LAND AND .WATER 
September 25, 1915. 
the vastness of their territor}', and the nature of 
their railway system — makes reinforcement of 
the north or south from the centre xinobtainable, 
yet there is a corresponding advantage, which is 
that the enemy dares not allow any one of the cor- 
responding groups to which the new liussian 
arrangement has condenmed him from becoming 
too weak. 
He would, if he could, throw all his strength 
into the north. He has, during the last two weeks, 
put forth, as we have seen, a prodigious effort with 
the object of encircling the Russian forces in the 
salient of Vilna. He has, as a consequence, and 
necessarily, starved certain sectors of the southern 
field ; the Russians have immediately taken advan- 
tage of that situation, and the enemy has been 
compelled to reinforce, not only Mackensen's 
right, just south of the marshes, but even the 
pounded Austrian armies, which have been 
pushed back from the Sereth to the Strypa. 
The details of the movements have been as 
follows : 
There runs just south of the marshes the 
main railway from Kovel Junction to Kiev. At 
the junction of Sarny this railway is cut by the 
north and south line, the possession of which is 
the immediate enemy objective, and which runs 
from Riga, on the Baltic, right through to Lem- 
berg, providing the sole lateral communication 
upon which the invaders can repose if ever they 
try to stand, and without which they cannot do 
anything but ultimately retire. Another railway 
from Kovel, which leads a longer way round to 
Kiev, and also to Odessa, runs south-westward 
towards Rovno, while the north and south, or 
lateral railway, after passing through the origin- 
ally fortified point of Dubno, reaches Lemberg. 
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The physical features of the ground south 
^L RiTr, l^l® '^® *^^^^ ^^^«"' Stry, Goryn, 
And Slutch (a tributary of the last-named) 
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On the accompanying Sketch IV., only their 
courses south of the marshes are noted. To the 
south again, immediately beyond a narrow and 
dry watershed, you have the Sereth, a tributary of 
the Dniester, and the Strypa, another tributary 
immediately parallel and west. It should be noted 
that just south of the Dniester we come to the 
neutral Roumanian territory, which forms the end 
of the chain of positions through Poland. Lastly, 
we should note that Tarnopol, upon the Sereth, is 
a junction of great im})ortance, because there 
unite at that point the main railway to the south 
of Russia, the Black Sea, and Odessa, and a lateral 
railway passing by the town of Tremblowa, and 
feeding all that last southern portion of the 
Russian front. 
Once in possession of these elements, we can 
usefully study what has happened in the southern 
field. 
The operations cover a fortnight. On Tues- 
day, September 7, a fortnight ago, the enemy 
menaced the junction of Sarny, beyond the 
Goryn River. Until he possessed that junc- 
tion, he could not depend upon the ulti- 
mate linking up of his central and southern 
armies. At the same time, already in pos- 
session of Dubno, he was exercising pressure to 
the south of Rovno, hoping to turn the Russian 
positions there, and to compel the Russians to 
give up Rovno. When the Russians should have 
given up both Rovno and Sarny, the Austro- 
Germans would be in a position to link up all their 
forces by the use of the railway, as will be 
apparent from Sketch IV. Meanwhile, the offen- 
sive was also undertaken by the enemy against 
the line of the Sereth, especially upon the impor- 
tant junction of Tarnopol. At this point, to 
which the enemy rightly attached great impor- 
tance, there were launched some 40,000 men of the 
German contingents, the third Guards division 
and the 48th Reserve. 
What followed upon September 7 is well 
worth noting. The northern part of the 
Russian line was falling back, so that the 
whole of it ran on that Wednesdav, 
September 8, from Koiki, south - eastward 
to a point between Dubno and Rovno, and so 
to the upper waters of the Goryn River. South 
of that stream it bent sharply west again till it 
covered Tarnopol, and then ran down the Sereth, 
covering Tremblowa, and so to the Dniester. It 
is apparent, therefore, that there w^as an indenta- 
tion on the line in the Upper Goryn, of which 
bending an enemy free to manoeuvre at will would 
have taken immediate advantage. But the enemy 
18 not free to manoeuvre, inasmuch as he has 
pinned himself to his heavy artillery, the one arm 
his superioritv in which permits him to advance. 
The bend did not correspond with the railway 
system, and before munitionment and heavy guns 
oould be brought to bear upon it, the Russians, by 
a violent counter-stroke in front of Tarnopol, had 
upset the whole plan. They surprised and 
destroyed two German divisions In front of that 
towrn and captured the greater part of their heavy 
artillery, which had, of course, been brought up' 
and munitioned by the railway from Lemberg. 
Most of the fiela artillery got away. On the same 
day, In front of Tremblowa, between 2,000 and 
8,000 officers and men were taken prisoners and a 
few guns. A few marches lower down, near tha 
