LAND AND WATER 
August 29, 1914 
THE OPER.\TIONS IN EASTERN EUROPE. 
Two tilings preclomiuate in anv compreliousion of the campaign upon tlie eastern frontiers of 
Prussia. The iirst is the extent of the liussian achance, the second the racial and political conditions 
undor which that advance is taking place. 
Both these points in their most general characters arc expressed in the accompanying sketch. 
I DAV-5 
'■'it.K'Ci ar MiLs.^ 
H£MEL 
ASBA OCCUPISD BY 
POLISH RACE, LANOUASE, REa.<|OI0N 
-<- 
TO EErlLU-l 
Slvoteli showing the approximate frontier betwoon Polish and German nationalities, frontier of Province of East Prussia now ia 
Eussian hands and of the fortified line of the Vistula which bara the advance on Berlin. 
It was upon Saturday last, the 22nd, that the first wave of the Eussian advance won what may be 
called, A\'ithout exaggeration, a decisive success in the neighbourhood of the town of Gumbinnen, about 
twenty -five miles from the frontier : the " first wave," because it is in the nature of the mobilization 
arrangements of Eussia that three successive bodies shall follow -wcstw^ard across the frontier, and it 
was the first of these, amounting to perhaps somewhat less than 200,000 men, which won the action 
at Gumbinnen. 
The forces over which this success was acliieved were estimated at some 160,000 men, or tlu-ee 
Army Corps,, with perhaps certain divisions of cavaliy. The advance was followed up to Insterberg, 
some fifteen miles further along the main railway, by which line the invasion is proceeding. 
"We must remember, in all that we hear of the fighting in this eastern theatre of the war, that the 
gi-cat mass of the men opposed to the Eussians are taken from that half -trained or untrained reserve 
which is a feature of the Pnissian military system. They are not expected to do as well as the 
regularly trained troops. ^Yhat they are expected to do in this pai't of the German dominions is to 
impose delay upon the enemy, and little more. 
At any rate, the success of last Saturday obviously isolates, as a glance at the map will show, the 
town of Tilsit. But there is more than this. Apart from this advance directly westward across the 
frontier by the Eussians (which lias for its base the town of Vilna), there was moving up in flank from 
A\'arsaAv another Eussian force wliich marched upon Allenstein, 'and this advance in flank determined 
the precipitate retreat of the Gemian forces, and may be said without exaggeration to have given, b>- 
the evening of Sunday, all East Prussia east of tlie line Konigsberg- Allenstein into Eussian hands. 
Twenty-four hours later it was already e^•ident that one portion of the rapidly retreating Prussian 
forces would tlu-ow itself into Konigsberg, and already, at the time of writing, all retreat to the south 
out of Konigsberg is cut off. The other portion of the defeated German army has, as repoiied above, 
fallen back upon Osterode, abandoning in its rapid retreat a cei-tain number of field guns and vehicles, 
and losing also a certain proportion of prisoners, presumably stragglers from so rapid a retirement. 
We do well to remember in aU this that we have only heard so far the victor's story, 
there can be no doubt, to simi up the general result, that the province of East Prussia" is 
dominated as a whole by the Eussian forces, which have invaded it from the south and the 
at the same moment. Tilsit is certainly isolated and Konigsberg probably already isolated also 
belt just east of the boundary of the province — including Allenstein itself — v.as still in German hands 
last Wednesday, but the forces occupying it were in retreat. 
Meanwhile it is well to warn the reader in the west of Em-ope that we should not too hastily 
assume for the Eussian advance a rate comparable to the advance of successful invading armies 
in the west, and further that we do not really know the rate of the possible or probable Eussian 
advance tmiil the line of the Vislula is miccelsfuJly negoiialed. 
As to the first of these points, the rapidity of advance in this part of Eastern Europe is 
checked by the comparative rarity of good hard roads— a week's rain turns most of these tracks 
into a morass— the fact that the south of the Province of East Prassia is a mass of small meres 
with marshes lying about them, and the fact that behind the Eussian advance is an insufficient 
railway system ; that is, a sparse series of lines, a net-work with very wide meshes, which will 
not supply_ an advancing amiy as the western railways of Europe could do. 
The line of the Vistula is of the first importance. It is, roughly speaking, the line Thorn— 
Graudenz— Danzig ; both Thorn and Danzig ai'e obstacles of the first class, and the line as a 
whole is not weakly held. 
But 
now 
east 
A 
10» 
