IN FULL RETREAT

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 56, 8 March 1915, Page 7

IN FULL RETREAT

AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN ARMY IN BUKOWINA MANY MEN DESERTING (By Telegraph.— Press Association. — Copyright.) (Received March 8, 9 a.m.) ROME, 7th March. The Austro-Hungarian army in Bukowina, under two German generals* is in full retreat. The men are deserting, and prisoners are being taken in hundreds. A REIGN OF TERROR LONDON, 6th March. The Daily Chronicle's correspondent at Novoselitaa states that a reign of .{error exists in Bukowina. Spies swarm in the province, denouncing innocent people with Rumanian sympathies and extorting money by threats and denunciation. There have been 'wholesale executions in Czernowitz. Non-Aus-tnans 1 Wedj fearing persecution. ROAD OPENED TO PRUSSIA (Times and Sydney Sun Services.) . t LONDON, 6th March. A French military expert at Warsaw states that the Russian success at Prasnysz opens the Prussian frontier in its most < vulnerable spot. Forced marches^ night and day, through the snow, resulted in a masterly envelopment, from which the Germans were only able to extricate the remnants of three army . coi'ps with the greatest difficulty. (Press Association.) THE STANISLAVOFF BATTLE , 1 ,. . , PETROGRAD, 7th March. Details of the Stanislavoft' battle show that the Austrians at the outset had twenty big guns on the heights commanding the Russian positions. After initial successes the infantry advanced in four lines, each comprising 'four regiments, •with auxiliary troops. When one hundred yards had been covered, a masked Russian battery opened fire against artillery and infantry. After the latter had been heavily shelled, the Cossacks galloped in, throwing the enemy's lines into confusion. The Cossacks withdrew, and their machine guns took up the work, mowing down the Austrian front line, and forcing the others to retreat. The Austrians thereafter vainly endeavoured to make a stand. in the Lukwa districts the enemy's losses were enormous. Official. — ■" We are continuing the offensive in Eastern Galicia, after expelling the Austrians from fortified positions on the River Bistritza (which flows into the Dneister just north of Rtanisinvofl')." CAPTURES BY THE RUSSIANS m. i, ■ . „« cv -.cm PETI *OGRAD, 7th March. ihe Russians captured 153 officers, 18,522 men, five "guns, fifty-two machine guns, 519 horses, and many trains in the Stanislavoff region in ten 5 days. They captured twelve guns, twenty-nine machine guns, 122 ammunition wagons, and many trains at Prasnysz. At Prasnysz the Germans, in superior numbers, almost surrounded the Russians. They enclosed them in the blades of a shears, with the handle at Lyskovo. The Russians turned the tables on 24th February, when they captured Ki'asnosieltz, and bent back the German left to Schliar, retook Prasnysz, and enveloped the other flank westwards, preventing a retreat, toward ft IMlawa. The Germans are now failing back on Thorn (

The Russians on the 26th and 27th of February forced two army corps to retire through a neck seven miles wide between Dzeelin and Schliar. Of one army corps, mostly composed of I leshly- trained men, only a quarter escaped. It is estimated that Field-Marshal yon Hindenburg lost over a quarter of a million men in the last month. Nearly thirty thousand were killed at Prasnysz. ENEMY DISLODGED PETROGRAD, 7th March. Official : — "The enemy has been dislodged from the heights northward of Lomza." SPRING HAS COME PETROGRAD, 7th March. A semi-official despatch states that the Germans captured at Grodno had been fighting without bread for three days, and there were numerous cases of gastric diseases. The fortress of Ossowiec is successfully withstanding the siege. In the Carpathians, the Austrian attacks are everywhere becoming feebler. The Times correspondent at Petrograd says that between the Niemen and the Vistula the snow has disappeared ; spring is in full sway ; and the battle-lines are moving irresistibly towards Geiman soil. The Kaiser's staunchest regiments cannot stem the £ide. AN OFFICIAL MESSAGE The Prime Minister has received the following message from the High Commissioner :—: — LONDON, 6th March, 5.5 a.m. Petrograd reports : — "Obstinate fighting continues on the Niemen-Vis-tula 'front. In certain sectors the Russians advanced successfully. "In the region of Mocarze we captured several hundred men and some guns, and a number of Germans were taken when the Russians carried the fortifications and railway station at Konopki. "In the Carpathians, south of Zakliczyn, the enemy's fortified position was taken. < "In eastern Galicia, the Russians entered Stanislavoff on Thursday, and successfully crossed the Lukwa." TERRIFIC MOUNTAIN BATTLE (Times and Sydney Sun Service.) LONDON, 6th March. An observer in the Carpathians states that the most .terrific mountain battle in the annals of the world is proceeding among the snow-bound precipices and unexplored woods around the Dukla region. ' )Tlie snow is sa deep that the dead who have been bayoneted remain standing.