THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1915. THE STRUGGLE FOR DVINSK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16051, 18 October 1915, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1915. THE STRUGGLE FOR DVINSK.

The struggle between Germans and Russians for the great railway centre of Dvinsk has been the most important event of the campaign on the north-eastern front. The tide of invasion moved across Poland and the Baltic/ provinces of Russia, delayed by Muscovite stubbornness but without final check, until in the beginning of September -it reached the line where it. now stands. The Germans, pressing southward . and eastward, while Austro-Germans pressed northward and eastward, failed to trap and hold the Russian armies retiring from Warsaw and Central Poland. The huge Polish salient was successfully evacuated by the troops of the Tsar, but they were unable to hold Kovno, on the line of the Upper Niemen, and were driven out of Vilna and threatened on the line of the Dvina. At the mouth of the Dvina is Riga, near the gulf of that name; a hundred miles south-east of Riga is Dvinsk, from which city the Dvina bends eastward and railways run to Riga, to Petrograd and to Moscow, to Vilna and |to the Polish system. The gain to Germany of the possession of Dvinsk ' is obvious ; thus she would break the I main Russian lines of communication in the Dvina region, imperil the defence of Riga, and might advance upon Moscow and Petrograd with her own armies linked by railways and hostile armies isolated from one another. No city was at any time more important to her strategy than Dvinsk thus became at the floodtide of her eastward advance. The most desperate German attempts .have been made to sap and storm this key to the north-eastern situation, yet the Russians remain in unI shaken possession. .

Along the. whole of the sector from the Gulf of Riga to the east of Vilna, the Russians have made a remarkable stand. They have not only held Riga but have foiled German naval attempts to enter the gulf and have kept the enemy at a distance from the famous port by stout fighting on the lower Aa and its south-eastern tributaries. Friedrichstadt, on tire western bank of the twisting Dvina, has for weeks been the goal of one German effort, and the network of streams and lakes that mark this part of Russia has been the scene of conflicts in which fortune ebbs and flows but never turns completely against the defenders. We may distrust the casual statements of ,official communiques, having been made wary by the common diplomatic habit of veiling losses and exaggerating gains, but we have the positive knowledge, gleaned from the concurrence of Russian and German reports, as to the locality of fighting, that Dvinsk i s not only unconquered but is surrounded by a belt of unconquered territory. Further south, at Svenziany, where a cross-country railway thrusts itself eastward, the Germans have been in difficulties for several weeks. At this point the constant Russian pressure endangers the German communication between Vilna and the forces advancing on Dvinsk and the mere fact that the invaders have not been able to relieve their flank of this pressure, notwithstanding the strategic necessity of securing Dvinsk, reasonably suggests the exhaustion of their initiative. Were the Lower Dvina, with its key cities of Riga and Dvinsk, in German hands, and were the Russians pushed eastward to beyond striking distance at the

Riga-Dvinsk-Vilna line, the Germans might take up winter quarters with easy minds, for they would then be in a strong basic position for aggressive operations in the spring. As things are, their position must bo as disturbing to Berlin as it is satisfactory to Petrograd.

A survey of the map of the Dvinsk theatre illustrates the situation, and explains the extraordinary efforts of the Germans to seize Dvinsk and the no less extraordinary efforts of the Russians to retain possession. The Germans have been drawn into a great salient measuring about 140 miles at its base on a line drawn from Mitau to Svenziany, and about 50 miles, in depth from this base line to Jacobstadt, on the Dvina. In a theatre of vast distances and huge armies, such a salient would be defensible enough were it girt by natural boundaries and supplied with good communications, but the Russians hold not only the best position, but the commanding communications. The German strategists, as was shown after their defeat at the Maine, are adepts at extricating an army from untenable positions, and it would be optimistic to anticipate any grave disaster to their forces in the Dvinsk area. But as long as Dvinsk and Riga are firmly held by the Russians, the invaders are in a very unenviable situation, and their acknowledgment of defeat at Dvinsk should do announced to the Allies by tho abandonment of the salient and a withdrawing of their forces to an inner line.