LANCINGS FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, 1915. NO DEBACLE FOR THE BEAR. The "Second Sedan" Which Didn't Come Off.

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 790, 20 August 1915, Page 6

LANCINGS

FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, 1915. NO DEBACLE FOR THE BEAR. The "Second Sedan" Which Didn't Come Off.

Here shall the Press the People's right maintain Unawed by principle ari unbribed by gain Here patriot Truth her glorious precepts draw Pledged to Religion, Liberty, and Law

IT is proverbially unwise to whistle until you're safely out of the wood,, but on paper, at least, it really does seem as if the threatened debacle of the Russian Bear, the ' 'second Sedan" that the German newspapers were so confidently predicting a fortnight ago, is like the roast turkey on the hotel menu—"off." Warsaw has proved a great a disappointment, and the Russian retreat, so ( skilfully planned., so patiently carried out, seems to have achieved its object of drawing the Huns further and further away from their supply sources. In the north-west, in the Baltic provinces, there may still be cause for anxiety, but, undoubtedly, if we may trust the cablegrams, the situation on the Vistula has changed for the better —for the Russians. One of Wellington's most. famous sayings was that "A conqueror, like a cannon ball, musb go on. If he rebounds his career is over." Is the day approaching in the eastern theatre of war when the conquering invader is to rebound, He re-; bounded on the Marhe, and although his career, in France, is by no means over, it is now very far from being that of a conqueror. Is the Marne set-back to be paralleled by a simlar rebound on the Vistula ? Such an event, if it happens, should, set the bells of all the Allied States ringing the maddest of joyful paeans..