January 23, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
man casualties, German prices, and other capital 
points of news are conveyed by the Germans alone 
f 
pf the belligerents to the outer world. 
THE EASTERN FIELD. 
IN the eastern field of war there has been an 
almost complete lull along the whole line, 
with the exception of some violent fighting 
upon the Bzura, which has not advanced the 
_ enemy, and in connection with which the 
Hussians have attempted no advance either. 
There are in this field but two points to notice, 
«pon_ one of which we have so little information 
that it is impossible to do more than state the frag- 
mentary news and base a doubtful guess upon it. 
The other is a still smaller detail, but clearer in its 
meaning and effect. 
The first of these two pieces of news is the an- 
nouncement that Russian forces have occupied 
Sierpe in the belt of North Poland between the 
iVistula and the East Prussian border, have pushed 
forward across the Skwara ( ? ) and are therefore 
within forty miles of Thorn. Such a position is 
obviously upon the flank of the main German line 
of icommunication for Hindenburg's advance on 
Warsaw, to wit, the main railway from Thorn to 
Warsaw. This railway nearly touches the Vistula 
at a point about half way between Plocz and the 
frontier, and is everywhere within raiding distance 
of a force that shall have crossed that stream from 
the North. 
If we were dealing with considerable bodies 
cf ;Russians operating in this theatre the news 
would be of great moment, but I submit that in 
the Tack of further evidence we have no right to 
presume large operations as yet in this belt of 
North Poland between the East Prussian frontier 
and the Vistula, and until we know more about 
them there is no ground for planning out any con- 
siderable consequences or illustrating the move- 
ment as a whole. 
It appears to be so far a movement of cavalry 
operating in no great numbers against smaller de- 
tached bodies of cavalry upon the enemy's side, 
and one's ground for believing this is, first, that 
very large Russian movements in this district, 
being supported by no railway, would necessarily 
be slow and would as necessarily have given rise 
to vigorous changes of disposition in the German 
forces south of the river. There has been no trace 
of the latter and therefore we should not, in the 
lack of further evidence, believe in the former. A 
Russian force has entered Plocz, but everything 
turns upon the total number of the Russian forces 
north of the Vistula, and, I repeat, that if that 
number were very great the whole German battle 
front would turn northward. That there may be 
a movement there later on the part of the Russians, 
and that it will profit them is seen by merely look- 
ing at a map, but that they will soon be able to 
concentrate and to equip sufficient men in this dis- 
trict so easily there is no proof. 
The second piece of news which, as I have 
said, is more detailed and certain, though dealing 
only with the minor point concerned, the seizure 
of the Kilribaba Pass by the Russians in the 
wooded Central Carpathians between Bukovina 
and Transylvania, that is, in the midst of that 
Rumanian population, the Russian presence among 
whom is having such a powerful effect upon the 
international position of the Rumanian Govern- 
ment at this moment. 
This is the first point upon the watershed of 
the Carpathians which the Russians have crossed 
since the second battle for Warsaw began, and 
since, in conformity with the Russian retirement 
on the north for the protection of Warsaw, the 
Russian Armies south withdrew some forty or fifty 
miles from Cracow to the line of the Dunajec and 
abandoned the passes over the Carpathians, watch- 
ing only the mouths of the same. 
Now, the remarkable point about this is that 
it has taken place at a comparatively unimportant 
moment. The great passes which carry one the 
railway and the other the high road from Transyl- 
vania into Bukovina run to the north and to the 
south of Kilribaba, and here the Russians have 
not even attempted to move to the crest of 
the pass until better weather shall assure their 
transport. The Kilribaba is only a saddle of 
wooded land befween the sources of two mountain 
torrents, not suited for taking any considerable 
body of troops from side to side. We must wait 
for such a movement until weather conditions 
render it possible for the Russians to bring up 
wheeled transport in sufficient amounts for the 
support of heavy coliunns and the forcing of the 
heights, and it is not in any way probable that this 
movement upon a minor saddle in the wooded hills 
can be used for any large offensive movement to- 
wards the Hungarian side. But the pass has this 
advantage : the road down from it on to the Hun- 
garian side is easy and moves away from the 
nearest railhead, so that the enemy can only con- 
centrate against it with difficulty. 
THE CAUCASUS. 
In the Caucasus we are still without news from 
the Turkish side, and that may make us fairly cer- 
tain that the Russian description of the conse- 
quences of the late Russian victory is accurate 
enough. The fighting at Karai Urgan, in which 
the 11th Corps of the Turkish Army (the only 
corps, it may be remembered, which remained in- 
tact after the debacle of a fortnight ago) attempted, 
by vigorously attacking the head of the Russian 
Army, to withdraw pressure from the retreat of 
the broken 10th Corps, has, according to Russian 
accounts, collapsed. It cannot be true that this 
large body of men has been " annihilated," for 
there is no account of their having been surrounded 
or intercepted in their retreat, but it is evidently 
true that the whole body has given way, that great 
numbers of the unwounded stragglers have fallen 
prisoners to the Russians, as well as masses of 
wounded, and evidently also, great quantities of 
field equipment and artillery. The unofficial 
statement that the whole of the artillery of the 
11th Corps has been taken cannot be accepted 
until we have official confirmation, and it is in any 
case exceedingly unlikely. What would happen 
in an action of this sort, fought in driving snow 
thousands of feet above the sea, would be the per- 
petual abandonment of pieces stuck in the drifts 
during a retirement, or captured time and again 
by swoops of cavalry on the rearguard, but they 
are not conditions under which the whole artillery 
of an Army Corps is to be found concentrated in 
one area and taken en bloc. That did happen 
apparently to the artillery of the 9th Turkish 
Army Corps on January 3rd and 4th, but that, as 
we know, was intercepted and surrounded. 
