There remains an attempt to pierce the line at some
vulnerable point, but with so well watched a line on both sides that is not very hopeful. Commanders have to think not merely of piercing, but of what they are to do when they have pierced, a line. It is no good to break through the enemy's line and then find yourself isolated from your own armies. Of course, if where the line makes an angle you can break through both on the right and left, you might, as it were, snip off a, piece of the enemy's army ; but the enemy is quite as well aware of the danger of angles as you are, and takes his precautions accordingly. If we must hazard a forecast, we should imagine that what will happen is that for some weeks the two armies will grin at each other across their trenches, and it will seem to the watchers as if they would never be able to escape from the enchantment which holds them in their trenches and tunnels. And then on one side or the other, no man will quite know how—it may be by an unwise shifting of troops, it may be through disease having pounced upon a portion of one of the combatants—there will be a real weakening of the line somewhere, and suddenly the present configuration of the board will be changed and a rearrangement of the pieces be caused which may give some- body his chance. These possibilities are, however, discussed by us elsewhere, and we need not repeat them, except to ,state the commonplace conclusion that with so sensitive an
instrument as war the movements in the Polish battle area will be felt at once in the French. Defeat or victory for the Allies in Poland, though so far away, will instantly have its effect in Picardy and Flanders.
