Evening star., 1916-01-09
Lessons From
Battle News.

pies. are learning OF
Lessons From the existe of
~, places heretofore un-
oaIeie Ne"s' known. And this is
true on all fronts. the west, the east
and the Balkans. OF what Importance,
indeed. was Beausejour Les Eparges.
Corency Bukowina. Czernowitz. Car
torysk? The dispatches are laconic
necessarily. and 1t is only when the
military operations at a certain indi-
Gated place are persistent that we be-
come acquainted with the country and
people. But the geographical lessons
taught by the war are more important
still.
A dispatch dated London. January g..
said: THE Bukowina. the province of
Volhynia and the western part of Bes-
sarabia constitute the battle ground of
violent fighting between the two huge
armies. Russian and Austro- German.
nghting on the part of Russia the at
tackers with Rumania's eventual aid
Sarny sector has been bitterly con-
tested for months. Only by wrestling
from the Teutons the Volhynian fort
resses Dubno and Larezk will the Rus
slams be able to undertake a new cam
paign against eastern Galicia."
In the foregoing there are both news
and a geographical lesson of the war.
The armies that confront each other
on all fronts of the vast fields of battle
are estimated at twenty millions. Thus
more than one in every 100 of the
100 millions of living human
creatures of all ages and ali races on
the surface of our planet are ready to
XIII and be killed. Europe. the privi-
legged land of art, science and pleas
ure. as well as neutral states Obliged
to defend their neutrality, all these are
under arms.
After seventeen months of war i'm
partial judges consider that the two
empires of central Eu-
Nine Million rope have lost more
Mr. than a million men
>S0'''f killed and about four
millions in lost combatants-that is.
wounded. prisoners and missing. To
these must be added the losses sus-
tained by the Turks, plus those of the
allied armies-a total, according to
Jean Brunhss, professor at the College
of France, of nine million beings
This total. it may be well to recall.
is greater than the united popuat ton
of Switzerland. Denmark and Norway.
Yet in this total there enter as many
women as men and all the aged and
children, The nine millions killed, mu-
tilated, lamed. blind Include, on the
contrary, only men. and men entirely
virile. -
These masses of men in war advance
and retreat. as if they were only fig
ures. for example. in a. gigantic dance
The armies advance to the Lakes Ma
zurie, to Soldau-A -Allenstein, then they
retire to Suwalki. on the Bobra: then on
the Niemen. then on the Duna, then for
ward toward the west; then Przemysl
and Lwow aemberg) were abandoned.
The battle of Galicia. single episode
of this gigantic war. lasted two months
and half. I In this battle the Austro-
Germans had twenty army corps. 6o0.-
600 men. The Russians had quite as
many men,. but few munitions, and they
paid the penalty of "unpreparedness."
Few armies, no army, in fact, unless it
be the Turk, could have stood such a
test. There is in the Russian solidity
which comes from his religion and
which is revealed by Russian romances;
the Russian. yields ground and yet
comes back A japanese diplomat, in
referring to the war in Manchuria, said:
we have made peace with the Rus
slams; we beat them and drove them
back in vain: nothing was ever finish
ed. for they always came back
A writer. speaking=ef the war of the
trenches, for example. of Steinbach, the
little village in Alsace.
Trenches VS.. the scene of murder
Gus battle of six days,
IoftIesses' January 4, 1915, men,
tions the wonderful courage and
persistence shown by the French. North
of Arras the two armies dug themselves
into trenches. Fortresses were aban-
doned or neglected. The formidable ac-
cumulation of masonry and cemented
blocks, constructed i'm advance, gave
place to the trenches, with their sub
terranean chambers and passages.
These became veritable cities. deep be-
low the surface: such was the laby-
rinth" which fianked the route of Ar
ras at Bethune, near the spur of Notre
Dame de I.orette. L:ege. Namur, An
vers, Maubeuge were obliged to sur
render their stone fortresSeS, While
Nancy, protected by trenches and it's
living walls. remains inviola BILE. Every
thing becomes paradox because there
are no longer isolated armies, but con
tinuous masses, which should encircle
the country and grasp the adversary"
We are confronted by radical revo-
luton in the art of defense and forti6-
cation. Perhaps il is too early in the
war to say that fortfications in stone
are to be discarded and the trench sys-
tenn adopted trenches that are labyrinths
dug in the soil hundreds of meters from
their theoretic frontiers of defense; in
Vulnerable small works, constantly re-
newed and multiplied such will be the
future fortihcation.
rt *& -
1t is frequently asserted that The pres
ent war has reverted to methods that
served armies in
Not a Reversal ancient times. fhat
to Old Modes. minor rnan sense ;" 0is' is mani.
fest, for armies have never heretofore
been armed with guns of such formidable
fire as at the present, fire so destruc-
tive as TO impose the abandonment of the
stone fertilization and the adoption of fhe
trench. ---- -e7.--.
Tie war is modern in every sense The
aerial ship armed with mitrailleuse and
torpedo fights in the atmosphere thou-
sands of meters above the earth with
bombs and arrows; the trench warfare
consists in mines and mining varied by
sorties with hand grenades. On land,
then, We have subterranean bombs, bat
teries and mines; on the sea the sub
marine, whose injection in the war is
actually a subject of international prot
estation on the part of certain neutrals