al blockade (to which I will return in a moment) is
more than counterbalanced by the separation which Nature has
determined between the two groups of Allies. The ice of the North, the
Narrows of the Dardanelles, establish this, as do the Narrows of the
Scandinavian Straits.

The necessity of fighting upon two fronts, to which our enemies are
compelled, is more than compensated by that natural arrangement of the
Danube valley and of the Baltic plain which adds to the advantage of a
central situation the power of rapid communication between East and
West; while the chief embarrassment of our enemies in their
geographical arrangement, which is the outlying situation of Hungary
coupled with the presence of four vital regions at the four external
corners of the German Empire, is rather political than geographical in
nature.

I will now turn to the converse advantages and disadvantages afforded
and imposed by geographical conditions upon the Allies.

_The Geographical Advantages and Disadvantages of the Allies._

It has been apparent from the above in what way the geographical
circumstance of Germany and Austria-Hungary advantaged and
disadvantaged those two empires in the course of a war against East
and West.

Let us next see how the Allies were advantaged and disadvantaged by
their position.

1. The first great disadvantage which the Allies most obviously suffer
is their separation one from the other by the Germanic mass.

The same central position which gives Germany and Austria-Hungary
their power of close intercommunion, of exactly coordinating all their
movements, of using their armies like one army, and of dealing with
rapidity alternate blows eastward and westward, produces contrary
effects in the case of the Allies. Even if hourly communication were
possible by telegraph between the two main groups, French and Russian,
that would not be at all the same thing as personal, sustained, and
continuous contact such as is enjoyed by the group of their enemies.

But, as a fact, even the very imperfect and indirect kind of contact
which can be established by telegraphing over great distances is
largely lacking. The French and the Russians are in touch. The
commanders can and do pursue a combined plan. But the communication of
results and the corresponding arrangement of new dispositions are
necessarily slow and gravely interrupted. Indeed, it is, as we shall
see in a moment, one of the main effects of geography u