L A N P ^: ^V A T E R 
June 15, 1916 
to understand what is happt-ninf,'. be closely followed 
upon the forcpoing sketch map I. 
The centre of the Eastern front from the lakes of the 
Dvinsk ret;ion rif,'lit down throuiih the marshes of I'insk 
to the lower c(•llrs^•^ of tlie Kivcr St\r is a rt'Kion of forest 
and marsh quite improjx'r to lar^'e niiiitary movemeiUs. 
and this is especially true of the southern part of tlu> 
central portion, the marshes of Finsk themselves. Ihev 
is no exact boiuularv traceable for this region in which 
the numb<MS required to holil a line (or for that matter 
to attack it) ar«- far below the normal and in which, more 
properly speaking, there is no true line at all. Hut when 
we come to the limit of tjlaciation, that is, to the southern 
edge of the area which was co\ered by ice in early times, 
the quaternary formations of sand and alluvial nnul 
gradually ceasi- and one reaches the tertiary cretaceous 
formations King to the south in the non-glaciated area. 
The chariuter of the laiuls. ape. as of the ground, changes. 
From this point southwards the movements of troops on a 
large scale is possible , roads, railways and multitudinous 
human habitations appear. 
The River Stvr. which rises near the town of Brody 
and flows noithwanl into the Marshes of Pinsk. i)asses 
just before it reaches the marshy region under a group of 
low hills lying above its right bank and marked upon 
Sketch Map i with the letter " A." Just at this point 
stands also on the fight bank the village of Kafalovka. 
which we may regard as the northern limit of the line 
useful to operations. Hev'ond this village to the north 
nothing effective can U- done. To the south the country 
is ground for a campaign 
Just south of this little group of low hills a railway, 
which is the arter>' running south of the marshes, crosses 
the River Styr at Tchartoriisk. The station and large 
village of Tchartoriisk (now, of course, long in ruins), lie 
.ipon the left bank of the Styr. a situation which gives 
them greaJ^ importance. For the Russians seizing them 
|X)Ssess a bridge-head across the river— here for long the 
chief defensive obstacle in front of the Austrian line. 
This ruin and bridge-head of Tchartoriisk were taken 
bv the Russians some time ago, and they have held them 
ever since. But inunediately to the south the original 
Austrian line against which the Russians have just struck 
lav open uptoithe river and fcjllowed it as far as the bridge 
of'Kolki. Here the line crossed the stream and proceeded 
southward as follows : 
It ran jnst in front of the villages of Silno and Kar- 
Eilovka. At this point it is worth while noticing that a 
nc of marshe^ lies here immediately to the east. 1 have 
marked them B B upon the sketch. It was this line of 
marshes which formed the true covering of the Russians 
in this district for many months, and they occupied 
Karpilovka as a sort of bridge-head t)eyond it. Their 
front trenches, then, reached just south of Karpilovka 
to the second of the railway communications, the im- 
portance of which 1 will deal with in a moment, the railway 
between Rovno and Kovel. South of the railway there 
comes a fairly dry region of rolling land, the principal 
village in which is called Olyka. This is a region of con- 
siderable importance in the line, the name of which," the 
region of Olyka," will be remembered by many of mv 
readers as appearing in recent communi(pies, and we shall 
see a little later on why it is so important. Thence the 
hue continued southward until it struck, immediately 
in front of Dubno, the third of the main lines of com- 
munication which it crosses, the railway through Brody to 
Lembcrg. At this point the .\ustrians began to rely as 
a defensive line upon the upper course of the river Ikwa 
which flows past Dubno. Roughly speaking, the old 
front followed the line of the Ikwa, but the stream, which 
is here no formidable obstacle, was in Austrian hands, 
and the Russian front lay east of it, passing near 
Kremenietz. Then it crossed the old political frontier 
between the Austrian and Russian Empires, enter- 
ing the Austrian province of Galicia. The old 
frontier here corresponds to the watershed between 
tile basin of the marshes of Pinsk. that is of the Styr and 
of its tributary the Ikwa, and the great basin of the 
Dniester, which river is the artery and in some sense the 
creator of Bukovina and of south-eastern Galicia. With 
the watershed the ground and landscape change. The 
Dniester basin is hard exposed sandstone, a bare 
plateau through which the great Dniester itself runs in a 
deep cleft as do its tributaries, which come in singulariy 
parallel lines straight from the north to jom its stream ; 
the ^trvpa, for instance, along which the old front ran 
down as Lr as the Dniester. After crossing the frontier the 
line covered the town of Tarnopol and crossed, not far from 
the station of Jezierna, the f(uirtli great line of com- 
munications bv "road and rail, that leading frorn Tarnopol 
to 1 emberg. "liefore reaching the Dniester the line crosses 
the lifth and sixth main avenues of communication ; the 
fifth being the railway just soulli of Tarnopol and leading 
to Strvj • and the sixth the railway through Buczacz 
which "a little way off to the west joins the main line 
from Czernowitz through Kolomea and Stanislav to 
Strvj and l.emberg ; Leinberg we see again is the great 
railway centre, as it is also the great road centre of the 
whole "country. After reaching the Dniester the old line 
left to the Austrians this formidable obstacle as far as 
( )kna statiiu), which is at the end of a little branch railway. 
Immediately after this point the line ended upon the 
Roumanian frontier. 
There was, therefore, on the extreme left, grave diffi- 
culty presented to a Russian advance in the deep valley 
and broad stream of the Dniester covering the Bukovina 
and the main Russian effort to effect a breach m the 
Austrian line must necessarily be made, not to the 
I^ussian left or south, but to their right or north. 
Such was the front along which the general bombard 
meut opened upon Saturday, June 3rd. The mere ele- 
ments of the map show one at once that a real Russian 
advance to be properiy supported must rely upon the 
whole nexus of railways which con\'erge ripon Lembcrg. 
An observation equally elementary is that if the Austrian 
front were really broken then to break it not far south of 
the marshes would be to isolate the great mass of it 
lying from the neighbourhood of Lutsk to the Roumanian 
frontier. 
The Russian effort then has been for now a week, and 
still is, so to destroy the Austrian resistance in front of the 
right centre of the Russian line, iij front that is of the 
region of ()l\'ka marked 1) upon Map I, as to permit 
the cutting off and turning of everything Austrian to the 
south of D. The immediate object is to break the front 
and compel a retreat in front of D. But attainment of 
that immediate object will have but an imperfect 
result unless the ultimate object is also attained and 
unless the Russian advance can be so rapid and the 
Austrian retreat compelled to be so precipitate that in 
some such direction as the large arrow marked E E upon 
the .sketch map, an advancing Russian body can turn 
all the Austrian positions to the south. 
If the Austrians prevent this, and if the main Russian 
advance can only proceed northwards towards Kovel, 
no final result will be achieved. 
\\'hat the Russian forces attacking are we do not know. 
What we do know is that they have a great advantage 
in number. 
We also know roughly what the Austrian divisions (with 
two (ierman divisions added) come to upon this front. 
The total of men corresponds to that minimum necessary 
to hold a defensive line, which has been everywhere 
apparent in the later stages of the great war. The line 
as a whole — that part of it which is subject to attack — 
is somewhat over 200 miles long, and the total of the 
Austrian forces present upon it at the moment, plus the 
two Cicrman divisions (one of them the 3rd division of 
the invariably included Guards corps), is just under 
700,000 men. 
Such then are the conditions of the task. The Russians 
started from the line we have described, evidently sur- 
prising their opponents, who did not believe they were 
read\- to take a general offensive yet ; bombarding the 
whole enemy line (upon the French model) in order to 
make him doubtful as to where the main blow would be 
delivered, they, were none the less compelled to choose 
some one region where their pressure should be far more 
severe than in any other. They were compelled to such 
a selection because the concentration of heavy artillery 
and of niiinilionment and of men required for a main 
stroke is only possible upon a front of some few miles. 
The region where the concentration was effected was 
that of Olyka, and, while the Austrian line as a whole 
has given way somewhat in many points, has stood 
in others, the main blow upon which c\-crything must 
I 
