March 20, 1915 
LAND AND iW; A T E R. 
upon the opposing shores, is very different in the 
European from wliat it is in the Asiatic case. 
On the European side it is evident that every- 
thing depends upon the Isthmus by which the 
Gallipoli peninsula hangs to the mainland : the 
Jsthmus of Bulair, 
That Isthmus, as has been repeatedly pointed 
out in these columns, is completely subject to gun 
fire from the open sea. It is already untenable by 
the enemy, and would, if it were possible, be still 
further secured by ships acting from within the 
6ea of Marmara. A sufficient force landed here 
could contain for an indefinite period, until 
exhaustion and surrender, any garrison that the 
enemy may have put into the Gallipoli Peninsula, 
and if such a force were supplied at its leisure 
with a sufficient siege train, it should make sure 
of an advance sufficiently strong to destroy any 
temporary works the enemy might erect in that 
tangle of hills. 
But on the Asiatic side the problem is very 
different. It really depends upon the power 
the enemy may have to furnish himself with 
munitions, and particularly with a good supply 
of munitions for his artillery. 
Now this depends, of course, upon whether 
he has depots of such munitions, and upon his 
communications with the same, and it is to be pre- 
sumed that this factor has been the main one in 
deciding the bombardment of the coast near 
Smyrna and of the railway serving that place; 
while it is probable that action near the Bosphorus 
later on, if the forcing of the Dardanelles be 
achieved, would similarly starve the Asiatic side 
of the Dardanelles from the north. But if very 
large stores of munitions are already accumulated 
in that district, the problem of holding the Asiatic 
shores of the Straits upon a sufficient belt to make 
the commercial passage through them quite safe 
and continuous will be a serious one. 
THE CARPATHIANS. 
We have of movements in the Carpathians no 
news of importance, save a vague Austrian com- 
munique to the effect that a considerable battle has 
developed north of tlie Uzog pass in the foothills, 
and claiming a considerable number of prisoners; 
and a further rather more detailed Russian 
account of the same action — which reports nothing 
decisive. There is no development worth noting, 
either by way of the expected Russian re-advance 
into the Bukowina or the debouching of the enemy 
from the foothills into the Galician plain in the 
neighbourhood of Przemysl. It looks as if, at the 
moment of writing, the opposing lines were 
occupying A'ery much the same situation as tliey 
did upon the very important capture of Stanislaus 
by the Russians, not quite a fortnight ago. 
On the East Prussian front there is the same 
stagnation and lack of news. We had some days 
ago an announcement from the Russian side that 
the Germans were massing a very important force 
to act again in the region of Przasnysz, and to 
attempt once more the march southward upon the 
communications behind Warsaw, in the neighbour- 
hood of that town, and the forcing of the Narew 
line upon its lower part, near Neo Georgievsk. 
We find no further news, however, of this 
movement, and if it develops, shall probably not 
have the result of the development until next week. 
The German papers, by the way, are strenu- 
ously denying that there was any movement of 
troops from the West to the East in aid of Von 
Hindenburg's great concentration at the begin- 
ning of February. If this criticism be directed 
against the absurd exaggerations which we have 
had in the Press, representing the Germans as 
perpetually moving vast bodies backwards and for- 
wards between the two frontiers, it is salutary and 
seasonable, but if it is intended to convey that no 
movement whatever has taken place, it is to be con- 
troverted by the clear evidence of prisoners and 
material captured, for we know in this positive 
manner that one corps at least of the 10th, 12th, or 
14th that were massed in East Prussia, and still 
remain there, was the 21st corps from Alsace- 
Lorraine, and it was this corps which alone suc- 
ceeded in piercing for a moment the defensive liae 
by passing the Niemen just below Grodno. It has, 
oi course, sjnce achieving this feat — which was 
about a month ago — fallen back again to the neigh- 
bourhood of the frontier, and now lies upon a line 
running from the woods just east of Augustowo. 
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