LAND AND WATEE 
November 14, 1914 
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so enters German territorj. The extreme nortli of 
this line touched the Warta near Kolo. The south 
of it passed tlu'ough Czestochowa, and was thence 
continued to the neighbourhood of Cracow. 
The southern part of the whole line thus falling 
back similarly relied upon a line of railway, that 
running from Ivangorod through Eadom and Kielce 
to the placewhere the three Empires meet. The extreme 
south-eastern end of it still hung on to Sandomir. 
Apparently the order for the Austrian and German 
forces to retii*e as a whole from the Vistida and the 
San together was either not suggested, or not given, or 
if given, not obeyed ; and the enemy was still clinging 
to Sandomir at the junction of the two rivers on the 
same day (November 3rd) which saw his expulsion 
from Kielce (at which place he lost a certain number 
of prisoners and machine guns). 
It was precisely because he had hung on to 
Sandomir so long that the capture of this place by 
the Eussians became of such great importance. 
It is evident from the sketch map above that 
after Sandomir was taken last Tuesday week the 
southernmost bodies of the Austro-German forces in 
the neighbourhood of Sandomir had all to cross the 
Vistula southward in the direction of the arrows 
C C C, with the exception of some small portion 
that may have been able to retu-e directly south- 
westward in the direction of the arrow B ; while the 
main part of this southern group near Kielce used 
the railway for their retirement. The Russian cavahy 
pushed forward and, on November Cth, last Friday, 
had crossed the Eivcr Nida, and the next day, 
Saturday, the Eivcr Nidisca, 10 miles further on. On 
that day the Austro-German line north of the Vistula 
had been pushed back to some such front as ia 
indicated upon the map by the line of dashes, 
stretching from the neighbourhood of Ploeschen to the 
positions in front of Cracow, and was presumably 
continued somewhat south of the Vistula in the 
direction I have indicated by an interrogation mark. 
The whole Austro-German retreat v/as now back upon 
an average more than a hundred miles from the 
line of the Vistula, which it had attemped to force 
three weeks before. 
But it had left, dangerously far to the eastioard, 
along the River San, the remainder of the Austrian 
forces tvhich should have kept in line with this retreat. 
With the effect of that too prolonged delay upon the 
San I will deal in a moment. But before leaving 
this main subject of the German retreat from the 
Vistula we have to ask om-selves, first, how far the 
Austro-German force has suffered in this retreat, and, 
secondly, where this retreat is likely to end and a 
German stand to be made against the Eussian 
tide, v/ith the chances of success that stand may 
have. 
As to the first of these questions : The auswer 
must be that the German retreat has been orderly 
and apparently inexpensive. What losses it has 
involved in killed and wounded we do not know, but 
there is no Eussian account of any considerable 
capture here of prisoners or of guns. It is, as might 
be expected, the southern part of the general retirement 
— where the Austrian were the principal contingents — 
tliat has suffered most heavily. But even there the 
losses of the enemy, chiefly in front of Kielce — which 
was defended apparently too long — were insignificant 
compared with their total forces. 
4* 
