ing theories upon war established
during the long peace.

Secondly, the French established a policy whereby, if Paris were
menaced in a future campaign, the Government should abandon that
central point, and, in spite of the grave inconvenience proceeding
from the way in which all material communications centred upon the
capital and all established offices were grouped there, would withdraw
the whole central system of government to Bordeaux, and leave Paris to
defend itself, precisely as though it were of no more importance than
any other fortified point. They would recognize the strategic values
of the district; they would deliberately sacrifice its political and
sentimental value. They would never again run the risk of losing a
campaign because one particular area of the national soil happened to
be occupied. The plans of their armies and the instructions of their
Staff particularly warned commanders against disturbing any defensive
scheme by too great an anxiety to save Paris.

If this were the disadvantage geographically of France, what was that
of Russia?

Russia's geographical disadvantage was twofold. First, she had no
outlet to an open sea in Europe save through the arctic port of
Archangel. This port was naturally closed for nearly half the year,
and how long it might be artificially kept partially open by
ice-breakers it remained for the war to prove. But even if it were
kept open the whole year in this precarious fashion, it lay on the
farther side of hundreds of miles of waste and deserted land connected
only with the active centre of Russia by one narrow-gauge line of
railway with very little rolling stock. The great eastern port of
Vladivostok was nearly as heavily handicapped, and its immense
distance from the scene of operations in the West, with which it was
only connected by a line six thousand miles long, was another
drawback. Russia might, indeed, by the favour of neutrals or of
Allies, use warm water ports. If the Turks should remain neutral and
permit supply to reach her through the Dardanelles, the Black Sea
ports were open all the year round, and Port Arthur (nearly as far off
as Vladivostok) was also open in the Far East. But the Baltic, in a
war with Germany, was closed to her. Certain goods from outside could
reach her from Scandinavia, round by land along the north of the
Baltic, but very slowly and at great expense. It so happened also
that, as the war proceeded, this question of supply b