LAND AND WATER 
August 21, 1915. 
Bietiilled cause->\aj which runs from Vilna through 
Kovno on to East Prussia, and, lastly, the railway 
line which runs more or less parallel with this 
causeway from East Prussia to Vilna. 
I Metalled roads are rare in Poland and 
Jlussia. because the material for metalling is so 
xlifBcult to obtain. Vaiious coast roads come into 
•Kovno from the north and west, the two most im- 
tportant of which, north of the Niemen, join just 
on the eastern side of the little Kiver Nevia. 
j The fact that Kovno is thus a junction in so 
many important avenues for an army's advance 
'eastward, and controls the only possible avenues 
Whereby ample munitions for heavy artillery can 
Woceed, lends to it that capital character which 
ihas compelled the enemy to attempt to force the 
stronghold. But the enemy, being restricted to 
action from the west, is handicapped. He can, 
indeed, bring up heavy guns by two important 
avenues of approach, one the Niemen (here a broad 
and deep river, not at all swift, and capable of 
bringing up any amount of munitions and pieces 
upon its waters), the other the good causeway and 
its accompanying railroad, which proceed also 
from Prussia into this part of Poland. But when 
it comes to lateral communications joining these 
two main avenues of supply, and permitting him 
to feed his big howitzer batteries north of the 
river, or between the river and the railroad, he is 
in some difficulty. Between the river and the 
railroad on the west is a mass of dense forest, the 
edges of which come to points not far from the 
outermost held works of the fortress, and there 
are no gfwd roads along its edge; while to the 
north of the river, though the country is open 
there are nothing but tracks going north and 
south, no proper road at all, in that immediate 
neighbourhood. Further, the small Nevia River 
forms here a certain obstacle, which could be long 
defended. 
So far, the enemv has not penetrated beyond 
the very outermost field works, which are thrust 
far forward of the mobile temporary batteries. He 
has but carried one of these, where the steep bank 
affords some cover from fire, and the huts of the 
hamlet of Piple stretch under the bank along the 
south side of the Niemen. He appears to have 
achieved this contact with the very outermost 
works last Friday, the 13th. To the moment of 
writing (the evening of Monday, the 16th) he has 
made no further progress. 
* # '^ # * * 
All that dull, open Polish field south of the 
Niemen, with the line of forest along its hoi'izon, 
is haunted ground, for it was here (just east of the 
town beyond the great bend the Niemen makes 
there) that the principal mass of the Grand Army 
tramped across the pontoons in the bare dusk of 
that June midnight, and began, as it touched 
Russian soil, upon the further side, the campaign 
wherein Napoleon failed. 
H. BELLOC. 
THE AEGEAN AND THE BALTIC. 
By A. H. POLLEN. 
IB accoraaoce witb the requirements ol (he Press Bureau, which does not object to the publication as censored, and talics no 
respcnsibility for the correctness of the statements. 
MY article in last week's number of Land 
AND Water had, owing to the neces- 
sity of going to press early, to be 
finished by Saturday, the 7th. I am 
writing now on Tuesday, the 17th. The events of 
ten days, therefore, are under review^ They have 
been anything but uneventful days. They have 
brought a budget of very diversified news, and 
from all quarters. For example, Sir Ian Hamil- 
ton has reported fresh landings beyond Gaba 
;Tepe and still further north, perhaps at a point 
identified by the Turks as Karachali, on the 
northern coast of the Gulf of Saros. The war on 
the Turkish colliers proceeds briskly in the Black 
Sea. The intensity of Constantinople's need for 
coal can be measured by the sacrifices that are in- 
curred to get it. A Russian communique puts the 
total number of steamers and sailing ships, large 
and small, destroyed in the Black Sea at no less 
than 900. The vast majority of these, of course, 
would be the smallest kind of coast craft; by no 
means all would be colliers. And it seems quite 
reasonable to suppose that the many stories which' 
reach us of the Turks being gravely dissatisfied 
with the adventure into which the Germans have 
led them are at any rate well founded. When one 
remembers that what decided the Turks to come 
in was the presence of the Goehen and the a.s.sur- 
ance she seemed to offer that the Turks would 
command the Black Sea, and that this ship of 
destiny is now finally beached opposite Constan- 
tinople, the Turks seem to have every excuse for 
thinking that their taskmasters have betrayed 
them. 
Some curiously picturesque incidents are 
reported from the Adriatic. Once again a sub- 
marine has downed another submarine. This time 
it is the Italian that has caught the Austrian, so 
that the tables are turned. Another Austrian sub- 
marine is claimed in the southern Adriatic. An 
almost incredible tale is told of the French sub- 
marine Pap in, but it is in the French Army 
Orders, and its truth is not to be doubted. 
Lieutenant Cochin, in command of this boat, seems 
to have found himself among floating mines. 
These he promptly destroyed. Further investiga- 
tion showed that they had broken loose from a 
field of anchored mines in the neighbourhood. 
This field he cleared in a most original and daring 
manner. His crew dived below the mines and 
severed their holding cables one by one, when, of 
course, the mines floated on the surface, where 
they could be destroyed. In this way no less than 
a hundred w-ere dealt wath, and to prove the 
exploit the gallant lieutenant towed a couple of 
the mines which his crew had gathered to port, as 
evidence of one of the most extraordinary feats 
ever performed. 
In the North Sea we have lost the small 
patrol vessel Ramsey, sunk by the German armed 
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