AUSTRO-RUSSIAN WAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15686, 13 August 1914, Page 9

AUSTRO-RUSSIAN WAR.

STRONGLY • DEFENDED FRONTIER. General Khhopatkin, in a candid criticism of the Russian Army, has dealt with the possibility of a, war between Russia and Austro-Hungary. Ho says:— "The people of Austro-Hungary consist of many races. Of its population, 24.1 per cent, is German; the numerous Slav groups comprise 47 per cent. (Bohemians, Moravians and Slovaks, 16.9 per cent.; Croatian-Servians, 11 per cent.; Poles, 8 per cent; Rusins, 8 per cent.; Slavonians, 3 per cent.); Hungarians, 16.2 per cent.; Roumanians, 6.6 per cent.; Jews, 4.5 per cent.; and Italians, 1.6 per cent. As regards the feeling of theso various races towards Russia, the Germans who live at a distance from our frontiers are not hostile; the Hungarians, if not open enemies, are, at any rate, unfriendly on account of the part we took in suppressing the rebellion of 1849, and their latent dislike is fanned by the greatest of of the Slav groups, the Poles. The rest of the Slavs are sympathetic with their kinsmen in Russia, but the main motive for this sentiment is fear lest they should bo absorbed by the Germans or Magyars." - The Austrian frontiers are nowhere simple, but ever since the conclusion of the Triple Alliance she has turned her attention—in a military sense—almost exclusively to her Russian frontier. On glancing at tho map, one's first thought vs. that the natural boundary between tho two countries should run along the Carpathian Range, but the actual frontier is a long way on the Russian side of it. Galicia forms, so to speak, a glacis of this main obstacle (the Carpathians), running down towards Russia, and it has recently grown up into a splendidly-prepared entrenched camp, connected to the other provinces of Austro-Hungary by numerous roads across the Carpathians. It is strongly fortified and stocked with supplies of every nature, b-th for a protracted defence or an advance in force into Russia. Austria can now concentrate 1,000,000 men in this area within a very short space of time. For 760 miles wo have a common frontier, and the upper reaches of tho Vistula— from Ncpoiomnilsa to ZavikhOst —and a small stretch of the Dniester, with its tributary, the Zbruoz, form a natural boundary in this direction. Those rivers, however, possess no strategic value. The frontier is crossed by four lines of rail way:—(a) At Granitsa, on the WarsawIvangorod line; (b) at Radziviloff; (c) at Volochi&k; (d) at Novoselits.