LAND AND ,WATJiE. 
July 17, 1915. 
Ivan^orod 
Kowel 
Kowno 
iJ 
this g^parate title, though no final or decisive 
effect has yet developed from it. 
I THE BATTLE OF KRASNIK. 
The fundamental conditions of the Battle of 
Krasnik are these : — , , , • • 
1. For his main advance, for the bringing up 
of his munitions, and for his ultimate pressing on 
to Lublin and the railway line, should he defeat 
the Russians, the enemy has one main causeway. 
.■There are smaller country roads not properly 
kept up or metalled even in the degree that the 
main causeway is metalled. But the main cause- 
r.way is the only available avenue for moving the 
mass of his vehicles, and particularly his heavy 
munitions upon which he depends. 
When, therefore, the main blow was struck, 
it was bound to be struck in about equal propor- 
tions east and west of the main causeway, which 
.would be the centre of the action. 
2. The action before Krasnik, essentially an 
attempt upon the part of the Archduke's column 
to reach and cut the railway at Lublin, lies 
parallel to, and was necessarily co-ordinated with, 
the action of the other column thirty miles to the 
east, the Germans under Mackensen who are aim- 
ing at Cholm, and who were operating in front of 
Zamosc, just as the Austrians, with certain Ger- 
man contingents, were operating in front of 
Krasnik. This German column under j\Iackensen 
;Was, like that of the Archduke, tied for its pro- 
"visionment to one main causeway — that whicli 
passes from Zamosc to Cholm through Kras- 
nostaw. 
3. Both these main masses, concentrated on 
the only two great causeways of the district, are 
connected, as we have seen, by a comparatively 
thin line, and are also protected upon their flanks 
by comparatively thin lines reaching to the Vistula 
upon the one flank and to the Bug upon the other. 
4. The connection between the first column 
and the second is somewhat interrupted by the 
marshy valley of the Upper Wierpz. This river 
runs in a depression roughly parallel to the Cholm 
causeway, and it has the following effect : If 
either of the two main masses of the enemy were 
to suffer a serious reverse, the other could not 
reinforce it rapidly, because the marshy depres- 
sion of the ^Vierpz runs between and there is no 
good road communication. The whole situation 
may be grasped from the following sketch, which 
I Ivon^rcd 
Chobn \ 
Ysasncstaw 
ZOEIOJC 
Komionta 
shows the principal elements of the ground. The 
scale may be estimated from the fact that the 
whole front, from the Bug to the Vistula, over 
which the enemy is operating is about eighty-five 
miles. The enemy has no troops beyond the Bug, 
and his front presents a certain salient, because it 
turns back southward down the Bug valley to 
Kamionka. 
