SOME EFFECTS OF RUSSIA'S DEFEAT

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 148, 24 June 1915, Page 6

SOME EFFECTS OF RUSSIA'S DEFEAT

There is nothing in the cablegrams to indicate that the German advance in Galicia has reached its limit. No one doubts the ability of the Russian punch-ing-ball to swing back again, but this time the mailed fist .has hit it so hard that it may have to shift its position and swing from a new point of vantage. For Russia, whose vastness is unconquerable, there is no such thing as a- national overthrow, and when the Germans speak of what they will next do "when we have beaten the Russians," they refer to a defeat but not to a crippling of Russia. Measured in territory and in lives lost, that defeat is heavy, but, even if (as the Austrians claim) Lemberg has fallen, there is nothing to indicate that the main Russian armies will be put, even temporarily, out of action. Still, the Russian reverses in Galicia will enable Germany to presently transfer many army corps to the western front, and we may look forward to next August v and September being even more sanguinary than their predecessors. A repetition of Germany's Galician victory would have results in organised France far exceeding those possible in badly-roaded Russia; but the same elements of communicaticui and organisation that would make such a defeat far more terrible will also prevent it from being inflicted. Even if the western trench-warfare 1* monotonous, it is a fairly reliable guarantee against the Galician drive being repeated in France. In the Balkans the moral effect of the Russian defeat will be great, but there is some hope of a counterblast being sounded in Gallipoli, where the French offensive and the British defensive had met with a degree of success. Despite the "stalemate" elements, the chief hope of a> big strategical gain —reducing the compass of the military operaitians and shortening the war — lies in "the few miles of ridge and scrub" separating the British and the French from the European forts commanding The Narrows. If 1915 finishes Turkey-in-Europe, 1916 may possibly complete the war.