PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2523, 31 July 1915, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

; ft _ Some arresting comments upon the situation in the main Eastern theatre are made by Reuter's correspondent .at Petrogracl. -They • wear an appearance of being, based on inside knowledge, and so far as they venture on prediction tend to emphasise the perils to which the armies of the Tsar are at present exposed. In the first instance, the correspondent states that at tho beginning of tho war Russian military opinion was divided as to whether Warsaw and the Vistula should be defended. In the upshot the Russians have' gained a year before taking up a front they contemplated at the beginning of the war. (The cablegram says 1910, but this is an obvious error.) A broad hint is thus given that the Russians are likely soon to fall back from the Vistula line and resign tho whole of the vast Polish salient to the enemy—not a pleasant prospect to contemplate either from the purely Russian standpoint or in its bearing upon the war as a whole. There is a possible ray of light in the remark that the. Russians now await a Franco-British diversion. It may be, of course, that .tho Russian General Staff has been informed that the state of the Western Allies' preparations does not yet warrant their creating such a diversion, and that tho Renter message referred to has been allowed to pass by the censorship in order to prepare the public mind abroad for a great Russian retreat in Poland. t In that event the Russians are likely to await a Franco-British diversion on a line somo considerable distance east of "'that on which they are now located, and with the Vistula lino no longer a protective barrier covering thenvital communications but an obstacle to a renewed offensive. The author of tho Renter message states that tho Russian Government; will acquaint the Duma on Sunday with the* military situation—a somewhat ominous pronouncement, but ono indicating, as events in the theatre of war have done, that the present period of suspense will shortly bo terminated by developments favourable or the reverse.

For the moment attention will naturally fasten upon the possibility of tho Franco-British offensive which tho Russians must await on the Vistula line or Tichind a further belt of invaded country. It has been remarked that recent utterances by British Ministers suggost that a prolonged test of endurance ia m pr'p*