LAND AND tW.ATER, 
May 15, 1915. 
fore this week with the military movements, in- 
conclusive as they still are, and which lend them- 
selves very little to illustration. I shall deal at 
some greater length with the point I have just 
mentioned. 
THE OPERATIONS IN GALIGIA. 
The concentration of so many of the new 
levies, Austrian and German, with older forces 
drawn from elsewhere, upon the front east of 
Cracoe, and the blow they are delivering against 
the Russian " screen " which was defending 
operations in the Carpathians to the east, is 
proving, as the days pass, of greater and of 
gi-eater importance. 
The conjectures to which the first news of 
this great action in Galicia gave rise have proved 
accurate enough. The Western front of the Rus- 
sian armies in that province has retired over a 
belt of thirty to thirty-five miles, more towards 
tlie south than towards the north. The northern 
passes of the Carpathians have consequently been 
abandoned, at least the three road passes of the 
j'olyanka, the Dukla, and the Jaliska. The Lupkow 
road and double line of railway pass and the ridge 
on as far as the Rostok is still apparently, at the 
moment of writing, in the hands of our Ally. How 
far the abandonment of the crest of the mountains 
must proceed will obviously depend upon the 
limits to which this retirement of the Russian 
iSVestern front continues. But the margin is not 
a very wide one, as the map on the preceding page 
■wiU show. 
The original line held by the Russians ran, 
as ray readers know, from the "Vistula up the 
Dunajec to the point where the Biala falls in. 
It then ran up the Biala to the crest of the Car- 
pathians, corresponding to the line marked 1 on 
this sketch map. The next defensive position 
behind this was the line of the Wisloka, marked 
2, and it was pointed out in a previous article 
that if the line of the Wisloka were taken up by 
Ihe Russians after their retirement, that would 
certainly mean the loss of the Polyanka, and 
t)robably of the Dukla. Now it appeared from the 
ast communiques that the line of the Wisloka 
bad been passed — upon the south at least — and 
that at one point, the next parallel valley, that of 
the Wislok, and had been reached by the Austro- 
jGerman advance, and that these are attempting 
to reach Sanok. 
But the Wislok does not form a true position 
at all for the purposes of guarding the Russian 
armies in Galicia. It bends right back eastward. 
ilt falls into the San, not the Vistula, and it is the 
line marked on Plan I. with the number 3. 
It would therefore seem as though the check 
which our Ally will attempt to give to the advance 
of the enemy would not follow a river line at all, 
but would cut across the two valleys in some such 
fashion as that indicated by the dots on the 
second sketch map. That our Ally will be able 
to hold this line and remain upon it is doubtful. 
5anoIc 
Cresi'c^j,.^ 
Vukla -^ 
^^ 
Tass ^4; 
>^4^ 
of that stream in the mountains so as to bar the 
way to h'anok. Such a line would run as the line 
of crosses runs on the subjoined sketch, and might 
be tensble. But before siich a line could be held, 
the Russians would have to recover as a v»^hole the 
lower line of the Wisloka. 
Now we do not know exactly where their line 
runs in connection with the lower part of this 
stream — that is why I have upon my second sketch 
marked two lines of dots, one fairly close to the 
river, the other well behind, and put to each a note 
of interrogation. If they have been thrust back 
as far as the second line they could hardly recover 
so broad a belt against an advancing superior 
It is a fluctuating line not prepared. It could only force, with a particular superiority in heavy guns, 
be held in a few selected places by rapid entrench- or, after having advanced across it, consolidate the 
ment. It would hardly stand against the supe- whole ground lost between this and the Wisloka, 
riority of heavy artillery upon the enemy's side (of or hold it firmly after such a counter-offensive, 
which more in a moment) when the big pieces Yet, if the Russians do not hold the Lower Wis- 
iBhould have been brought up over the intervening loka, at least, and the Upper Wislok, it is difficult 
belt. But what would be a perfectly possible line to see what natural feature they can adopt as a 
is aU the line of the Lower Wisloka, then a cut foundation for their new line. The Wislok itself 
across to the Upper Wislok, and the following bends so far east that it turns the Galician Plain 
