The Wanganui Herald (Published Daily.) THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1915. THE RUSSIAN POSITION.

Wanganui Herald, Volume L, Issue 14699, 2 September 1915, Page 4

The Wanganui Herald (Published Daily.) THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1915. THE RUSSIAN POSITION.

The cables this morning concerning the position in Russia are conflicting. Berlin claims to be cutting the Russian armiea into sections, and suggests the possibility of capturing hundreds of thousands instead of mere thousands. This, however, is mere bombast, intended to influence the Balkan States and other neutral countries, and may be regarded as a very fair sample of what is being served up by the German Press Bureau. The Russian messages axe couched in much milder tones, and may bo accepted as a very fair statement of the position, more especially as a Geneva cable supports the Petrograd accounts of the fighting. Yon Hindenburg has evidently a great army, including most of his cavalry, against the Russian position south of the Gulf of Riga, but has been repulsed with enormous losses, the Russians taking the offensive with success on part of the battle line, compelling the Germans to retire precipitately. The Russians are evidently in strong force on sections of the nhcaptured main railway line between Warsaw and St. Petersburg, yesterday’s cables recording the fact that the German losses wera 20,000 daily between Bielsk and Grodno (south of which latter stronghold is Friedrickstadt, where terrific. fighting is still in progress) and 15,000 daily south of Grodno. Tha Russians are evidently using their branch lines of railway with success up in the Baltic provinces, and they still hold the, main line from Brest Litovsk to Moscow, which the Germans are trying to cut. Furthe.r south, on tha Roumanian frontier, the Russians are also resisting with success the attempts of the enemy to make a dash on Odessa and cut them off from contact with Rcumania.

It cannot be repeated too often that though the German successes in Poland may be regarded as a blow, and a big blow, to the Allies, it is very far indeed from being a fatal blow, as the Germans suggest. Tho capture of Warsaw and other towns places in the hands of Germany a valuable base and the command of. a usefid railway system, a positive achievement which she has no doubt held out to Turkey and Bulgaria as evidence of all sorts of things, and which will come in very useful to hearten up her own people. But it means no more. Germany hoped to crush the Russians' resistance utterly, or, iu the alternative, at least to drive them hack so disorganised that it would be possible with a comparatively small force to keep them herded up in tho interior while pressing business ■ in the West was being settled. Tn' both her attempts Germany has' failed, with

losses that she can hardly afford. The-' •Russians are retijfih§ ■ after suffering a i great blow, moral and physical. But, after all, its principal result will be to harden them and prepare them for the greater campaign and offensive which they will later on take.