October 30, 1915. 
LAND AND .W A T E E 
while another force operating from Mitau had 
pushed up the main road and railway as far as 
Olai. At those two points the affair now stands 
checked — for how long we cannot tell. The 
enemy has bombarded at intervals the railway 
which runs north of and parallel to the Dvina 
and unites Riga with Dvinsk. The bom- 
bardment has been especially severe in the 
neighbourhood of Uskull, and it was thought at 
one moment — last Friday and Saturday — by the 
Russians that he meant to try a crossing at that 
point. There are two little islands there that 
would be useful, and the stream coming in at 
Borkowitz would help him to float his pon- 
toons down into the main river. Another 
theory is that he will attempt a crossing 
from the mouth of the Berze. He has there 
a large island, a stream again to help him 
float his pontoons, and, should he cross here, he 
would have his heavy guns almost in range of 
the city. But he must first carry Kekkau, which 
stands to the east of that mouth of the Berze. In 
his advance along the main Mitau road of railway 
the obstacle with which he appears to have been 
checked is the upper course of the marshy River 
Misse, a tributary of the Ekau, itself a tributary 
of the Aa. 
It has not been as closely noted in this 
country as the matter deserves (largely because our 
news from the East has been so scanty) that the 
Germans suffered a very severe series of reverses 
more than a month ago in their attempt to take 
Riga upon another plan. They proposed to 
come along by the seacoast, and to force the 
defile between the lower course of the River Aa 
and the sea. The whole effort broke down. Nor 
is it very easy to see why it should have ever been 
undertaken. 
That avenue of approach appears capable of 
indefinite defence by comparatively small forces. 
The River Aa "turns round eastward, run- 
ning parallel to the coast, never much more than 
two miles from the sea and sometimes only a few 
hundred yards from it. Upon the further side 
in the midst of a marshy swamp is a long and 
impassable lake : the Babit Lake (which our news- 
papers usually call the Rabit). Further on again 
comes the great Tirul marsh, which forbids all 
approach for miles. There must have been in this 
original attempt of the Germans a worked out 
plan for coming along the sea coast; but it broke 
down badly, and the only vestiges of it to-day are 
the comparatively unimportant fighting which the 
Russians have been carrying on at sucli points as 
Kcmmern and Kalnzem, to which apparently the 
Germans in this quarter have been pushed back. 
Meanwhile the latest development, the news 
of which was received just before these lines are 
sent to the printers, shows that the enemy is still 
held along the line of the Misse and at the mouth 
of the Berz^, for there has been heavy fighting at 
Kekkau, just on the eastern side of the mouth of 
the little stream and in front of the large island 
mentioned above. 
At the other end of this 150 mile quadrant, 
the course of the lower Dvina. the i)osition before 
Dvinsk is very slightly altered. The enemy is 
still held at Medum on the Novo Alexandrovsk 
road, a village just south of the lake of the 
same name, and about ton miles from Dvinsk 
itself. Further to the nortli at the slight eleva- 
tion of Schlossberg, and in front of the town of 
lUukst, there has been a very slight change, the 
enemy having here come forward in some 
strength, recaptured Schlossberg and occupied 
Illukst itself. He entered that place on Satur- 
day, October 23. It w'as generally reported in 
our papers that he had been thrown out of it by 
the Russians twenty-four hours later, last Sunday. 
But this was an error due to a confusion between 
the town and the river of the same name, the little 
River Illukst, running into the Dvina through — or, 
rather, past — the town of Illukst. Certain German 
forces crossed to the eastern side and were thrown 
back. The Germans are still in Illukst town and 
fighting just east of it to gain the Dvina and turn 
Dvinsk by the north. 
CAPTURE OF RIFONT SALIENT 
IN CHAMPAGNE. 
A student of the war who should confine him- 
self entirely to the military significance of news, 
and pay no attention to mere loss or gain of yards 
— still less to political objects — would neces- 
sarily have an insufficient point of view. But 
such an one would note with greater interest 
than any other item of this week's news the cap-, 
ture by the French of a certain small salient 
lying between Tahure and Massiges. 
Only two hundred prisoners were taken : the 
whole area occupied was but a few hundred yards 
in depth and less than two miles in length, yet 
the significance of the incident is very consicfer- 
able. When the offensive in the West was 
launched a month ago, and at one bound broke the 
first German line, mopping up, first and last, over 
30,000 prisoners, and putting out of action the 
equivalent of three corps, the halting of so 
vigorous a movement before the next system of 
enemy entrenchments was at once hailed by the 
enemy (at least in the stuff published for his 
civilian consumption) as " the failure of 
great Allied offensive," and this folly was 
pcated after a short interval by the Tm^s, which 
religiously follows the enemy's point of view in 
such matters for reasons known only to its pro- 
prietor. 
Now. the thing occupying the minds, not of 
the people who send out 'ofik-ial comfort to the 
Gorman public, or to their imitators in the 
the 
re- 
