Page:Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919).djvu/107

Rh Let us begin by 'brigading' our data, for only so shall we be able to reason conveniently about the realities which the Continent presents for strategical thought. When you are thinking of large things you must think on broad lines; the colonel of a battalion thinks in companies, but the general of a division in brigades. For the purpose of forming our brigades, however, it will be necessary at the outset to go into some degree of geographical detail.

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The northern edge of Asia is the Inaccessible Coast, beset with ice except for a narrow water lane which opens here and there along the shore in the brief summer owing to the melting of the local ice formed in the winter between the grounded floes and the land. It so happens that three of the largest rivers in the world, the Lena, Yenisei, and Obi, stream northward through Siberia to this coast, and are therefore detached for practical purposes from the general system of the ocean and river navigations. South of Siberia are other