LAND AND WATER, 
May 22, 1915. 
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out into the line indicated on the sketch map above 
by the line of dashes, which I have further indi- 
cated on the sketch by the letters A and B, at the 
two ends. 
The full retreat so far, however, had fallen 
upon the north, only a iviattor cif about twenty miles 
from the mouth of the Dunajec at C, to A, but 
upon the south from the head waters of the Biala at 
D to B, a matter of more like ninety miles. 
What was the cause of this greater tenacity 
in the north compared with this rapid retirement 
upon the south of the line ? 
The reason that the Russians thus hung on to 
the northern positions as long as they could was 
that a too rapid retirement there would have left 
a gap between their positions on the north and 
on the south of the Vistula, and that the thing 
that was most important to prevent, the piercing 
of a hole through the general Russian line, might 
have been accomplished by the enemy. The 
danger will be appreciated by a glance at the next 
sketch. 
The original line along the Dunajec and the 
Biala being represented on this sketch by the line 
A B, the Russian positions were continued north 
of the "Vistula along the lines of the Rjver 
Nida, and so up following the line B C covering 
the Russian- Polish town of Kelice, and ulti- 
mately reaching to in front of Warsaw in the 
north. 
Now, as A B retreated towards the San, unless 
the retirement of B C could keep pace with that 
retreat, there would appear along the Vistula a 
bad gap between the two halves of the Russian 
line, of which the enemy could have taken advan- 
tage to break through. It was, therefore, very 
important that the retirement of the Russian line 
in Galicia, at the B, or Vistula, end should be slow, 
and that the rapid falling back should not be per- 
mitted until the corresponding line north of the 
iVistula, in Russian Poland, had had time to 
prepare its own retirement. 
By last Saturday this retirement on the north 
of the Vistula had been effected. Kielce, 
apparently, had been evacuated, uncovering the 
Russian line through Northern Poland, running 
now rather in the direction E F, and the Russian 
retirement upon the San could be effected towards 
the nortli as it had already been towards the south. 
It would seem that by the evening of Sunday last 
the Russian line, probably reposing upon the 
I^wer San, h.ad reached some such position as 
E F G upon the above sketch. 
Jaroslav, we know, had fallen into the hands 
of the enemy a day or two before, and while it was 
not certain how far the Russians might have to 
fall back north of the Vistula, it was fairly clear 
that south of that river they would repose upon 
the Lower San and there make a stand. 
Roughly speaking, they had fallen back in 
rather less than a fortnight at an average pace of 
five or six miles a day and at the extreme of their 
line somewhat faster. They had, presumably, 
abandoned in wounded and stragglers and a cer- 
tain proportion of unwounded prisoners, inevit- 
able from such a retreat, well over 100,000 men, 
and they had lost in one way or another perhaps 
fifty or sixty field guns. They had at the same 
time, of course, entirely lost their grip upon the 
northern Carpathians and the easy passes across 
those mountains, and their immediate opportuni- 
ties of invading Hungary with the approach of 
summer were lost. And all this considerable 
check to the plans of the Allies we must ascribe to 
the difficulty the Russians find in equipment, 
and still more in the munitioning of their artil- 
lery, particularly of their heavy guns. 
THE LINE OF THE SAN. 
We find the Russians, then, at the end of 
this great retreat, standing upon what they them- 
selves called the line of the San ; but here arises 
an interesting and as yet doubtful point. 
Properly speaking, this " Line of the San " 
is not a line at all. As was pointed out in these 
notes last week, a prepared position along the 
Wisloka carried across the narrowest part of the 
intervening space between that river and the Wis- 
lok, and then carried along the Upper Wislok, 
would have proved a time defensive line reposing 
upon strong natural features, covering all the 
Galician positions behind it, and, though com- 
pelling a certain withdrawal of the Russian line 
north of the Vistula, not rendering that with- 
drawal too pronounced. But the line of the San 
River fails as a protective screen south of 
Jaroslav, and can hardly be continued north of 
the Vistula at all. 
To fall back upon the San is to leave quite 
\incertain the position of Przemysl, and above that 
town the positions in the foothills of the Carpa- 
thians, for south of Jaroslav the San comes in 
from the mountains in a great bend westward. 
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