August 21, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER. 
been the most ample time for every unit of the 
main forces whose retreat was being covered by 
this screen thrown cut along the Thames to get 
right away. The heads of the retiring bodies 
are already at Rugby and at Huntingdon and at 
Ely, while the enemy, still fighting to master 
the obstacle of the Thames, is not yet anywhere 
a days full march beyond that river, even at 
his most advanced point, and at some places 
has not yet succeeded in crossing the Thames 
at all. 
At last, on August 14, the retreat north- 
ward:" of the main body on to the distant line, 
Birmingham — Ely — Yarmouth, now accom- 
plished, the screen defending the Thames line 
falls back, and the enemy, which had taken nearly 
thirty days to master the river, calls it ' break- 
ing a front." 
rOSITION OF NOVO 
GEORGIhVSK. 
The position of Novo Georgievsk in the pre- 
sent phase of the Eastern campaign is one of the 
most interesting points connected with that 
operation. 
It will be remembered that we pointed out 
in these columns how the deliberate retirement of 
the Russian forces, the successful accomplish- 
ment of which has just been discussed, would find 
peculiar difficulty in the evacuation of the two 
great fortresses of Ivangorod and Novo 
Georgievsk. The moving of the stores alone would 
be a matter requiring considerable time and 
the most exact organisation, especially in the 
face of such pressure as the Austro- Germans 
were able to exercise. The removal of the 
heavy guns would be a task of quite exceptional 
difficulty. 
Now we have seen that in the perfectly con- 
trolled withdrawal of men and material from the 
.Warsaw salient the Russian Higher Command 
and Staff work, which had shown themselves so 
capable in completely stripping Warsaw— an in- 
dustrial capital of the size of Glasgow — had 
shown themselves no less capable in the perfect 
evacuation of Ivangorod. They had withdrawn 
every gun and every cartridge and every sack of 
flour from an p.rea the fortified perimeter of 
which, counting the new external works, was not 
less than thirty miles, and the normal garrison of 
which would be at least 120,000 men, with per- 
haps 400 pieces other than field guns. 
But Novo Georgievsk, which, if Ivangorod 
could thus be triumphantly dealt with, was no less 
susceptible to perfect evacuation under the 
admirable organisation of the Russian retreat, 
has been left to stand a siege. 
Why has it been thus left, while its sister 
fortress was completely dismantled with such 
astonishing exactitude of manoeuvre, and with 
such amazing success ? Why has Novo Georgievsk 
been left behind to be surrounded by the flood of 
the advancing enemy ? 
The answer is obvious enough. The task of 
Novo Georgievsk, so long as it can still hold out, 
is to interrupt communication for the enemy by 
way of the Vistula. A sketch map will make 
clear this point. 
The Russian retirement depends for its 
evacuation of material, for its feeding and supply 
of the retiring units upon the railways marked 
o \o lo so 
• L 
Miles. 
1 and 2 on this Sketch III. Roughly speaking, 
the Russian retirement is from the line of crosses 
on this sketch map to the line of dashes, so as to 
flatten out the salient of which Warsaw was the 
apex. 
The main body has now already fallen back 
safely to a line roughly corresponding with the 
line of little circles running from A to B, and 
leaving Siedlice in the hands of the enemy. It 
still has rearguards protecting it along such a 
covering screen as C— D and E— F, but the main 
bodies have retired unmolested. 
Now, as they have retired they have destroyed 
in the most thorough manner' the two lines 
whereby the enemy could bring up guns and 
munitions and food. In other words, the two 
main railway lines (1 — 1 — 1) and their cross 
connecting line (3) will need a long repair before 
the enemy can use them again. Probably 
at the present moment the only portions of 
the line remaining of any service are those 
which lie behind the Russian front, and 
which I have marked on Sketch III. with a double 
line. 
The enemy pursuing the Russians must be 
supplied everywhere from his rear — that is, from 
the west, in the direction of the arrows. He has 
certainly repaired the roads, and he has probably 
laid down light field lines as far as the Vistula 
at least, to supply him during his advance. But 
note of what capital importance to him is 
the River Vistula. This broad, deep, navigable 
stream flows all along the front of the avenues 
whereby the enemy supplies his advance. Let its 
waterway be everywhere uninterrupted, and it 
would supplement prodigiously the congested rail- 
way trains and petrol lorry road trains of the 
enemy. He would not only be able to move slowly 
his food and all his shell along the roads indicated 
by the arrows, such as A, B, C, and D ; he would 
be able to relieve the congestion to an almost in- 
definite extent by the towing of munition barge.<i 
from the Lower Western Vistula towards H, up all 
along the front of the arrows, and he would save 
a double transhipment of the goods at the points 
where those arrows touch the river. But let Novo 
Georgievsk stand as an obstacle, and the use of 
the Vistula is blocked. This ring of fortifications 
which I have indicated on Sketch IV. by the 
letter N covers both banks of the river. No 
