southeast corner, and there used to be a cow in it. On the other side of the embankment—occupied up to 5 P.M. on Wednesday last by part of the 32nd Division of Würtemburgers—is a Cattleman's Shed. Two-thirds of a kilometre to the north of this is a Journeyman's Shop, and in close adjacence to the left centre of the French position you have a Railwayman's Hut.

Let us now examine the action in considerable detail—even at the risk of wearying my readers. The German attack began at dawn on the Wednesday, introduced by a heavy storm of shell. (The reader will note that I never write shells though I am always willing to speak of propulsive explosives.) Their reserves were no doubt concealed in a leafy little dell (where I used to gather primroses) 968 yards east of the Journeyman's Shop. The subsoil in that direction is, curiously enough, sand.

The French resistance must be dealt with in still greater detail———

The Eastern Front.

Accounts of the fighting in the Carpathians are, at the moment of compiling these Notes,—10.27 P.M. on Tuesday evening, unless my watch is fast—of a rather conflicting nature. The Russian Effort in this direction, which is neither an Initiative nor an Aggressive, but a pure Offensive, has brought about an instance of what is known to strategists as the Waving Line. (Arcola was a battle of the waving line and the same may be said to some extent of Bull Run; Napoleon was a master of this form of strategy, though, it is true, he began to wave it too soon at Leipzig.) We need not at the moment concern ourselves with the operations in the Caucasus, where the conflict has become purely a matter of the Wobbling Front.

Now it must be manifest that a waving line is not straight in the same strict sense as a rigid line from point to point is straight. Look at Diagram 352. (And here let me explain, in response to many enquiries that have reached me, that the fact that I occasionally forget to stick into my diagrams the letters referred to in my brochures is due to the enormous pressure of work one has to get through of a Tuesday evening. Let me beg you yet again to get it into your heads that we go to press on Wednesday. Commanders in the field must understand that operations under-taken on that day must be carried over till the following week.)

Dangerous salients will be observed at the points A, B, C, D, E, F, etc. Thus it comes about that a force attacking in the direction of the arrow at C (Diagram 353) is subject to a devastating enfilading fire from J and K. But at the same time a force at tacking at D is similarly subject to fire from J2 and K2. But if this sort of thing goes on a point must arrive when K will become involved with the hostile force at J2, unless there is an Obstacle on the line C-D. Now this is just what seems to be going on at Przlcow, the obstacle in this case being the disused railway cutting at X (where 1 have enjoyed many a picnic in my childhood). Should the Austrians succeed in establishing a bridge-head on the far side of this obstacle, the Russians replying by a counter-offensive-defensive, the whole of this sector of the line may become compromised. This is all that can be usefully said of the Eastern theatre at the moment of writing—10.59 P.M.

The Dardanelles.

On this question I can only say that we have no news. The operations have not been timed so as to suit this journal.

The Supply of Buttons.

Judging by correspondence that is reaching me in enormous quantities there is still a good deal of misapprehension in the public mind upon this most vital point. So let me say briefly that we do not guess, we know that buttons are necessary for the equipment of the German soldier. Also we do not have to calculate, we know that even at the rate of one button a man—surely a conservative estimate, but it is well in these matters always to weigh the scales against one's hopes—four or five million buttons must be already in the field. Of two things one. Either the supply is ample or it is not. I shall return to this point next week.

The Question of Moral.

I am forced to reopen this question in this week's Notes owing to the prevalent ignorance and confusion as to what is meant by moral (which, by the way, I shall continue to spell without an e). It must be remembered that we have to deal with three different aspects of moral—Political Moral, Economic Moral, and Military Moral. But as I learn that we are just on the point of going to press I am compelled to reserve what I have to say to be dealt with in a forthcoming lecture at Queen's Hall, a notice of which will be found at the foot of this page.