LAND AND WATER 
August 14, 1915. 
It was evideiit that the prosecution of the 
enemy's plan in Poland could not now be success- 
ful until the third, last, and much the largest, ot 
his batches of recruitment should be available with 
the end of the Spring. . 
The enemv prepared for another move in the 
Eastern campaign when the end of April should 
arrive and the conditions of that new move he 
calculated as follows : 
XI. 
The Russians had overrun Galicia; they had 
reached the crest of the C'arpathians, and were 
about to threaten the Hungarian Plain. Ihey 
were protected in this action, as with a screen, by 
a bodv of about 120.000 lying along the Rivers 
Dunajec and Biala. Their effort was held up by 
the resistance of Przemysl, which fortress by its 
investment, accounted for a quarter or a third ot 
their men. But when, upon March 22, Przemysl 
fell the pressure upon the Carpathian Iront, 
which the Russians exercised, became very tor- 
midable. and the new enemy move was partly 
suggested bv the necessity of saving Hungary 
from invasion, an event which would have 
seriously affected the political solidity ot Uer- 
raany's ally. , , i x j -^u 
The Prussian commanders calculated witn 
iustice as the event turned out, that the accumu- 
lation of shell which they had been able to make 
during the winter was out of all proportion to 
that which the Russians could have manufac- 
tured at home— seeing their imperfect industrial 
development— or could have imported from 
abroad during the very short time which had 
elapsed since the ports of the Arctic and of the 
Far East had been free from ice. 
They believed it possible so to overwhelm a 
sector of the Russian line by bombardment that 
this sector would break, and that the end they 
had constantly sought for so many months and 
had as constantly failed to reach, the separation 
of the Russian armies into two or more portions 
out of communication with one another, could be 
attained. As he now had available at the end 
of April his last great mass of recruitment, and 
could back his immense superiority in artillery 
with a corresponding superiority in men, the 
issue upon which he gambled had heavy chances 
in his favour. As we shall see, he came within 
an ace of achieving his object, and though he 
failed — or has so far failed, after an immensely 
costly effort extending over more than three 
moftths — he none the less obtained results second 
only in importance to those which he desired, and 
which would have given him a true decision upon 
the Eastern front. 
The sector upon which he decided to act was 
that " screen " of Russian troops which held the 
line of the Dunajec and Biala and permitted, 
behind the. security which they afforded, the con- 
tinued, if slow, progress of the main Russian 
armies over the passes of the Carpathians. 
It was upon Wednesday, April 28, that the 
blow was delivered. 
The Russians had had ample warning of its 
nature and of the place where it would fall. But 
though they ivere so grievously lacking in heavy 
shell they believed that their months of fortifica- 
tion along the Biala and Dunajec line was im- 
pregnable to any effort the enemy might make. 
They were wrong. The last two days of April 
Supplement to I,ajjd and Watee, Aueuit 14, 191J. ^- 
were filled with concentrated bombardment of the 
heaviest type, pounding various sections of the 
Russan line along the river, a bombardment in 
which the Austrian heavy artillery, which is, and 
always has been, an arm superior to that of the 
Germans, particularly distinguished itself. 
The chief points upon which the fire was con- 
centrated were in front of the town of Gorlice 
and upon the Lower Dunajec, just after its junc- 
tion with the Biala. Upon May 1 the Russian 
resistance broke, and there was a moment in which 
it seemed as though the successful enemy would 
pour through and grasp the main fruit of his 
efforts, the breaking of the chain of the Russian 
armies. This, happily, he failed to do. The 
Siberian troops just saved the situation. But the 
whole of what had once been the " screen "' pro- 
tecting the Russian occupation of Galicia, and 
the Russian grasp upon the passes of the Carpa- 
thians, was from that day in full retreat, nor did 
the retirement halt until it had reached, twelve 
days later, the line of the River San. 
It is evident from the geography of this 
theatre of war that this retreat involved the aban- 
donment of the Carpathians by our Ally and that 
the immediate project of the Russian invasion of 
Hungary was at an end. 
None the less it is remarkable to observe how 
thoroughly the Russians rallied upon the line of 
the San. 
From May 13 onward every step in the Rus- 
sian retirement is undertaken with deliberation, 
at a moment chosen by the Russian commanders 
and not by the enemy, proceeds without confusion, 
and maintains a united front. Though suffering 
a grievous lack in mutionment, especially in heavy 
shell, delivering perhaps not a fourth of what the 
enemy could deliver against them, the Russian 
armies remain intact and preserve themselves in 
being for further action when their supplies 
shall have reached a sufficient level. 
The enemy was held upon the line of the San 
and in front of Przemysl until June 1. 
When he entered the latter town it was to 
find that every gun and every ounce of stores, 
every locomotive truck, machine, and supply of 
metal had been deliberately and almost at leisure 
evacuated from what had once been a fortress. 
It was three weeks before the same orderly pro- 
cess had been accomplished at Lemberg, and by 
June 22 it was clearly apparent to the enemy's 
higher command that it could no longer achieve 
its end or destroy the unity of the Russian 
organisation. 
Upon that date, or thereabouts, the enemy 
therefore turned to the second best which the posi- 
tion offered him. He had failed to obtain his 
decision, but he had turned the Vistula line; he 
had converted the position of Warsaw into a 
dangerous salient which could be threatened from 
the north and from the south, and he now pro- 
ceeded to exercise such pressure both from the 
northern and from the southern side of this 
salient as to compel the evacuation of Warsaw. 
He had at this moment about four million 
men between the Baltic and the Roumanian 
frontier. With about an eighth of this force he 
pressed upon the Upper Dniester and the Upper 
Bug; with about a quarter he pushed northward 
toward Lublin and Cholm in order to cut the 
southern railway which supplied Warsaw. Of 
the remaining half, one part exercised its pressure 
along the line standing in front of Warsaw, and 
16* 
