Notes on the Historical and Physical Geography of the Theatres of War Author(S): Vaughan Cornish Source: the Geographical Journal, Vol

Notes on the Historical and Physical Geography of the Theatres of War Author(s): Vaughan Cornish Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 45, No. 5 (May, 1915), pp. 371-381 Published by: geographicalj Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1779725 Accessed: 01-05-2016 15:45 UTC

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This content downloaded from 132.174.255.116 on Sun, 01 May 2016 15:45:57 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms GEOGRAPHY OF THE THEATRES OF WAR. 371 order that one who has travelled so much in Persia and written so much about it might have added to our information. I am afraid my personal experiences of Persia are limited. I have been to Tabriz, and I shall never forget the excite- ment of first entering a great Persian town, and its difference from the towns of the nearer East. The first view of the city, surrounded by its orchards, its grey flat roofs shining in the sun; the fascination of the arcaded bazaars, with their domed halls or khans, under which the merchandise is set out, and where?

" Above their merchandise The merchants of the market sit Lying to foolish men and wise," still, after nearly fifty years, remain in my memory. Persia is to many of us asso? ciated with the most beautiful carpets and tiles. The art of Persia has rivalled that of China, and far surpassed that of India. This is one of the charms of that remote and secluded country. I confess there was one detail in the slides which rather surprised me. We saw a good deal of the cultivators, but very little cultivatable land. If they can force these stones and rocks and barren hills to produce any paying crops, I think the cultivators must be, as Colonel Sykes described them, " an exceptionally active race." No doubt the secret is irrigation; that is the foundation of the cultivation of the East. I do not think I can detain you profitably by any further reflections on the paper. I will only ask you to give a hearty vote of thanks to Colonel Sykes.

NOTES ON THE HISTORICAL AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE THEATRES OF WAR.*

By VAUGHAN COENISH, D.Sc. Having regard to the extent of the British Empire and the known purpose of Germany to obtain extensive colonial dominions by conquest, it is necessary, in order to understand the geographical aspect of the present war, to examine the map of the whole world from the military point of view. The Military Begions of the World.?For the purpose of military geography the world may be divided, like Ancient Gaul, into three parts ?the American, Oriental, and European military regions, in which the dominions of the eight great military powers are scattered in such a manner that valued possessions of one are in many cases situated near the centre of force of another and remote from that of the parent state. Each of the three great regions reaches from Pole to Pole; the American extends from west of the Azores to west of Honolulu. Germany and Austria have no possessions in this region. The United States is the only power whose principal force is situated in it, and Great Britain is the only other great power which is represented there in any appreciable military strength. The eastern boundary of the European

* Royal Geographical Society, January 25,1915. Map, p. 456.

This content downloaded from 132.174.255.116 on Sun, 01 May 2016 15:45:57 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 372 NOTES ON THE HISTORICAL AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY region corresponds almost exactly with the area draining westwards to the south and north Atlantic Oceans, including in the latter the White Sea. The oriental military region comprises all that lies between this line and the western boundary of the American region.* It is in the Pacific Ocean that the greatest break occurs in the communications of the British Empire, both on account of the distance between Australia and New Zealand and Canada, and on account of the fact that the naval strongholds of Japan and the United States (Honolulu) intervene. Thus, although Australasia and Canada face one another across the Pacific,f the strategic ties of Australasia are with India and South Africa. These three territories, situated at the corners of an equilateral triangle, have inter-communication free from any intervening centres of military force. The occupation of the head of the Persian Gulf, if permanent, will make the Indian Ocean practically a British lake. Moreover, the physical frontier corresponds with the historical facts which have made the Western nations what they are, for the whole of the Mediterranean lands were Roman and Christian. The fact that Asia Minor became the home-land and stronghold of the Ottomans enabled them to effect the unusual combination of all the territory from the j53gean to the Persian Gulf. Lower Mesopotamia was not held for long by Bome and never became Europeanized, and the recent operations from India on the Shatt-el-Arab illustrate the circumstance that this district falls naturally into the Oriental military region. The Roman empire was divided in its later days into eastern and western halves from the headwaters of the Adriatic, and of all the maps required to illustrate the war none is more striking than that which shows how the present boundary-line between the western and eastern Church follows not only that original division, but marks the subsequent northern extension of west Roman and east Roman, or Byzantine, influence respectively. This line, which is the boundary of Eastern Europe, may be defined fairly accurately as running along the western and northern frontier of Bosnia, Serbia, Transylvania and Bukowina, and along the eastern boundary of Poland, the Baltic Provinces, and Finland. South and east of this line Tartars dominated the Russian Christians until the later centuries, and Turks the southern Slavs until our own day. The history of all Europe east of this line has much in common, but differs fundamentally from that of Western Europe. Thus the history of the Russian people creates a bond with the southern Slavs of

* In support of the view that the west coast of Africa falls into the European military region, and the east coast into the British area of the Oriental military region, I may eite the fact that the recent operations in the Cameroons were conducted on the arrival of a force despatched on August 31 from Liverpool, and that the attack on Tanga, in German East Africa, was made by a force which sailed from Bombay in October. t This is seen on the globe, but disguised by distortion on tho Mercator map.

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the Eastern Church as truly as her economic deficiencies draw her towards the iEgean. Across this direction of expansion of the great Russian people (mapped out as long ago as the days of Peter the Great) runs diagonally the line of expansion marked out for the great German race from, or soon after, the alliance of Germany and Austria, which was concluded secretly in 1879, at the termination of the Russo-Turkish war, and became known to the world about 1888. The later development of this alliance was the inclusion of Turkey, by which it was designed to extend a military confederation from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf, and thus at the same time to wall off Russia from the Mediterranean, and master our line of communication with India. The military advantages possessed by the interior position of this proposed middle state are very great, since it permits the confederates both to combine their forces and to deal alternate blows on either hand. It may be noted here that an isochronic map of the German Empire shows almost every point on the frontiers, except in Alsace and Lorraine, to be within ten hours of Berlin by express train. Until the recent Balkan war Austria and Turkey were conterminous at the Sanjak of Novi Bazar. After that war, however, the continuity of the Berlin?Yienna?Constantinople confederation was destroyed. The map of the enlarged Serbia, comprising the whole of the valley of the Morava and most of that of the Yardar, shows that state as a corridor leading from Austria nearly to Salonika, the port facing Smyrna, which is the gateway to Asia Minor from the iEgean. The erection of a state of Albania walled off Serbia from help by maritime allies. As Russia with her traditional ambition of expansion to the Mediter? ranean stood in the way of German expansion to the south-east, so the position and the traditional policy of Great Britain were inconsistent with the German scheme for expansion westwards, both on the continent and overseas. These schemes are known with absolute certainty, for her statesmen thought it necessary to obtain the driving power of national aspiration for their policy, and it is impossible to educate a whole nation for thirty years in secret. Only the times and seasons were concealed. The German policy consisted of two parts. First, to obtain the hegemony of Western Europe; second, to secure possession of overseas dominions now held by civilized powers, since Germany was too late to colonize on a sufficient scale by the legitimate means of occupying waste or savage countries. The British Area of the European Military "Region.?The power of Great Britain in the world depends upon her being mistress of the Atlantic communications of Western Europe, and consequently of free communication with her overseas dominions, and the ability of Germany to seize and retain the overseas dominions of weaker states depends upon her wresting that control from Great Britain. The conception of there being lands on the Continent of Europe which No V.?May, 1915.] ' 2d

This content downloaded from 132.174.255.116 on Sun, 01 May 2016 15:45:57 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 374 NOTES ON THE HISTORICAL AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY are part of a British military area may be illustrated by reference to the Monroe Doctrine of the United States. The foreign policy of that power is based upon the declaration that the acquisition of territory on the American continents by a nation froin over seas will be regarded as a rasus belli. We have a traditional policy which is equivalent to a Monroe doctrine, viz. that the acquisition of territory on the coasts or islands of Western Europe will be a casus belli. The doctrine, or policy, began at least as early as the days of Queen Elizabeth, when it applied to the Rhine delta and to the mouths of the Scheldt * (where the Spanish Armada was to pick up the landing force for the invasion of England). The extension of the policy to the coast of Norway is indicated in Professor Lyde's recent paper in the Journal by his reference to the joint guarantee given by Great Britain and France against any encroach - ment by Russia upon the Varanger Fiord. The fact that Norway has long since ceased to be a great power makes us too apt to forget that the fine harbours of her coasts are within 300 miles of Scotland and that they have direct access to the Atlantic, "turning our position" on the north. The harbours of Portugal and her islands, Madeira, Cape Verde, and Azores, are important positions on our routes to Egypt, South Africa, and the Caribbean. Too little attention has been given to the important advantages which we shall derive in the present war and afterwards from the gallant action of Portugal in throwing in her lot with us. Our country has often had cause to regret that the more continental position of Denmark, and the fact that its ports do not threaten the communications with our overseas dominions, inclined our statesmen to refrain from offering armed support against the encroachment of Germany. Disraeli, however, pointed out at the time that the acquisition of Schles- wig-Holstein by Prussia would be followed by the growth of a new naval power in the North Sea. The importance of the Low Countries, with the harbours of the Rhine and Scheldt, is as great for us now as it was in the days of Marlborough and Wellington ; but the French departments of Nord and Pas de Calais have an increased importance for us owing to the development of artillery and of marine mines and submarine craf t. In the first place, these means are sufficient to render the Straits of Dover perilous to a battle-fleet, and the loss of the interior line would be equivalent, from the naval point of view, to doubling the length of our coast. Thus, to reinforce Sheerness from Portsmouth, it would be necessary to steam round the

* There are two channels leading to the Straits of Dover?the English and what I propose should be called the Dutch channel, which for about 100 miles on either side of the strait are of equal dimensions and similar form. The Rhine and Scheldt empty themselves into the latter, the Seine into the former. From Harwich to the Hook of Holland, at the mouth of the Rhine, is 10? nautical miles ; from Southampton to Havre, at the mouth of the Seine, is 105.

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2 d 2

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north of Scotland. In the second place, our eommunieations across the English Channel would be jeopardized. In the third place, a German occupation of the opposite shore of the Straits of Dover would entail imminent danger of invasion. I will not enter into the mueh-diseussed methods for getting a force across the Channel and of securing the eommunieations, but I will draw attention to one or two geographical points with reference to the line of invasion of England from Rhenish Prussia through Belgium and the North of France. The straight line drawn from Aachen through Ostend and Margate to London has a length of only 280 miles. Now, if there be any change in the relation of geography to military operations pro- duced by the increase of armaments, it would seem to be that the importance of a short and straight line of communication is greater than ever. It is held that a power invading Britain should seize a peninsula and establish a position analogous to that of Wellington behind the lines of Torres Yedras. Mr. Mackinder, in his i Britain and the British Seas/ refers in this connection to the peninsulas of Cornwall and Fife. East Kent, however, is also a peninsula and affords one or more excellent lines of defence for an invader lying transversely to the direction of his advance upon London. Lines of Invasion?At the outbreak of the war the ordinary maps then in the hands of the general reader, however detailed, gave no clear notion of the reasons which determined the lines of advance followed by armies on the Continent. Since then orographical maps of the country from Paris to Petrograd have been separately published and come into general use, and the connection between the relief of the land and the lines of invasion is now pretty generally understood. From the orographical map we see that heavy traffic (and there is no traffic so heavy as that of a modern army) has to skirt round the margins of extensive blocks of highlands, and find its way from lowland to lowland through defiles. The greater Roman roads and the lines of invasion followed in ancient times pass through the principal defiles of Europe, but the degree to which modern eommunieations are restricted by these defiles is masked on the map by the number of local roads and railway lines. The accompanying map has been prepared from Bradshaw's railway map by the omission of all but what are there denominated main lines, which are generally the " through routes" passing from one country to another. If this map be compared with the orographical map of Europe, p. 456, it will be seen in Western and Central Europe that large blank spaces on the railway map correspond to blocks of highland on the orographical map, that important lines traverse the length of river valleys lying between highland blocks, and that the lines gather together into knots at such defiles between highlands as the Belfort Gap and the Moravian Gap. The intersection of the north-to*

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south railways with those from east to west

ox- -I0C in the neighbourhood of Dusseldorf is readily explained by reference to the orographical map, which shows the Rhine valley as a natu? ral route from south to north, and also that the blocks of highlands on either bank from the Alps northwards pond- up the traffic from east to west, causing it to (0 flow strongly in a con- N ?1, centrated stream where

O the north European

CVJ plain reaches the foot of the Ardennes and If) X the corresponding heights on the east of z o o the Rhine. This region -1 o of Westphalia and o Rhenish Prussia, of which Cologne is the

< principal centre and Q. fortress, is, from a mili? tary point of view, per? < Q- haps the most impor? tant district in the territories of the Ger- manic allies. It shares with Silesia the advantages of coal-mines and miscellaneous factories. At Essen, east of the ? Rhine, not far from Dusseldorf, are the works of Krupp on which the German army so greatly de? pends, and as a col-

ar, lecting anddistributing centre its position is

This content downloaded from 132.174.255.116 on Sun, 01 May 2016 15:45:57 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms OP THE THEATRES OF WAR. 379 unsurpassed, as can be seen on examining its position on the north and south Rhine route, which here has water-carriage for large ocean steamers, and also with reference to the ports of Hamburg, Bremen, and Antwerp, and to Paris and Berlin, connected by the main railway line by way of Namur and Liege. Belgium between the line of the Lys and lower Scheldt on the one hand and the line of the Sambre on the other is a strip of country not too broad to be correctly described as a " defile " between Germany and France, a character upon which so much insistence is laid in all writings dealing with such matters that it is unnecessary to labour the point, which is moreover enforced by the locality of such battles as Ramillies, Ligny, Mons, Waterloo, Oudenarde, and Fontenoy. The fact that the country stands in a somewhat similar relation between Metropolitan England and the Cologne district of Germany was not obvious to the general reader as long as all ordinary maps, except the necessarily small-scale map of Europe, were limited by the Channel, instead of showing together the intimately connected countries on both sides. Paris to the Bhine.?The semicircular outline of the Seine watershed causes a convergence of rivers and valleys upon Paris which is partly the reason of the capital being, to more than the usual degree, the radiant point of the country's railways. The Rhine from Basle to the sea describes very nearly the quadrant of a circle with Paris as its centre and a radius of 250 miles. This is the distance to Strassburg and to Cologne. Mainz and Wesel lie about 30 miles further off, and the Hook of Holland about the same distance nearer. The principal obstacles are?first, the Vosges, which are lofty and wooded mountains ; and, secondly, the Ardennes, of which the plateau summits are wooded, and through which the rivers run in tortuous gorges with steep sides. The easy routes are three : first, the compara? tively narrow but low gap of Belfort, leading directly on to the valley of the Upper German Rhine; secondly, the routes by Nancy and Metz, where the elevation is moderate and the rivers do not run in gorges; and thirdly, that of the Belgian plain. A straight line from Paris to Valenciennes, and another thence to Cologne, leads from the Seine to the Rhine with only one considerable river crossing, that of the lower Meuse near Liege, and without reaching nearly the 600-foot contour line or encountering a single steep gradient. Poland and the Basin of the Vistula.?Poland has disappeared from political maps except as the name of a Russian province, but a language map of Europe shows that the area occupied by Polish-speaking people comprises the whole course of the Vistula. This river with its tributaries is the dominating physical feature of the area in which the principal operations of the Eastern campaign have been conducted. The Eastern stronghold of the Dual Monarchy is the north-pointing salient between

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the San and the upper Vistula, with the fortress of Przemysl on the right bank of the former and that of Craeow at a distance of 130 miles on the left bank of the latter. Defensively this stronghold guards, first, the approach to the Dukla and other passes in the depression between the Tatra group and the Central Carpathians, leading to the Hungarian plain> and, secondly, the gap between the Tatra group and the Sudetes, called the Moravian Gap, which leads to Yienna and Prague. The lowest reaches of the Vistula, which are in Prussian territory, are crossed by a number of railways. These crossings are guarded by forts; and on the Baltic and near the Russian frontier respectively are the fortresses and depots of Dantzig and Thorn. This chain of posts secures the communications of troops acting in East Prussia, a country tactically strong for defence, but which without a line of fortresses on the lower Yistula would be strategically very weak, as it would be isolated if the Russians seized that line. Below the junction of the San and Vistula and above Thorn there are long reaches of the latter river without military works, but the position of the tributaries on the right bank has enabled Russia to organize her western stronghold behind the middle Vistula, centred on Warsaw. The southern line is that of the Wieprz, which joins the Vistula on the right bank at the fortifled town of Iwangorod. The northern line commences on the Bobr, on which is the fortifled town of Osowiec. This river enters the Narew (on which is Lomza), and the Narew in its turn enters the Bug, at whose junction with the Vistula below Warsaw is the fortress of Nowo Georgiewsk. The Russian railways (from north-east and south-east, not from east on account of the great area of the Pripet swamps) converge on Warsaw; and Brest Litowsk, at the railway crossing of the Bug behind Warsaw, is fortifled.

The Pkesident (before the lecture) : There is no need for rne to-night to intro- duce Dr. Vatighan Cornish, who has lectured to us here on many subjects. We have listened to him with equal interest on sand-waves and on the Panama canal. He is going to talk to us on the historical and physical geography of the theatres of war. Sir William Macgbegoe (after the lecture): I can only say we have listened to a lecture here this evening to which certainly a very large amount of study has been devoted, but I think he would be a very bold man that would attempt to criticize what the lecturer has put before us, without having had time or warning to make some preparation. It is far beyond me to attempt to do anything of the kind, but I believe this?our lecturer has shown to all of us, with very few ex- ceptions at all events, how very little we knew of the subject to which he has given so much time and attention, and I am sure we are all very much indebted to him for that. The suggestions he has put before us are so very complicated, that I do not think any of us need be ashamed in saying we have heard and we have seen a good deal that to most of us must be pretty new. For my part, I can only thank the lecturer for what he has put before us, and I am sure when I express my own thanks I am also justified in expressing yours.

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