THE MILITARY SITUATION IN RUSSIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8662, 3 September 1891, Page 6

THE MILITARY SITUATION IN RUSSIA.

Every day brings fresh intelligence of apparently warlike preparations on the part of Russia. The latest measure of this kind is the transformation of a number of cadre battalions of the Reserve Infantry, garrisoned near the Austrian frontier, into as many regiments, by the simple process of doubling their number. A military writer in the Pester Lloyd summarises the preparations made since ISBB sis follows : — Two new army corps have been formed ; the rifle battalions have been organised ; new cavalry divisions and Cossack regiments of the second levy, one Finnish dragoon regiment, and Cossack infantry battalions and fortress artillery companies have been created. Batteries stationed near the Western frontier havo been raised to a war footing, the frontier guards have become regulars, and, as already stated, the reserve infantry has been increased to war strength. There remains hardly anything to be done to complete the mobilisation except the transference of tho troops from the interior to the frontier, and for that purpose a network of strategic lines has been constructed, and double lilies laid down along the whole Western frontier from North to 'South. The writer says emphatically that the advantage of quicker mobilisation hitherto enjoyed by Austria has disappeared, if, indeed, that country is not actually behindhand, its mobilisation requiring three weeks, whereas Russia's will be reduced to a fortnight as soon as all the lir.es now being constructed are iinished. Another writer, in the military paper, Die Reich swell points out that the armies now collected in Volhynia and I'odolia can no longer be considered merely defensive, but are so disposed as to be capable of a vigorous offensive movement, most probably the invasion of Eastern Galicia and Bukowina.