THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume XCII, Issue 40, 16 August 1916, Page 6

THE WAR

The reports of the Russian situation again draw attention to the precarious position of the' enemy's armies on the Strypa River, on the forty miles or so of front between Buczacz and'the Tarno-pol-Lemberg railway. General Bothmer, who is in command on this front, has had to watch, the Russians pushing ahead on his flanks, both north and south. In the south the advance on both sides of the Dniester has been notable, and the town of Halicz, on the junction of the Gnita Lipa and the Dniester, and at the same time an important railway junction, is the next milestone on the road. On the north the Russians have reached at least as far as Zboroff, twenty-five miles from Tarnopol, along the railway to Lemberg. This has created a very serious salient, in which Bothmer is in places about twenty miles east of the Russian advance. How far -Bothmer's retreat has gone already does not appeal', but he is in no hurry in carrying out the retirement which now looks, inevitable. He is fortunate in having behind him several railways (single lines) between the doublo lines which join Lemberg with Tarnopol and Stanislau; and, generally speaking, Eastern Galicda- is well roaded. A Petrograd message belittles an apparently prevalent idea that Bothmer is in danger of being surrounded and of providing history with another Sedan, and anticipates that the enemy forces will be extricated safely. Bothmer is evidently not another Pflanzer. This unlucky man had his Bukowina armies completely broken up, but even he escaped a " Sedan."

Northwards of the Brody region the action moves slowly. Little change is apparent on the great length of front between this point and the Prijiet marshes, and the occasional reports, which come chiefly from Austria, do not seem to signify very much, in spite of tho injjjuitudlj) of the struggle on the Stochod

front and of the issue being fought out there. But further north still, from the Pripet to the Baltic coast, the quiet is even more profound. Up to the present the only serious Russian efforts on this line during the present offensive have been at Baxanovitchi and west of Riga. Of these the Baranovitchi attacks were the most serious, but evidently the enemy held his positions too strongly, and -only a little progress was made, and that slowly. The Riga offensive was brief and on a comparatively small scale, and neither achieved nor promised very much. It was probably intended only to test the strength of the Germans' northern flank.

The quietness of the Pripet-Riga front is probably due to the" limitations of the Russian offensive power rather than to the strength of the enemy's defence. It ds quite likely that Russia- has men enough to outnumber the whole of the enemy on her lines, but mere superiority in numbers of men is useless without the vast equipment of guns and munitions that an offensive requires. The successes on the southern front, and the quiet in tlie northern, suggest that General Brusiloff has been given the maximum battering power the Russian command could gather for an offensive at present. Such a concentration, leaving the northern front merely defended, would ) be reasonably safe, because the enemy's front ha-s been necessarily so much depleted that there would be little fear of a counter-offensive being launched north of the. Pripet. Indeed, the eating of the pudding has practically proved it. There has been no such enemy offensive, and it certainly does not seem likely to happen now. Russia has judiciously attacked the least stalwart section of the enemy's line. Knowing well thai a defeat of the Austrians would be comparatively easy, she also knew that such a defeat would cause, in the end, a greater disruption of the enemy's whole front than a possibly unsuccessful attack on the full length of it. Moreover, the political effect of the defeats of the Austrians is very great. There remains also the fact that, the Russian attack helped to defeat the Austrian offensive against Italy, whereas an attack on the German hnes would probably not have done so.

A very interesting item in the Russian news is the statement -thaft- Belgian cyclists and armoured cars gave distinguished service in the capture of Zboroff. This is the first reference in the cable news to' the presence of a Belgian unit in the Russian theatre. A British armoured car unit, and possibly more than one, has been in Russia for some time. Though armoured cars naturally cannot represent more than a small amount of fighting power they have proved remarkably effective on many occasions. They have succeeded to some of the functions oi cavalry, in that one of their "jobs" durin°- a fight in which the ground is suitable is to dash through the enemy's lines and ta^e them in rear. Men who 'undertake such ventures belong to a sort of "suicide club," but they are pretty well protected against rifle and machinegun fire; and the demoralising effect of the storm bullets they can pour into the enemy's trenches is very great The presence of Belgian as well as British units in France emphasises the reciprocity of 'the relations between the Allies, in the same way as does the presence of a large body of Russian troops now fighting in the Champagne.

It was repented a few days ago that the German Imperial Chancellors-policy had been approved by the Federal Council after he had 'explained -why unlimited submarine attacks are still inadvisable; and as a supplement came the statement that Yon BothmannHollweg had promised increased aerial activity against England. As to the reasons why the submarines must not exert ttheir utmost friglitfulness ' only guessing is possible. / The campaign lias been renewed to a. certain extent,' and several neutral vessels are among the recent victims. The restraining influence of the United States is probably to be f credited with causing- the Chancellor's apology,, and, being unable to 6ffer his people tha bread of destruction by torpedo, he has given them the stone of Zeppelin raids. It is to-day explained that these Zeppelin raids are a reprisal for the "crime" of the Baralong. In the Baialong affair the Germans accused British seamen of butchering a number of Germans; but the charge was not proved. Anyway, to claim now that the Zeppelin raids are to be considered reprisals for that incident, which even had it happened as it-Tie Germans allege is scarcely comparable with any number of German deeds, is absurd. It is a palpable effort to arouse an artificial interest tn the Zeppelin raids. Even more absurd is the statement, that in future the Zeppelin .bombs will not show any consideration for the lives of civilians. The statement is, of course, literally true, for they never have shown ally such consideration. Civilian victims have been the rule- and military victims the rare exception.1 The intention here is plainly to induce a belief that the fly-by-night airships can actually, achieve such -accuracy of aim that any selection of targets is possible. The fact is that, generally speaking, they caennot rely upon hitting anything they pick out as a target, and that, very often they have been una-We to distinguish between one town and another.