LAND A^D WAlli-K 
xixajr w, 
J- v>^V^« 
(2) This concentration was not effected 
Becretly. The intelligence Department of ouv 
ally warned their commanders of great numbers 
massing against them for the attack. 
(3) It is certain that the force thus concen- 
trated contained great numbers of the new troops 
which, as has been pointed out in these columns 
more than once, constitute the third and last 
bateh of enemy rcser\es. 
(4) It is equally certain that the concentra- 
tion thus effected and thus launched upon the wes- 
tern front of our ally's positions in Galicia 
resulted in a considerable success for the enemy. 
(5) It is equally certain that the enemy, 
in thus forcing certain points of a line entrenched 
and prepared for monlhs, has lost very heavily 
indeed, and that unless he has quite broken 
through he has lost more than the Russians. 
(6) But he has attnined a measure of success, 
to be estimated probably fairly enough in his 
figures: 21,000 wounded and unwounded priso- 
ners of the enemy and 16 guns; out of a force of, 
sav, 200,000 to 250,000 and, say, 800 guns. 
(7) According to the measure of that success 
—i.e., according to how far he has pushed back 
the Russian line— will prove the gravity of the 
position immediately developing. In any case, 
unless our ally's old line is restored, his grip upon 
the northern Carpathians is threatened, and if 
the blow he has suffered is as hmvy as the enemy 
pretends (which is not likely) he could not per- 
manently retain his hold upon the mountains at 
all, and might not be able to maintain himself in 
the Galician plain. 
In order to appreciate what has happened, 
we may consult the elements of the sketch map on 
the preceding page, and reproduced opposite. 
The main line of communication running 
through Galicia is that marked C C C C upon the 
sketch, and proceeding from t]^ depots in Russia 
through the advance pass at Lemberg, through the 
junction of Przeraysl, and through Tarnow across 
the Dunajec. 
With the rest of the gridiron of Galician rail- 
ways, mostly single lines, we are not for the 
moment concerned, save that the lateral line run- 
ning through Gorlice, Sanok, Sambor, and Stryj 
tA) Stanislau and Kolomea (marked on the sketch 
with the letters D D D D) is obviously his main 
road for the transfer of troops from east to west 
and west to east : in other words, for the concen- 
tration of the Russians against attempts their 
enemies are making to dislodge them from the 
Galician plain. 
Now, the position which the Russians held, 
just before this great attack upon their western 
front was delivered, is to be followed in the line 
of dots upon the sketch map A. 
It will be perceived that the frontiers of the 
Russian occupation were roughly in the shape of a 
right angle; from between Stryj and Stanislau to 
the neighbourhood of Barfcfeld on the Hungarian 
side of the mountains was one limb of this right 
angle, and from the corner in the neighbourhood 
of Bartfeld up to the Vistula was the other, and 
shorter, limb of the angle. 
Upon the power of resistance of this shorter 
limb, which power of resistance was taken for 
granted tiU the last few days, it is clear that the 
possession of the Carpathians by our ally 
depended. 
The matter is so obvious that most critics in 
jLhe Press have said, rightly enough, that a mere 
glance at the map would be sullicient to prove it. 
But to make quite certain of the point, Ave may 
put it diagrammatically here. Thus, an army 
desires to master a certain obstacle, 0.^ It is 
disposed in a rectangular form, ABC. Its 
enemies are exercising the power for a thrust 
against it towards C (represented by the arrow 
there), but it has been exercising an equally 
powerful thrust at the B end (represented by the 
arrow tliere) and has there crossed the obstacle in 
part, and can, with the advance of the season, hope 
to master it entirely. 
There is also, in the direction E F, a certain 
number of enemy forces able to strike against the 
turned back side A B. It is self-evident that the 
security of all the work being done on the line B C 
depends upon the force there operating being quite 
secure from interference on their right and 
adequately screened by the force at A B. If the 
force at A B is broken, or bent back, the people 
going along the arrow 2 will be in peril, and, as the 
country in which they are operating is mountain 
country, and has few roads, and very difficult com- 
munications, A B has only got to be bent back some 
little way as towards B D for all the people who 
are working on the thrust of the arrow 2 to be in 
grave peril of being cut off, and, in a military 
sense, destroyed. 
Now we shall Imow, perhaps by the time these 
lines are in print, but unfortunately not at the 
moment they are written, how far this protecting 
line A B has suffered. That it has suffered, and 
bad dents knocked in it here and there, we may 
take without fear of error. 
The Berlin communiques were, on the face of 
them, extravagant, and the public rejoicings 
ridiculously on a par with the premature celebra- 
tions of victory before Warsaw last December. 
But however exaggerated enemy reports may 
be, serious fighting has taken place, and the 
enemy has advanced. 
If we turn again to the first m^ap reprinted 
opposite we shall see that this claim of the 
Germans, apart from its flamboyant language, is 
one which is not made without foundation. They 
would not say they had forced the Dunajec unless 
they had forced it at certain points, and they 
would not say that the enemy was retiring east- 
wards unless he were also retiring at certain 
points. The Russian line was simple and united. 
It was based on one continuous line of river, and 
if it is pierced at all it may have to fall bark. 
The original line ran from the Vistula up the 
Dunajec until the junction of the river with its 
tributary, the Biala, and thus ran from Tarnow 
up the Biala in front of Gorlice, past Grybow, 
and so to the Hungarian frontier, which is 
on the crest of the mountains, just above Bartfeld. 
That line no longer, at the moment of writing, 
stands intact. We have a further claim to regard 
the matter as serious from the very fact that we 
have received no news from the other side, 
