May 15, 1915. 
LAND AND .W.ATER 
altogether, and thougt it is true that any well 
prepared line of trenches is nowadays a position m 
itself, without any natural feature to support it, 
on account of the strength of the modern defensive, 
we have no indication that such a line has been 
prepared across the peninsula between the Vistula 
and the San, and in the country north of the Lower 
tWislok. 
If any position has been prepared in this 
piece of country we shall see the Russian line 
gradually consolidate upon it and check the for- 
ward movement of the enemy. If none has been 
prepared there are only two alternatives : a fluc- 
tuating battle as the Russian reinforcements 
arrive, the recovery of the Wisloka line, and the 
consequent protection of the Russian positions 
upon a portion at least of the crest of the moun- 
tain west, or a falling back of the whole line, the 
abandonment of all the crest and of half of Galicia 
as well. And which of these two events we shall 
see, only the future can determine. 
It must, of course, be insisted upon here, as it 
has been insisted upon in the case of every retire- 
ment or fluctuation of the line upon the east or 
upon the west, that the problem before the enemy 
is not the clearing of a particular bit of territory, 
or the relieving of the pressure upon a particular 
line, even upon a line so important as the crest of 
the Carpathians ; the one essential which he must 
do, and which, for his own success, he must do in 
quite the near future, is to break the eastern or the 
western line. Until he has done that his strategy, 
in the largest sense, has failed. 
The exact position of the fluctuating double 
front between the Austro-German advance and 
the Russian retirement upon Saturday, May 8, 
would seem to be somewhat as may be gathered 
from the accompanying sketch. The line 
started at that moment from the Vistula N. or 
N.E. of Mielec. It then ran back almost due south 
until it approached the Wisloka in the neighbour- 
hood of Debica, defended portions of that river 
line, but abandoned it before Jaslo was reached 
(Jaslo was in Austrian hands on the Friday 
night), and struck the Wislok near Krosno. The 
.Germans established a crossing beyond the Upper 
,Wislok near Krosno, but no more, while the 
Austrians do not appear to have crossed the 
Upper Wislok nor to have approached nearer 
to Sanok than the line of that river. 
It is evident from all this that the strength 
of the blow has been delivered by the German 
right against the Russian left of the line, and 
that the whole front has swung rotmd from north 
and south to north-west and south-east. The 
retirement has not greatly affected as yet the 
position of the Russian line north of the Vistula, 
but it has rendered untenable the positions of 
which we have spoken, rendered extremely pre- 
carious the remaining hold upon the ridge between 
the Lupkow and the Rostok, and has not yet 
established itself in any permanent fashion. 
More important, to our judgment, than the 
future of the campaign on this front and the exact 
line held for the moment by the two belligerents 
is the nature of the Austro-German success, and 
this, it cannot be doubted, is due to a great 
superiority in heavy artillery upon the side of the 
enemy. 
Now let us examine the causes of this and see 
what chances there are of the situation being 
reversed for the future. 
The superiority of the enemy in hea\'y artil- 
lery on this front is due to two things. 
First, that he has been able, just as we have, 
during the winter months, to construct further 
heavy pieces. 
Secondly, that he has been able to munition 
these and to provide an accumulation of shell 
with which to effect his great bombardment of the 
last two days of April and the first of May. The 
Russians have not been in that position. They 
have suffered from lack of equipment of every; 
kind and from lack of munitions right through 
the winter under a rigorous blockade, and from 
the fact that their own powers of construction 
were more limited than those of the industrialised 
western and central nations of Europe, as well as 
from the fact that their more limited railway com- 
munications hampered the bringing up of such 
supplies ajs they had. 
The situation, due to this starvation in muni- 
tions, which had been very serious indeed in 
February, was somewhat relieved during March' 
and April by the appearance of munitions pro- 
cured through the Far Eastern ports and coming 
in by the Trans-Siberian Railway. 
Now, in the middle of May Archangel is also 
open. But Archangel, though not so far off as the 
Far Eastern ports, is a good thousand miles away, 
from the chief front, and of these thousand miles 
300 were, when the war broke out, a narrow gauge 
railway with very little rolling stock— the section 
which runs from Archangel to Vologda. 
That is half the meaning of the great experi- 
ment in the Dardanelles. 
If the Dardanelles could be forced Russia 
could, in a far shorter time than through any other 
avenue, be munitioned. Until she is fuUy mimi- 
tinned (especially in heavy artillery and shell 
therefor) the handicap against her is exceedingljj 
heavy. 
Unfortunately, it is not only in heavy artillery; 
munition that this handicap is apparent. The 
first full accounts of the fighting, as they have 
appeared in the Hungarian papers, reached Eng- 
land only two days ago, and one of the most strik- 
ing features in those accounts was the description 
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