May 22, 1915. 
LAND AND W A T E R 
forming a line far too long to be held by the re- 
treating troops and apparently already forced in 
more than one place. 
It is probable that the mere name Przemysl 
will have a great effect upon the situation, and 
that our Allies will be at gi-eat pains to prevent 
the re-entry of the enemy into that town, although 
it is no longer a fortress. But in so doing they 
are producing a very dangerous salient in the 
defensive line, which it is the enemy's whole 
object to break through. 
To put the matter as a mere strategic 
problem without any considerations of sentiment 
of any memories of the immediate past : suppose a 
force, badly hampered for munitions, as is cer- 
tainly the Russian Army at this moment, and con- 
cerned with arresting the advance of an enemy 
weU provided, coming upon it from the west and 
east across the Galician Plain, what line would 
such a defensive presumably take up ? 
Undoubtedly it would take up the line of the 
San from its junction with the Vistula to some- 
where in the neighbourhood of Jaroslav. But not 
far from that railway junction it would leave the 
San to follow the Wisznia, and continue the same 
direction as the Lower San does north-west by 
south-east on towards the Dniester. It would thus 
defend Lemberg and the two main lines of rail- 
way (1) and (2) leading from the Russian bases; 
it would concern itself with protecting the 
advance base of I^mberg ; but it would not bother 
about the pronounced salient of Przemysl and tlie 
big bend of the San westward beyond that point. 
Our Allies may be able to hold the salient 
of Przemysl, or they may not have had time to get 
away the heavy guns of that fortress. They may 
have munitions for these guns, but to attem.pt to 
hold Przemysl quite clearly weakens their line as 
a whole. 
All conjecture upon the probable line that 
will be adopted, whether Przemysl will be held or 
no, is the less easy from the fact that the Russian 
communiques ever since the beginning of the 
retreat nave been quite insufficient for the 
formation of opinion. We have had to depend 
almost entirely upon the statements of the vic- 
torious Austro-Hungarians, and these, though 
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they probably somietimes exaggerate the number 
of prisoners, are accurate in the statement of 
places reached and of crossings effected over the 
various rivers which run parallel one behind the 
other across the Galician Plain. 
THE RUSSIAN COUNTER-OFFENSIVE 
IN THE EAST. 
Meanwliile, upon the extreme left, or eastern, 
wing of this long Galician Russian front, our 
Allies were taking the counter-offensive. Their 
probable object in this I will deal with in a 
moment. The first thing to appreciate is what 
the precise movements were. 
During the whole ten days of the main retreat 
of the right wing (A — B in the sketch below) from 
the Dunajec towards the San, the Russian left 
wing (C — D) seems to have lain quiescent. But 
four or five days before the line of the San was 
reached by the right wing (A — B) of the Russian 
armies in Galicia the left wing of the same 
(C — D) began its counter-offensive, Sunday, 
May 9, being the first day of this operation. 
It is significant that the pressure exercised 
here took five full days to develop, and presumably 
means what we noticed upon the right wing- — the 
lack on the Russian side of heavy artillery 
ammunition. The Russians effected against their 
enemies to the east of Galicia (and on a smaller 
scale) in five days what the Austro-Germans had 
effected upon a larger scale in the west of Galicia 
in two days and a half — to wit, the compelling of 
their adversary to retire from a defensive line 
long occupied. This defensive line was that of 
the River Dniester, from the borders of the 
Russian Empire up, presumably, to a point about 
Austro-Geraum Froilt on. 
May S^. when. Uie Russian 
Coantec OCFensivt ie^ati.. ' 
ten or fifteen miles as the crow flies down the 
river below Halicz. We have no information as 
to the exact point which the Austrian defensive 
line along the Dniester reached, but the point 
marked with a cross on the accompanying sketch 
is a fair guess, seeing what followed. 
We may take it, therefore, that the counter- 
offensive of the Russians on their left wing struck 
at an Au.strian line which bent round from where 
the Dniester enters Russian territory, went north 
at Nadworna, and got into the foothills of the 
Carpathians about fifteen miles south-east of 
Stanislau. Such a line would, with its main 
sinuosities, he about what the Russians claim it to 
be^to wit, a front of a hundred miles. 
By the 14th the Austrian front, tliough no 
more really broken than the Russian front along 
the Dniester had been a fortnight before, was in 
full retreat, leaving behind it its wounded and 
stragglers, exactly as the Russians had left theirs 
behind during their retreat upon the right wing. 
