LAND AND .WATER 
July 24, 1915. 
O S lO 
'd poviLcns represerJ: J\btyds 
The Archduke's bodies, A A, attacked 
repeatedly all that day and the next, but did not 
get beyond the line Williolaz-Bychawa. On 
Saturday last his attack was particularly furious, 
and none the less failed after ten assaults. 
Mackensen, in the determining part of this 
general action, was more successful. He delivered 
two blows, the one more strongly supported than 
the other. With the first he swerved to the left, 
along the arrows (1) (1) in the right centre of 
Diagram III., keeping, however, the mass of his 
guns and men near the causeway, as he was bound 
to do if his big artillery was to be efficiently 
supplied, and bearing, then, down upon 
Krasnostaw. His lesser effort was along the arrow 
(2) an attempt to force the brook Wolica near its 
mouth, where it falls into Wierpz. Meanwhile, 
the thinner portion of his line was keeping up an 
attack against the upper waters of the Wolica 
and the villages of Grabowice and Borescie. 
Both these efforts of Mackensen succeeded, 
and it is well worthy of remark that this success 
•was the first in many weeks wherein the Russian 
retirement was compelled by enemy pressure, and 
not due to deliberate choice. It is the more signi- 
ficant, because it has brought the enemy so very 
close to the Vistula line of railway. 
In the course of Sunday, the 18th, Macken- 
Een's main effort (the arrows (1) (1) upon Diagram 
III.) reached the whole front from the hamlet of 
Pilaskowice, which is but twelve miles from the 
main line of the railway, to the country town of 
Krasnostaw, which is but ten — though twelve 
miles by road — to the village and station of 
pejowiec. 
By the morning of Sunday last, early, both the 
village and the town were taken, and the Austro- 
German front lay immediately inclusive of, and 
covering Krasnostaw and Pilaskowice. 
Meanwhile, the effort along the arrow (2) had 
Also succeeded. The line of the Wolica was forced, 
the heights beyond it occupied, and, so far as can 
be gathered from not very full messages, the 
Russians retired, not only from the line of the 
Wolica, but above that line of the Grabowiec- 
Borescie, which villages they had defended with 
the bayonet successfully during the whole of 
Saturday. 
The Austro-German front, therefore, as a 
result of what may be called the battle of 
Krasnostaw, would seem to have lain on Sunday 
evening— the last moment of which we have record 
at the time of v,u-iting — very much as the line of 
crosses runs in Diagram III. 
It will be clearly apparent from this same 
Diagram III. that the Austro-German advance 
thus forced against the line of our Ally, now 
seriously threatens the main railway lying im- 
mediately behind it. 
So much for the southern effort. 
THE REIRKAT ON TO THE iNAREW 
The northern operation, which may properly 
be called the Russian retreat on to the Narew, 
can be more simply described, because only 
partial actions have taken place, and the retire- 
ment of our Ally has here been deliberate every- 
where, and not forced. 
It will be seen upon Diagram IV. how the 
country lies relatiA^e to the northern railway 
supplying Warsaw and the defences thereof upon 
the German side. This line is imperilled by the 
main German attack under Von Hindenberg — 
which attack is being conducted with about three 
hundred thousand men, or, as we have seen, only 
half as much as the force working on the south 
against Lublin and Cholm. 
The German armies are coming down from 
the frontier, behind which they are admirably 
served by a network of railways specially con- 
structed for aggression against Russia (and the 
ecjuipment of which was recently developed, like 
everything else in Germany, for this premeditated 
war) on to the line of the Xarew, which line, con- 
tinued by the lower reaches of the Bug after 
Serock, lies like a screen in front of the main 
northern railway. 
It will be clear from Diagram IV. by what 
