PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 16, 19 July 1915, Page 8

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

♦ VAST EVENTS IN POLAND THE ENEMY'S NEW PLAN. .SCHEME OF COLOSSAL MAGNITUDE. The new events in the eastern theatre of war are of the greatest importance. Yon Hindenburg's "surprise" is now revealed, as far as the eastern theatre is concerned, as a plan of the greatest magnitude. It is so big, in fact, that there is little reason to suppose that it ha* any important elements to be displayed in other theatres. To attempt to supplement it, for instance, by a simultaneous great offensive on the west or on Italy would be to jeopardise. the success of the whole. The eastern attack is all that can safely be managed at one time. ' The hope of the Allies lies in the ■meantime in this, that the very magnitude of the scheme will help to defeat it ; that it will cost the enemy far more, in a military sense, than it will cost Russia. The plan is developing rapidly. Yon Hindenburg's organisation of armies collected in Prussia is advancing upon Warsaw from the west and the north. Yon Mackensen's group, halted in the south of the Ivangorod-Lublin-Kholm railway, is endeavouring to force its way north, and has assumed a general offensive. South-west of Warsaw, the fight"ing line has "of necessity been t moved eastward. In the most elementary way, the position can be represented by the figure of a sickle, of which the handle, pointing north} extends from the coast of the Baltic to a point near the southeastern part of East Prussia. The curve of the sickle swings round -west of Warsaw, southward, and then east to th* Gahcian frontier, north ofLemberg. The enemy is pursuing the offensive over practically the whole of this line except (at present) the southern part of the " handle." His object is to squeeze the two extremities of the curve together; The Russian object is to prevent him; •or if he cannot be stopped, to see that when the curve closes nothing of military value is locked up. If this general .idea is applied to a map/ it will be seen that the success of the enemy would ■ mean the capture of Warsaw, the occupation of nearly the whole of Poland, and a very marked < decrease in the .length of tho battle-line. THE ATTACK FROM EAST PRUSSIA. The attacks already made by the enemy in the north of the Polish curve /vere directed chiefly along the MlavaWarsaw railway, and affected mostly that portion of the line between Mlava ■and Presnysz. The neighbourhood of Mlava marked a rather sharp angle in the Russian position, which was forthwith retired to Ciechanof, a place about .twenty miles nearer Warsaw, and a new line was established, passing just behind Brasnysz. The enemy claim to have broken the line here also, and say that as the result the Russians are retiring along the whole of the front towards the river Narew, from the Vistula to the Pissa river,, just west of the fortress of Loniza. The Russians do not report this wholesale retirement, but they say they fell back to Ciechanof and Krasnosielc (this being 10 miles east of Prasnysz), because of thh enemy's double strength in reserves. The Narew flows into the Bug just north of Warsaw, "and the Bug into the Vistula 20 miles "north-west of Warsaw ; and at the latter confluence stands the fortress of Novogeorgievsk, mentioned in Saturday's messages as Yon Hindenburg's objective. OTHER ATTACKS FROM WEST AND SOUTH. Both north and south of the Vistula, the Russians are threatened by the fresh armies from Thorn, marching by way of the Vistula and the Thorn-Lowicz railway. These forces are apparently not yet in touch with the Russians. Further south still, enemy forces, are operating towards Radoma. The south-western sector of the Polish curve is a portion which does not specially require attack under the Austro-German scheme ; its safety depends upon what happens elsewhere. In the southern portion of the line, running east and west from the Galician frontier to the Vistula, the Austrian and German armies are already attacking; they have assumed a general offensive between the Vistula and the Bug. A HUGE COMBINED ASSAULT. Everything is therefore in train for a gigantic assault on the whole of the Russian positions in Poland. The Russians have already stopped one great attack delivered on a plan very similar to that now in force, upon the Narew front; it collapsed with the Russian victory of Prasnysz. With _ the peculiarly suitable combination of rivers and railways, they may again hope to stem the tide. This time, however, they are faced also with a western attack -which may be expected to result in another battle on the Bzura, though a German success north of the Vistula, reaching to Novojteorjnevsk. would ereat-

ly reduce the hitherto powerful influence of the Bzura-Rawka positions. In addition, they are faced with the problem of holding the southern invasion in check. Thus yon Hindenburg, who appears to be in charge of the whole scheme, has faced the Russians with the problem of dealing simultaneously with three enormous attacks, each of which has hitherto been tried separately but has failed by a narrow margin. In addition, there appears to be in progress an important development of the operations in the Baltic Provinces. A new advance has been made across the river Windau, by troops under the command of yon Bulow. This is perhaps the late commander of the army operating in France, just east of Reims, and if so the appointment may be of significance. RUSSIA'S DEFENSIVE MEANS. Russia's hops lies in her capacity for defence, arising from three _ factors — the possession of well-placed railways forming a group upon which her troops can retire ; the distance at which the enemy must operate from his main supplies ; and the possession of ample reserves of men who, if they are not yet available for the formation of new armies as fast as is desired, still enable losses to be made up. In the north, the defence rests largely upon the line of rivers — Narew, Bobr, and Niemen, which the enemy may be unable to force ; in the centre, t upon the Vistula, supposing that the retirement has to be carried so far. But the Vistula fails in part of its function, because the enemy hold part of- its eastern bank, and an advance along it by yon Mackenseh's group may nullify the barrier it otherwise affords. Its large eastern tributary, the Vieprz, is a decided obstacle to a northward advance ; but it too has been "turned" by the enemy forces operating near the Bug. The safety of the whole Russian position depends therefore upon the Niemen-Bobr-Narew line, the Vistula from Warsaw southwards, and the Russian railways in South Poland, which enable the Russians to hold country in which the river barriers have to some extent failed. A message ,from Petrograd describes the whole situation and its possibilities in ' very broad and picturesque terms. The enemy hope to invest Warsaw, and so to compl Russia to sue for peace. Russia, however, is prepared to fall back indefinitely (to the Volga, is the phrase used) inflicting colossal losses on the invader. The message goes on to speak of supplies of heavy guns expected late in the summer, and of the reversing effect they may have on the situation. THE COST TO THE ENEMY. Russia can withstand invasion on an enormous scale as long as her. determination to do so lasts. There ia little possibility that the Germanic Powers, otherwise so heavily engaged, can make more than a comparatively small incursion upon the vast territories of the Tsar. And always there 'is for the Kaiser's generals the question as to how long they can keep going. A year, roughly, sees the end of the income of strength to a fully extended army, except for a steady dribble of youths ; and Germany's expenditure of strength is regularly enormous, and is still more enormous when such schemes as this Hindenburg attack are in progress. The Germanic Powers arc playing for a tremendous stake. Its bbject is to so shorten their eastern front as greatly to lighten their burdens in Russia, and if possible at the same time to cripple Russia. To gain this result, they are gambling an enormous stock of numnn and material resources. The events of the past year, in one great battle and another, the combination of attacks now being made, and the tone of the Russian comments, suggest that the German plan is destined to have a considerable measure of success, is the one plan, perhaps, out of whit the enemy can hope to achieve any important result: But, the events of the past and the colossal nature of the undertaking suggest also that the cost will be too great. The line may be shortened, and the enemy find that he still has as great a burden as ever to shoulder, for lack cf men, munitions, a,nd .the money he has hurled away for a bad bargain. ELSEWHERE. The Franco-Belgian front shows no events of extraordinary importance. The German offensive shows signs of dying away, and it may be expected to "peter out" now that the Allies know what all the preparation has meant. M. Millerand, the French Minister for War, has made an open official announcement that the French Army is now equipped for the use of asphyxiating gases ; and thk can only mean that the new weapon is to be put to early use. Another very interesting statement relates to the increase m the production of artillery — "seventy-fives" by eleven times, heavy guns by eight times, and machine-guns by fifteen times.