LAND AND WATER 
December 19, 191C 
slrategic failure. For failure it is, and not only is 
Warsaw still safe, but the main Russian effort 
against Cracow in the south, though heavily met 
by new Austrian formations and by a certain pro- 
portion of German reinforcements from Western 
Galicia, is not yet settled. 
What the fortunes of that main Russian move- 
ment in South Poland against Cracow, and there- 
fore of the threat to Silesia, may be, I will next 
turn to. 
IL— THE BATTLE FOR CRACOW. 
Before discussing the details of th^e battle for 
Cracow in its present stage— that is, of the great 
effort the Germans and Austrians are making to 
prevent the investment and passing of that town 
by the Russians, with the consequent investment 
of Silesia — we must first appreciate that in the last 
week or ten days the most serious effort of the 
whole war has been directed against the Russian 
advance upon Cracow. Whether new formations 
have come up, as is probable, both to the Austrian 
and to the German Army, or whether certam 
forces have been drawn from Central Poland, 
whether it has even been risked to take yet further 
men from the v/est, we do not know. But we do 
know by the results that the effort of the enemy 
to hold back the Russians from Western Galicia 
is a very serious one indeed, and how serious the 
accompanying plan will prove. 
When the first Russian Invasion, that of 
September, was approaching Cracow, the nearest 
point which it reached in its advance upon that 
town was the railway junction of Tarnow, four days' 
march away at least. 
Then came the great German counter-offensive, 
which threw the Russians right back another three 
weeks' march, and which only failed when it had 
reached the river San. Upon the Russians re- 
advancing Galicia was much further invaded, and 
it looked, less than a fortnight ago, as though the 
investment of Cracow might begin at any moment. 
The foremost detached bodies of Russian cavalry 
had already reached Wielicza, and the mass of the 
army was following. 
But at this moment the Germans and Austrians 
took the counter-offensive in the following fashion : — • 
(1) They began pushing forces up through 
the foot-liLUs of the Carpathians, over the con- 
fused foot-hills, the low heights of all that belt 
which I have marked by stippled dots ; and 
even pushed some of their bodies Into the 
mountams. The advance was In general along 
the arrows BB. They thus pressed back the 
extreme right of the Russians from some such 
line as RS to some such line as RT. New 
Sandec was occupied four or five days ago (If 
we may trust the German official communique), 
and It Is evident that so far as this movement 
continues to be successful, the pressure upon 
Cracow and upon Industrial Silesia behind it 
is relaxed. 
(2) But this Is not the whole of what the 
enemy has done this week, for (probably im- 
prudently and with the result of defeat in 
Servia) he has also brought up Austrian 
reinforcements along the line of the arrow CC, 
he has retaken the Dukla pass, and has appeared 
in short upon the northern slope of the Car- 
pathian mountains. 
^Trom CzenstoawwcL. 
•PLLtca 
frontiers 
^^—^ — " , -.— ^^^_, _^'":„: _ v_^x 
8» 
