THE WAR SURVEYED: POLAND
By STRATEGICUS
IELD MARSHAL GOERING on Saturday stated that r "with its three great armies Poland is overpowered and hundreds of thousands of Polish soldiers are throwing away their weapons and the army is beginning to surrender." On the following day it was announced that military operations in the " Ccmidor " could be regarded as concluded. The German wireless, on Monday, reminded its hearers that the troops could not be expected to "maintain the surprising speed of their advance." How can these two statements, one from Herr Hitler's headquarters and the other from the official broadcasting station, be made to agree with Field Marshal Goering's boast, which he said was authorised by a message he had that moment received? Yet there was something in his mind which perhaps gives the most reliable clue to the position in Poland. Berlin was in need of a spectacular success, and at the end of last week it seemed to be within grasp. Not only was Warsaw apparently tottering but two Polish armies were threatened with encirclement. On Monday the immediate pressure on the capital was relieved and the two armies began to emerge. The army of Pomorze, the province functionally but misleadingly named the "Corridor," was reported to be heavily engaged with enemy forces "in an attempt to break through to join the main body of Polish forces," and the army of Poznania had fought its way eastward to Kutno. It is even reported that Lodz has been recaptured.
From the first it has been extraordinarily difficult to understand what was happening in Poland. It seemed almost impossible that the German armies could advance so rapidly against the resistance of such highly trained and gallant troops as those of Poland. Even allowing for the fact that, with almost indefensible frontiers, their proper strategy was to fall back on the country's natural defensive lines, and even recognising the harrying quality of a pre- ponderance of aeroplanes, skilfully used, the speed of the enemy advance seemed incredible. But it is clear by this time that the speed has been due to the use of motorised columns which have pressed ahead at an impetuous rate, reaching beyond the power to grasp. When this is borne in mind many facts are easier to understand. No considerable capture of prisoners has so far been announced, though the fate of two armies is still in doubt, and such places as Lomza held out long after positions well to the south of it had fallm. The Germans have at length come to grips with real resistance and it is to be hoped that the chastened tone of their communiques will be borne out by the result.
Their tactics have not, of course, been a matter of acci- dent or of sudden improvisation. They have already devoted to the direct service of war a greater proportion of the country's resources than we shall at any time. They struck when such a mobilisation almost compelled appli- cation, since, clearly, it cannot continue indefinitely, and accordingly they adapted their means to the desired end. They remembered Foch's teaching "that such a war cannot last long, that it must be conducted with violence and reach its goal quickly ; otherwise it will remain without result." They are fighting against time in Poland, since unless they can secure a clear decision within a reasonable period, a considerable part of the seventy divisions which Marshal Goering hopes to fling against the western front will be detained in the east.
So far they have fought with copybook strategy: it would be fatal to deny them the qualities of their defects. The Versailles Treaty left Poland with frontiers dictated on historical and economic rather than military lines. Pomorze was fa lost hope from the beginning ; and, indeed even imagining, per impossibile, that the Versailles frontiers had been defended by a " wall " somehow resembling the "West Wall," of what possible value would it have been when the Czecho-Slovakian coup opened a vast door in its rear? Poland was a creation for a world of peace and the one effective ally her terrain might expect deserted her on this occasion. Heavy rain fell ten days too late, and no one can say how effective it will now be.
Poland's strategy being to fall back on defensive positions, the role of Germany is to make them untenable, bring her armies to battle and defeat them decisively. The Narev with its tributaries, or the Bug with the Vistula appeared destined to provide a defensive line ; and, accordingly, it has been the endeavour of the German command to turn these positions. Very quickly it became obvious that the Upper Vistula could not be held. By the advance from Zakopane, carefully correlated with a thrust from Lubliniec against Czestochowa, Upper Silesia was made untenable, Cracow fell and the Germans were established astride the railway line that points to the very heart of the Polish defence. Lwow is the railhead of the one serviceable means of communication with the one possible means of re- munitionment. How far the Rumanians could or would dare to help Poland in an extremity there is no means of knowing. But if Lwow were taken or brought under fire, help from Rumania would be impossible. This sector is very sensitive and, as I write, there is a report that Przemysl is threatened and that the Germans have reached Jaroslaw. If either fell, the San, which became the alternative southern line of defence when the capture of'Cracow made the upper Vistula untenable, would be turned, and a further strategical retreat would seem inevitable.
On the other flank it was claimed that the Narev was crossed last Friday ; and there are now reports that the Bug has been crossed. The importance of Warsaw is that it lies at the junction of the Vistula and the Bug. In itself it has only sentimental and moral value, but the battles which are being fought in its defence at present are aimed at a more important objective. If the two Polish armies to the west of the Vistula are to rejoin the main Polish force a gap must be kept open for them. Moreover, time must be secured for the troops to rearrange themselves on the river lines. If, then, the rain comes down in earnest these hardly tried soldiers who have fought with such persistence and with such gallantry against the heaviest odds may secure the respite they need. Poland's real weakness is the difficulty of communication with her Allies. She requires aeroplanes, artillery, and transport ; and there seems no way to ensure her sufficient supplies.
In default of this a really adequate diversion would relieve the pressure at once. But it is unwise to see the required diversion in the operations on the Western front. The operations between the Moselle and the Rhine, though con- ducted with the greatest skill and dash, are mere tentative preliminaries. The West Wall, to give the Siegfried system of defences the name by which it is known in Germany, is a deep belt of fortifications upon which the Germans have lavished their patient skill. The engagements are at present only a matter of outposts; and though the French are fight- ing on German soil, and have been called upon to suffer several counter-attacks, they are not of such a nature as to make the German command abate a jot in its determina- tion to secure a decision in Poland if it is at all possible. It is apparently true that a number of divisions have been attracted to the Western front ; but it is most improbable that they were withdrawn from Poland. The French com- muniques have been careful and exact. They have made no claim that is not strictly accurate. To see the operations out of perspective is simply to deceive oneself. Saarbrucken has been written off by the German staff long ago.
The attempt to form a correct appreciation of the present phase of the war is as if one were to try to guess the development of a game of chess played on unfamiliar rules, some of them new and improvised and many of them unknown, with the opponents using pieces the number and identity of which we are ignorant. It seems just to say that the German occupation is much shallower than its advance. But, at the same time, it seems equally just to admit that in mechanical equipment, in aeroplanes, in artillery the Ger- mans are much superior. The Poles, moreover, have gone through a fortnight's bewildering hammering, their com- munications and concentrations constantly under bombard- ment from the air ; their ears almost incessantly deafened by suggestions that their Allies have deserted them ; and their nerves shaken by constant raids of motorised troops. They do not know what attitude Russia will adopt if they are called upon to retreat still further, as well they may be. They may yet be compelled to surrender the capital as they have had to abandon even more revered cities. They have lost their main industrial area. Yet they have not lost morale, and war., as Foch says, is the domain of moral force. if they can extricate their armies west of the Vistula, they may still re-form behind the Vistula and Bug, particularly if the autumn is a little early.
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