LAND AND .WATER 
June 5, 1915. 
The frontier at this point follows the water- 
shed of the Carniu Alps, and the height of this 
wall at the critical point is not formidable, and 
the shape, which is more important than its 
height, is not formidable cither. In the twenty 
miles or so from the Terglou mass (which is where 
the Julian and Carnic Alps join) to the railway 
frontier at Pontebba there are numerous passages 
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over the wooded hills, and one good high road over 
the Predil Pass, which is only 3,800 feet above the 
eea and 1,400 above the railway. AVhile, there- 
fore, a main force shall be advancing up the valley 
from Pontebba past the fortified point of Malbor- 
ghetto towards the junction or Tarvis, other 
bodies could be turning the line by coming in 
from the south and beyond the Predil all the way 
to the Terglou, and there are opportunities for com- 
paratively large bodies of infantry to come down 
.upon the railway over the Save Valley. No good 
roads, I believe, but tracks, and the ridge, save in 
the immediate neighbourhood of the Terglou, is 
not formidable. 
The seizing of the second group of Austrian 
Alpine railways is a more difficult matter. The 
function of Trent itself is heavily fortified, and 
at is but the first of the nodal points, and the least 
important. The point Bozen (a branch railway 
which leads up a side valley, but does not join on 
with any further railway system) could be reached 
along a comparatively open road by anyone who 
tiad possession of the Tonale Pass to the south- 
.Tvest, but the all- important junction above Brixen 
Main Line over 
the BrennepPass 
to Innsbruek. 
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at Franzensfeste (F) could not be reached save by 
a frontal effort up the gorge of the Eisack. There 
is no way over the mountains for an army, or, at 
least, no way which quite a small force could not 
block. 
There is, indeed, upon the map — at least, 
upon a map on a large scale — an apparently easy 
attack upon the lateral railway where the Italian 
frontier comes close to it, in the region of the 
Dolomites. It is obvious that cutting this lateral 
railway would have the same effect as seizing the 
junction at F. But between the valley in which 
the lateral railway runs (called the Pusther Valley) 
and the Italian streams on the Cortina side is the 
ridge of a main range, and all that Dolomite region 
is abominable fighting country. There are three 
roads, one on either side of the Cristallo, the great 
mountain to the north of Cortina, and a third just 
where the frontier comes closest to the railway 
over the Kreuzberg. Against an insufficient de- 
fence, of course, any one of the three might be used, 
but it is not a region in which great numbers of 
men could act against any considerable opposition, 
THE PRZEMYSL SALIENT. 
The fighting round the salient of Przemysl 
continues undecided, and, vast as is the import- 
ance of the issue, there is very little analysis of 
tlie position to be usefully attempted until some- 
thing like a decision appears on one side or the 
other. 
The preliminaries of this struggle and the 
reason that the particular point of Przemysl has 
become of such moment is already familiar to the 
readers of these columns. The successful advance 
of the enemy through Galicia, chiefly possible 
through the dearth of Russian munitions, particu- 
larly in heavy shell, exhausted itself at the line 
of the San. A portion of that line in the imme- 
diate neighbourhood of Jaroslav was forced in 
the middle of May, the enemy obtaining a belt 
beyond the river which reached ultimately as far 
as Sienawa, and was in places four or five miles 
broad. But the enemy was unable to advance 
further than this, and the Russian line remained 
unbroken. 
Meanwhile the Russians had chosen to hang 
on to the salient of Przemysl, thus creating a 
situation apparent in the sketch of the line here 
shown. 
The salient was full of danger to the Rus- 
sians because a sufficient concentration of the 
enemy upon either side of its " neck " at D might 
cut that neck, destroy all the forces within the 
salient, and possibly pierce the Russian line as 
well. 
This latter and major peril attaching to the 
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