June 19, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
JAROSIAV, 
PRZEMTSL- 
LEbABERS 
Susswxts ixi Galicur^ 
^ •• . — OldSusscan. 
TrcrJ: befozxjazosiay, June lOtb. 
"xxj^^T^xx^-^xx O^ Oermaiz TrtKzf 
before lurawnow. hddJuiie £^. Ltstjuae lO^IZ^ 
is further from Lemberg than the 7.\\TZ,^riXi 
sector; but, mi the other hand, there are no con- 
siderable obstacles such as the Dniester in the 
way. 
(3) A long way off — nearly seventy miles to 
the south — another crossing of the Dniester has 
been effected at Zaleszky, backed up by the raih^ay 
from Czernowitz, and the whole Eussian line has 
retreated from the Pruth to the Dniester, and, in 
the immediate neighbourhood of Czernowitz, to 
the frontier. But action down there, apart from 
its political effect of separating the Kussian from 
the Roumanian forces and presumably delaying 
the entry into the field of the latter, has very little 
effect upon the general situation. The ultimata 
objective is still the breaking of the Eussian line, 
or, alternatively, the getting well behind the line 
of the Vistula. The immediate objective is Lem- 
berg, and action on the far south-east will not 
greatly effect either of these central objects save 
in so far as they retain troops occupied vrho might 
have been used by the Eussians in the centre. 
MUNITIONS AND PANIC. 
IN the columns of this journal, under the date 
of March 6 (that is, three months ago), 
there appeared four pages of close matter 
under the title " The Call for Ammuni- 
tion," and these columns contained among other 
phrases the following : 
If you were to ask off-band a man of good observation 
. " What b the prime factor in ths problem of the 
trenches? "... a soldier anywhere near tlie higher 
comnaand would almost certainly reply: " Ammunition, and 
tipsi-iallii heavy gun ammunition." 
And again : 
This is the point wre have to consider most carefully from 
now onwards, and it is one of those points in which public 
opinion and a grasp by civilians of the conditions abroad is 
of great value. 
And again : 
Public opinion, confu-sed or ignorant upon these 
essentials, leaves the authorities without driving power 
behind them. 
And again : 
There is needed far the proper supply of the heavy guns 
and, therefore, for the chief factor to a decision upon the 
West, all the heavy gtm ammunition that the vihole resources 
of the nation can turn out at the utmost speed and with the 
vinai vigorous resolution and sliill.' 
And again : 
There can only too easily be an insufficiency or a hitch, 
and yet, on the continual i»;rease of supply, on the sweUing 
and jurther swelling of itx stream, depends the future of thLs 
country more than vpon any other factor. 
And again : 
One could wish that half the energy devoted to voluntary 
recruitment could be turned on to emphasising and re- 
emphaiiising tliis all-importance of the supply for which the 
heavy guns are hungry . . . for there lies the key.' 
In the course of those four pages much more 
was said to make clear and rt>asonable these very 
emphatic pronouncements. They appeared, f 
repeat, more than three months ago, and so nmch 
being said, perhaps there is no reason to say more 
upon that particular head, so far as this journal 
is concerned. 
Ijut my readers will rightly demand that 
reasonable criticism of the campaign shall include 
some explanation of the situation at present 
reached in the supply of big shell, which means, 
of course, big shell charged with high explosive. 
The elements are perfectly simple. I will 
tabulate them : 
(1) The preparation of an advance against' 
an entrenched enemy is mainlv a matter of high 
explosive shell. When you have thoroughly, 
drenched a belt of such and such a width bv a 
crushing bombardment, your infantry can occupy 
that belt. 
(2) In this preparation you not only enter, 
but weaken, your enemy's line, for you make your 
enemy lose very heavily in men. 
(3) The actual breaking of an entrenched 
line (a thing not yet achieved in this war save 
once — in December, before Warsaw — and then 
rapidly repaired) is dependent upon hea\7- shell 
charged with high explosive being discharged 
continuously for many days against the enemy, 
after a fashion to which he cannot reply on 
account of his inferior supply of similar muni- 
tions. 
(4) Even if you do not break your enemy, 
but only drive him back from entrenched position 
to entrenched position, your effort depends upon 
the same factor. 
(5) If you can so drive him back, even with- 
out at first breaking him, you leave him but little 
time to prepare new positions : you may hope to 
break him at the end of the effort. That is what 
the enemy has been trying to do in Galicia against 
the Russians for six weeks past. 
The whole thing, then, is a question of high 
explosive large shell. 
Now, once a steady advance begins you get, 
as the Austro-Germans have found in Galicia, 
and as I have described elsewhere this week, a 
very difficult problem, which is that of communi- 
cations. It is not enough to have great quantities 
of big shell; you must also be able to move it 
forward as rapidly as your enemy retreats — and 
that is a big business. For handling big shell is 
like handling kitchen ranges or mill-stones. But 
for the initial effort, what you have to consider is 
your power of accumulating great masses of shell, 
which in number shall be something to which the 
enemy cannot reply, supposing, of course, that 
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