October 10, 1914 
LAND AND WATEE 
something towai-ds acliieving a decision at the moment 
of WTiting, are nearly four times as numerous in 
southern Poland as thej are in that northern field 
which we have just been examining. We have, it is 
presumed in the official notices, fifteen or sixteen 
army corps, Austrian and Gei-man, drawn up to check, 
and if possible to throw back, the Russian advance 
through south and central Poland. 
The general story of what has preceded the 
coming great action in the Galician field may be 
rajiidly recalled. 
would take. They might elect to mass the whole 
Austro-German force (now presumably under one 
Prussian Commander-in-Chief) at a point where the 
three Empires meet, and there to await the Eussian 
shock, abandoning Cracow. At first, when it was 
discovered that entrenchments had been made just 
inside Eussian Poland, upon the line Kaliscz-Wielun- 
Czenstochowa, it was believed that some such plan was 
intended. A line of troops would stand upon the 
defensive to protect the river flank from being turned, 
and the big action would come behiad, or to the west, 
CrcLcow 
%, *Lem!)er< 
rosmos of th« adbtelin aemies ix oalicia, and thb linb op gekjias RziNFOECMiB^rr raoii the west. 
Eather more than a month ago, just as Von 
ICluck Avas approaching Paris, the Eussians broke up 
one of the two great Austrian armies opposed to them 
in Southern Poland. They broke up the army round 
Lcmberg, Army 2, whereupon Anny 1, immediately to 
the north of this, fell back. The Eussians advanced 
after securing Lembcrg and its many munitions and 
their very numerous prisoners — some 60,000 — and 
their considerable captures in guns and material ; 
they isolated Przemysl, occupied the Passes of the 
Carpatbians behind that fortress, took Jaroslav, 
reached Debitza last week, and proposed to advance 
the remaining week's march upon Cracow. Part of 
the defeated Austrian Army No. 2 got itseK shut 
up in Przemysl, but tlic remainder, together with 
Anny No. 1, fell back before the Eussian advance, 
crossing the San river and the plains behind it, and 
making for the Upper Vistula and for the neigh- 
bourhood of Cracow, perpetually retiring rapidly and 
avoiding a decision. Should the fortress of Cracow 
be masked and passed by the Eussians, Silesia would 
be open to Eussian attack and a new phase of the 
campaign would begin with the invasion of the 
Gei-man Empire. 
Meanwhile, large German bodies were bcmg 
organised and sent eastward to help the Austrians in 
this southern field, to check the Eussian advance and 
to save Silesia from the invasion that threatened it. 
For some time it was uncertain what form this 
German advance in reinforcement of the Austrians 
of Cracow. But what the Germans have done in the 
la.st week shows that they and their Allies have no 
intention of fighting so far west, but rather propose 
to meet the enemy upon the line of the Upper Vistula 
below Cracow. Their troops have been located upon 
the line Pietrokow-Stopnitza, coming right down to 
the left bank of the Vistula at a point just noi-th of 
Tarnow, and ilie whole series of bodies along this line 
is moving southward. 
Such a disposition obviously calls a halt to the 
Eussian westerly advance along the main railway 
through Galicia towards Cracow and Silesia. They 
liad isolated Przemysl and taki'u the passes through 
the Carpathians, behind that fortress, nearly a fort- 
night ago. They had come up to a line passing from 
Dukla through Krasnow to the main Lembcrg-Cracow 
railway line ten days ago. Their vanguard had 
already reached and passed Debitza and was approach- 
ing Tamow when the nature of this German move was 
apparent. This move they must now face by looking 
no longer westward nor advancing further along the 
main raihvay towards Cracow and Silesia, but north- 
wards and westwards towards across the upper reaches 
of the river Vistula, in the neighbourhood of which 
the shock will come. They will have the advantage 
in this shock of a main railway, that from Lcmberg to 
Cracow, immediately in the rear of their line, where 
the Austro-German forces will have one rather 
further back in the main line to Kielce, which is also 
the trunk line through Warsaw to Petrograd 
