INTERESTING GLIMPSES OF THE RUSSIAN FRONT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16025, 17 September 1915, Page 8

INTERESTING GLIMPSES OF THE RUSSIAN FRONT.

RIGA IN NO IMMEDIATE DANGER.

RUSSIAN FORTIFICATIONS ON THE SERETH.

Times and Sydney Sun Services.

London, September 15-

The Petrograd correspondent of the London Times states, after visiting Riga and Mitau, that Riga is not in immediate danger locally, and it is improbable that it can be taken by a frontal attack- If abandoned eventually it will be as the result of manoeuvres elsewhere, as was the case with Warsaw. " The populace show no sign of panic, and are complacently waiting developments," he writes. " More than half the population left some time ago."

Discussing the military situation, he says: "In the immediate front it does not seem alarming. The first line is 20 miles from the town, and there are several lines of defence intervening, and also the river. It would cost the Germans dear to reach the river, which would still leave them outside the town. The weather of the past week has been a terrible handicap to the enemy. A three days' downpour flooded every small stream, making the field a sea of mud, and limiting the mobility of the guns and transports to the main roads, which are very few. There is infinitely less panic at Riga than in Petrograd or Berlin."

Another correspondent gives a most interesting account of the fighting on the River Sereth, in Galicia. The east bank of the river has been converted into a veritable fortress, which, combined with the natural conditions of the soil, has made the river enormously strong. On the western outskirts of Tarnopol a bridgehead, with bomb-proof shelters and trenches, has been constructed. By concentrated attacks from bridgeheads the Russians exerted great pressure upon General Eothmer's army. After a stubborn battle in a steppe, utterly devoid of trees and full of swamps and marshes, General Bothmer's troops, which included men of the Prussian Guard, were repulsed oh the heights on the east bank of the Strypa. The Austrians are meeting with enormous difficulties, and a portion of their army was forced to remain inactive amidst a region full of stagnant water. Continuous rains have accentuated the dreary nature of the landscape.