LAND AND .WATER 
May 29, 1915. 
tn the week that has passed we have seen the 
development ol this situation, and we have also 
had information which helps to explain it. The 
great main elements of the whole thing are these : 
The entire enemy movement from its incep- 
tion upon the Dunajec four weeks ago to the 
present day has had for its object the breaking of 
the Russian line. 
The instrument for effecting this was a very 
large body of men, amounting altogether to 
perhaps a third of all the enemy's numbers in this 
southern part of the Eastern front, and mainly 
consisting of German troops. In artillery they 
massed no less than 4,000 pieces, of which (in- 
credible as it may seem) 2,000 are estimated to 
have been heavy pieces of various kinds. 
This gigantic " bolt " was very dense in 
general formation, and in its tactical action 
struck day after day in swarms denser even than 
has previously been seen upon the German side in 
this war. 
On this account the Austro- German losses 
were extremely heavy : though the enemy had the 
advantage of retaining as prisoners most of those 
■who fell upon the Russian side during these great 
operations, yet his total losses are almost cer- 
tainly twice as hea-ry as the Russians, and 
perhaps more. 
We discover that a concentration so enor- 
mous and the use of heavy shell to the extent, 
perhaps, of two million rounds, necessitated the 
advance of this main body strictly along the 
chief railway line, Tarnow-Jaroslav. All the in- 
dentation in the Russian line throughout the re- 
treat lies upon that railway line, and the supply 
proceeding along it is the explanation of the whole 
central advance of the Germans and Austrians. 
Meanwhile, above and below this central 
" bolt," the whole enemy line was advancing 
northward as far as beyond Kielce (K), south- 
ward from across the Carpathians nearly as far 
as Stanislau (S-T). 
The whole thing may be roughly represented 
ithus, where V-V is the line of the Vistula; S-S 
certain passages of the San forced. It looks for a 
moment as though the Russian centre v.as going 
to break at last. 
The critical day we now see to have been Z\Ion- 
day, the 17th of May ; but the German forcesacross 
the San were unable to hold more than a narrow 
belt, Russian reinforcements arrived in sufficient 
numbers for the moment, the expenditure of 
enemy ammunition had partially exhausted his 
supply, and for rather more than a week the bolt 
was checked, and the Russians, as a whole, stood 
to the positions upon which they had been forced. 
Meanwhile the retention of Przemsyl had 
given an opportunity to the enemy elsewhere than 
at the point where the " bolt " was acting — that 
is, elsewhere than in the neighbourhood of Jaro- 
slav. Of that opportunity the enemy at once took 
advantage. He is, at the moment of writing, still 
pressing that advantage with all his might. 
In the accompanying sketch of the whole line 
it wiD be seen that the retention of Przemysl has 
not only produced a salient of a very peculiar 
Stnil 
tjT' , 
Dniester. 
tfiO Mites, 
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• 
^ ^J 
R« 
^. ^5 
^v^ 
\ 
> 
3^^Lv 
4.4-*'*-*^^ 
From 
Cracow 
To LemBerg & 
'Russian Bases 
'VI 
is the San; P is Przemysl; T-J the main railway 
line from Tarnow to Jaroslav; the shaded oblong 
represents the "bolt"; the shaded line the 
enemy, and the white the Russians. These 
last are perpetually retiring before the ad- 
vance, and day by day, as they retire, just save 
themselves from breaking at the centre under 
the repeated blows of the " bolt," which is tied 
to, and launched along, the main railway. The 
process continues until this bolt reaches the San 
(S-S) at Jaroslav (J). Jaroslav is carried and 
kind, but has left upon the southern edge of the 
" neck " of this salient, at D, an extremely vulner- 
able sector in the Russian defence. The main 
railway line, which has come south from Jaroslav, 
runs eastward here from Przemysl towards the 
main base at Lemberg, and this railway lies but 
a very short distance indeed behind the positions 
to which the Russians have been pressed, at D. 
To cut that railway would be for the enemy, not 
indeed equivalent to the breaking of the Russian 
line, but the next; best thing to it, and perhaps a 
preliminary to it, too. The whole district 
of Przemysl would fall into his hands, a multi- 
tude of unwounded prisoners would be cut off, and 
there would be such an indentation made in the 
here curiously twisted profile of the Russian front 
that it might very well give way altogether. 
The enemy, perceiving this, struck blow after 
blow at D for the possession of the railway. He 
is still striking those blows. 
He is restricted here to a comparatively 
narrow front, because upon his right, between the 
two' towns of Komarno and Drohobycz, is 
an extensive marshy district (M), in which troops 
cannot operate. 
It is lucky for the Russians that this natural 
obstacle exists, for it prevents the enemy from 
extending the area of his attacks east of Przemy3l 
and it gives the Russian line here something to 
repose upon. But the enemy, to prevent a Russian 
concentration against him and to hold the maxi- 
mum number of troops elsewhere, is attacking 
with almost equal violence beyond the marshes in 
front of and to the east of Stryj, 
6* 
