Unless they are very short--that is, unless an army is very close
to its base of supplies--it is impossible to guard these lines
of communication adequately. Therefore, if the enemy is able to
break through on either side of the front, there is great danger
that he may swing his forces around and cut these lines of
communication. The army that is thus deprived of its sources of
supply has nothing left then but to surrender, sometimes even to
inferior forces. Sometimes, of course, if the army is within the walls
of a fortified city and is well supplied with food and ammunition,
it may hold out and allow itself to be besieged. This may even
be worth while, for the sake of diminishing the enemy's strength
to the extent of the forces required for besieging, usually many
times larger than the besieged force. But in the case of Warsaw
we shall see that that would not have been a wise plan; hardly
any food supply that could have been laid by would have maintained
the large civil population, and the big guns of the Germans would
soon have battered down the city's defenses.
This the Russians realized from the very beginning. As is well
known now, Russia had never intended to hold Poland against the
Teutons. Her real line of defense was laid much farther back. It was
only on account of the protest of France, when the two Governments
entered into their alliance, that any fortifications at all were
thrown up in Poland.
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