LAND AND ,W.ATER 
August 14, 1915. 
Vhrch the enemy have not yet succeeded in linking 
up their efforts. It is nol conceivable that these 
three hundred odd thousand men grouped under 
Von Hindenburgs command have through every 
form of loss suffered less than one hundred thou- 
sand casualties in all their opei-ations from the 
beginning, of which more than half must have 
been inflicted during the last three weeks. 
Consider that during the whole period, fight- 
ing (less intense, but continuous) has been going 
on throughout the whole front from the north of 
Couriand right down the Niemen line and again 
in front of the one hundred mile sector that 
covers Warsaw, and you will not fmd in the whole 
three months' campaign an enemy loss of less 
than one million between the Carpathians and the 
sea. 
I know that these figures sound high in the 
ears of those who have not considered in any 
detail that all-important factor of numbers. But 
they are not too high. To say of a force con- 
tinually advancing against such a resistance, per- 
petually checked and as perpetually delivering 
assault after assault and nine times out of ten 
failing to advance locally as a result of such an 
offensive movement, but compelled to renew it 
again next day and the next — to say that forces 
thus occupied are losing one and a half per cent. 
a week is quite certainly to put the matter too 
low. But in 15 weeks (April 28 — August 10) 
that is a loss of just on a quarter. We may affirm 
without fear of contradiction that the forces 
thrown by the enemy into this great attempt 
which has led him to so much gain of territory, 
but as yet to no decision, have suffered wastage in 
this quarter of a year of more than a quarter of 
their original total. To put it at a third might 
be too high, but a quarter is certainly within the 
mark. 
Most of these losses in men have been made 
good by drafts from the reserve of men which the 
enemy as a whole still possesses, but that does not 
affect our calculus of exhaustion, for the enemy's 
remaining powers depend upon his total of man- 
power both at the front and in reserve, and the 
campaign in Poland is but a part of the whole 
war. 
If we may thus estimate his losses in men 
and find them but slightly inferior to the losses 
of his opponent, what have been his losses in 
material ? 
The answer here is, unfortunately, very 
simple. With the exception of a few field pieces 
lost by him in the Russian counter-attack his 
material is intact. 
It is even true that his expenditure of shell, 
enormous as it has been, is in no way exhaustive! 
His original rate of production as compared with 
the Russian was at least six-fold. Not all this 
could be used upon the Eastern front, of course. 
Italian intervention has here been of the utmost 
value, for there is a great and increasing expendi- 
ture of heavy shell at every point of combat upon 
that new 300-mile front, and particularly in the 
open 12 miles soutB of Goerz. There is also the 
normal expenditure of the Western front, which, 
though reduced to a minimum, is continual over a 
line of four and a half hundred miles. But we may 
take it that even with this drain upon his resources 
and even with the gradual increase of Russian 
supply the enemy is delivering quite four shells 
to the Russian one in Poland, and that his pro- 
duction enables him to accumulate for hea\7 bom- 
bardments at inten'als of from a fortnight to 
three weeks. 
We may sum up, then, and say that the cam- 
paign in Poland will necessarily take the shape 
of a continued enemy offensive : that the chief 
anxiety the enemy now suffei*s in connection witli 
that offensive is the continuous drain of men 
which has led him very near to the exhaustion of 
' his reserve of man-power— we Impw, for in- 
stance, that he is calling already the very oldest 
classes of his reserves even in Germany; he has 
long done so in Austria : that the Russian ex- 
haustion in miuor weapons, particularly machine- 
guns, is severe, and can be but slowly recovered 
from. 
We may confidently assert that on the one 
hand the drain upon the enemy's man-power 
makes a continued campaign into the winter here 
very doubtful for him, and that he will strain 
every nerve to get a decision before the winter 
comes. We may assert as confidently that, fail- 
ing such a decision, the Russian opposition can be 
continued indefinitely. So far from its beginning 
to fail, it has shown in the last six weeks a regu- 
larly increasing tenacity. The Germanic 
advance north of tlie Lublin-Cholm railway and 
south of the Narev proceeds at a pace not one- 
fifth of that which was possible less than two 
months ago. 
Lastly, we note that when ample mnnitiion-i 
ment shall at last be accumulated by our Ally from 
both domestic and foreign sources, the vital 
weapon, the heavy gun, is present in his armies in 
undiminished numbers. 
This last point leads me to the considerati«Q 
of the Russians unexpected and remarkable suc- 
cess in the evacuation of the points upon the 
Vistula. 
EVACUATION OF IVANGOROD 
AND WARSAW. 
It is a pity that the one point which must 
most forcibly have struck professional opinion in 
connection with the abandonment of the Vistula 
has so little chance of impressing public opinion 
as a whole. 
There was pointed out in these columns last 
week the extreme peril which the Russians ran of 
leaving behind them or losing, even if they were 
destroyed, the heavy guns of the two fortresses 
(Ivangorod and Neo Georgievsk). 
We must not be deceived by the description of 
the forts of Ivangorod as old-fashioned. The 
permanent works were not in question at all. The 
point was that in the temporai-y exterior batteries 
to which, as in the case of every fortress in 
Europe by this time, the heavy pieces had been 
removed, and which made of Ivangorod the strong 
place it was, all the great guns were successfuUyj 
and almost leisurely got away. 
Exactly the same thing happened at War- 
saw, where the armament was on a much smaller 
scale, but where the stores were enormous. Not 
only has Warsaw been cleared of every cartridge 
and every piece, but, a most important point, all 
opportunities for using the industrial resources 
of the town have been denied the enemy. All the 
metal and all the machinery is accounted for. It 
is a really marvellous feat, and it speaks volumes 
for the deliberate and free character of the 
Russian retirement. 
There still remains Neo Georgiev&k. Ger- 
