March 6, 1915. 
LAND AND ,W A T E E. 
d, 
3I*^corps 
used hereto \ j ^^ 
•JliW. 
between the 
twa main Lakes 
^5^^^ 
^ 
/ 
l^fi-alonfation of 
,/, the action of^ 
j^^ the 20^ cocas 
^"^ 
W 
this Corps in this region has not, so far, come to 
very much. The river was crossed, but the crossings 
were not, by the last advices received, decisively 
maintained. We have no direct evidence at the 
moment of v/riting (Tuesday evening) that the 
bridgeheads beyond the river had been retaken by 
the Kussians; but v,'o have got the mention of 
fighting upon the left bank in the last few days — • 
that is, upon the German side of the stream — and 
it is self-evident that no very large movement 
across the Niemen here could be taken with a 
single Army Corps, cut off from help from the 
south by the fortress of Grodno. Grodno would 
either have to be taken or masked by a large force 
before the passage of the river was securely held. 
(The passage of the Niemen here has been effected 
at the point where the Augustowo forest gets up 
to the river, and it is under the cover of the 
sector of the ring of forts, exactly as he attacked 
them last October, when he suffered defeat in hia 
attack. He is acting now with very much larger 
forces, but with no better guns. (We must wait iop 
better proof of that 420 millimetre.) We have no 
news of the result one way or the other, except that 
the attack by the siege-train has now proceeded for 
something more than a week without our hearing 
from the enemy's side of any result yet followixig 
on it. 
(3) The Fight round Przasnysz. The fighi 
round Przasnysz is much more serious, and wo 
have more details of it to hand. In this third sector 
the enemy has clearly failed. But I will again 
modify the impression Avhich sucli a statement 
might make, by pointing out that the action, as a 
whole, from Grodno to the Vistula, has not yet 
been decided, and that we must not jump to tha 
conclusion that it is, merely because there has been 
a rather pronounced German retirement in that 
sector of it which most immediately threatened 
Warsaw. 
With that proviso we can proceed to tha 
description of the action. 
Upon the same days which saw the defeat of 
the 20th Russian Army Corps at Augustowo and 
the approach of the enemy to the fortified lina 
(from Tuesday, February 16, to Thursday, 
February 18), a strong movement was apparent 
upon the extreme left of the Russian positions 
along the rivers. The following diagram wiU 
Forest 
^Limits of 
III GemzaziLizie 
'orrespondlzQ 
^itAForest 
belt 
Fortified Zone of Grodno 
under range of its guns 
1> 
Frontier 
Feb, IS -,20 
Wfarsaw 
forest that the crossings have been made. What 
we do not know is whether behind the crossing 
thus effected any considerable bodies of the enemy 
are prepared to move. If they are, the attack here, 
north of Grodno, may be serious. If they are not. 
it will have to fall back with the retirement of 
the other two efforts further to the south and west. 
All one can say is that, according to the news 
already received, the crossing of the Niemen north 
of Grodno, though ejected over a stretch of four- 
teen miles, appears to be insufficient in strength 
and not developing. We must wait for further 
news to judge whetlier it can progress or no. 
(2) The Attach on Osoiviecs. The attack on 
Osowiecs is straightforward enough. The enemy 
here has brought up his principal siege-train and 
is at present occupied in attacking the western 
I* 
make clear what was tried. The East Prussian 
frontier being represented diagramatically by the 
line A — B, and the line of the Narew by the line 
M — N, the Germans were advancing up to and 
upon the front P — R (letters which represent tha 
two towns of Plocz, upon the Vistula, and Rachiaz, 
about thirty miles to the north-cast), Warsaw and 
its railways being some sixty miles away up the 
Vistula. Our ally informs us of tlie checking of 
this advance upon the front P — R on or about this 
same date — February 18. It is probable, however, 
that the pressure here being exercised was halted 
quite as mucii at the will of the enemy as at that 
of our ally, for on that same day- -February 18 — 
upon another front of about the same length to the 
north between Mlawa (represented by the letter 
M) and Khorgele (represented by the letter K) 
was discovei*ed a large concentration of two Corps 
pointing southward directly towards the fortified 
line of the Niemen. Against this latter and 
dangerous concentration, separated as it was b)j 
