LAND AND 
,W. A T E R. 
pressing German line began. 
March 6, 1915. 
This advance was 
ft. railway fro™ ^^.,wa fo New GoorRiex* th. P^^^Efj^f^l'harnwrnirg of Wodncsdny, tho 
I!usI?Mriinn.«liatcIy moved uP f™'"'/l'^'^f»'] " gS tromX point V upon the map sho^vn to tha 
wlinSN VN.. and the t^ro bodies, thus advanc- 24 h Irom tne ^ ^j ^^^^^^ j^^. ^^, ^^^ <,f 
?„t met in the noishbourhooJ of Przasnjsz (wb.eh -"' ^-J^^f ;> the Orzec It was first su,> 
^ Hrar ?K,%. f.U .en he ..,ca o-fu. Jro. the ri^ht, ^.^^ ^-i^^^ 
uix.n the nosscssion of this place depended tue iiiui^ua^,^ ^^^^ ,^ ^^ p^^qtivsz. from which it 
rtsult of the struggle. . . 
two reasons for this: iirst, luai; 
There were 
Przasnvsz 
«-'irr)ushed back on to Przasnysz, from 
had iSoved forward son^-ewhat the dav beforehand 
s;;;;d; in the^iddle of the dry upper tliis '^^^:^'^^ f^l^fZl 
.alershed between the River Orzec and the Rner ^^^^^/j^^f g^^^^^^^^ prosecute, as vigorously as 
ondtjfe River The pressure thus effected upon their 
,:Ulyna. and has tl-^f^^e; in-thaVj^^^^ Se^S^S'u^l^f ri^elorth of V^ 
the centre of diverging b'SJ^ ^i'' ".^^f^" Son cither end of this the Russian forces moved 
the south; and scconoly.^ because ^^\l\';^^^' ^^^^^^ ,^,^,,ed forces which had so 
successfully held that height. By the morning of 
nucleus," as 
boconie 
lead towards -. 
Przasnysz happened to become tiie 
it wei-e, of the battle. , . 
Often when a great action is joined some one 
point becomes a nucleus of this sort, so that its 
retention or loss by one side is equivalent to 
success or failure in the action by that side. And 
this was the case with Przasnysz. 
Upon Saturday, Tcbruary 20, ten days ago, 
the rapid German advance forced a Russian 
brigade, which was acting as an outpost, back 
upon Przasnvsz, passed on east and west of that 
town in two" bodies, one along the arrow I have 
tnarked I, the other along the arrow I have 
marked II, while a third body along the arrow 
marked III made for and held the passages of 
the Orzeo River. All these bodies, pressing south, 
had about four days* march in front of them if 
they were not arrested before they should reach 
the Xarew and the fortified line. It so happened 
that between tho lines of advance I and II there 
is a ridge of rather higher land in that endless 
flat snow-covered waste, which may be con- 
veniently called The Ridge of Voliaverslorska, 
which lies just beneath it about half-way between 
Przasnysz and Czicchaloff. I have indicated this 
ridge by the letter V and the shaded mark. The 
Russian advance seized this ridge and held it 
throughout that week-end and on until Wednes- 
day, February 24. Their tenacity, though almost 
eurrounded and violently attacked from botli sides 
of the hi^h ground, was what decided the battle. 
On that Wednesday, the 24th, the Germans got 
into Przasnj-sz, taking there twenty guns and a 
number of prisoners, which seem to have included 
something like half the brigade which had been 
pressed into that town from outside. But tho 
Russian force upon the ridge still held; and it 
was upon the same day, just at daybreak, that the 
xnain Russian advance from the south against tho 
Friday, the 26th, it was apparent that the berman 
line was beginning to waver, and in the course 
of the day the first Russians entered Przasnysz, 
and tho sides of the ridge to the west of it wero 
already cleared. But the action still swung, and it 
^va3 not until the whole of the Saturday had been 
passed in the most furious fighting m the open 
that the Sunday morning saw the full retreat of 
the German lino. 
This retreat has been called, rather unjustly, 
a rout. That is was not a rout is sufficiently clear 
from the fact that of the whole two Army Corps 
] 0,000 prisoners alone remained in the Russians 
hands after the full retreat had begun, and wo 
presume that most of these were wounded. But 
It was a hurried retreat, as is again proved by tho 
confusion of the various units; and by Monday 
morning the success of our ally along this sector 
was complete. 
"We may sum up, then, and say that the great 
German advance on the Narew and the Nieraen 
has at the moment of writing achieved the follow- 
ing position : — 
From twelve miles north of Grodno to about 
twenty-six miles north of that fortress, in a region 
where"^ dense woods cover both banks of the broad 
river, certain detachments, so far small, havo 
effected a crossing. We have not heard that they 
have yet issued from the woods, and strong efforts 
are being made to thrust them back. 
liOwer down, in front of Csowiecs, the effort 
to break the fortified line is taking the form of a 
bombardment of the eastern works of that fortress. 
In the centre, the sector most dangerous to 
Warsaw, the sector of v;hich Mlawa is the prin- 
cipal town, the enemy has received a severe check, 
losing Przasnysz, which was the centre of his 
action, and falling back in full retreat towards his 
own frontier. 
That is how the third great bid for Warsaw, 
the attempt to take it in reverse, stands at tho 
J) resent moment; or. rather, stood upon Monday 
morning, the news of which was the last to have 
reached London at the time of writing. 
THE BUKOMNA 
I said at the outset of these remarks upon tho 
eastern front that the Austro-German move into 
the Bukovina did not promise any great strate- 
gical result, and that because the taking of tho 
Galician Russian army in flank was hardly pos- 
sible from the Bukovina alone, or at any rate from 
that portion of it now occupied by the enemy's 
armies. I would like to make this point clear, 
because while it is but a theory, and a theory in 
4« 
