8 
LAND & WATER 
June 22, 1916 
idirection and are all of them so many avenues leading 
straight up from the south towards Lembcrg. 
. Further, there is no natural obstacle covering this 
rsouthern flank when once it has been opened. Its true 
'boundary and defence is the deep limestone cleft of the 
Dniester. Once you hold that, then you hold the Bukovina. 
The occupation of Czernowitz (apart from its political 
•^effect upon Roumania, of which 1 say nothing) gives one 
j^a complete hold of this region on account of the way in 
which the railway has been laid down. 
The one railway connecting Czernowitz and all its 
•junction lines with Lemberg and the north was not 
designed for modern defence. There is here one natural 
[obstacle, not a very formidable one, the upper waters of 
fthe River Pruth. 
j So high up in its course this watercourse is fordablc 
tin many places, even below Czernowitz. Still, even such 
•as it is for a Une of defence, the railway vital to the support 
■of Czernowitz makes no use of it ; neither does the great 
road. Both of them cross the Pruth just in iront of the 
town and proceed on their way to the north (the vulner- 
able side) beyond the river. 
It was thus an easy matter for the Russians once they 
found themselves in a superiority here, to cut off Czerno- 
witz before having to force the Pruth. 
Once they had occupied Sada Gora and Sniat\ii, 
Czernowitz was at their mercy, although the Pruth was not 
yet forced. For where the road and the main railway 
and the side line from the Carpathians all meet at the 
junctioy of Nepolokoutz you can cut the avenues of 
supply upon which Czernowitz depends ; and once the 
Russians had reached that level in their process of in- 
vasion, even before they forced the Pruth river, Czerno- 
witz was at their mercy. The enemy rapidly evacuated 
it, leaving at the bridge-head north of the river at K a 
battalion or two by waj' of rearguard and a few guns. 
-Most of this rearguard appears to have fallen prisoners 
to the Russians, and Czernowitz was entered upon Satur- 
day last, the 17th of June. 
The Army of Pflanzer which was operating in the 
Bukovina, with Czernowitz as its principal base and witii 
the railway from Kolomea as its chief avenue of supply, 
was not destroyed by the Russian success. It had the 
following fate : 
Somewhat over 20,000 men and officers fell into the 
hands of the advancng Russians as prisoners : a total loss 
of say a third to a quarter of its total effectives. Of 
the remamder some considerable fraction was got away 
by the main line up through Kolomea before that line 
was cut by the Ru.ssians, who, before reaching Sniatyn, 
had cut it at Nepolokoutsk. But the greater part of the 
remainder seems to have been compelled to fall directly 
back along the line which runs south from Czernowitz 
along the Roumanian frontier to Dorna Warta. 
Some of the published accounts speak as though a 
retirement along this line were perilous and its result 
doubtful. One cannot tell (without far more details) 
whether the Russians have any chance of interfering 
with such a retirement, but so far as the mere com- 
munications are concerned this railway is ample for the 
Austrian purjiose. It is true it goes tlirough a wild, broad 
and sparsely inhabited section of the Carpathian Range. 
It is also, i believe, true that bcfoi-e the war it was not 
linked up with the Hungarian railway on the other 
side of the valley over the easy Borgo Pass. 
That defect in communications (a gap of 30 odd miles 
^but served by an excellent road) has doubtless been 
made good since the war. In any case the road and 
railway between them would be quite sufficient to keep a 
rdrcatinc force supplied even if, as is probable, it stands 
upon the northern side of the mountauis. Still more is it 
suflicient for permitting a continued retreat if the Austrian 
Higher Command should find it necessary to withdraw 
the whole of this remnant back into Transylvania, and 
send it round by rail to Galicia. 
Meanwhile the test of all this southern operation is 
Kolomea. If or when the Russians occupy Kolomea (at 
least, within a reasonable lapse of time from the present 
moment), they will be really threatening in flank any 
Austro-German troops still operating upon the central 
sector west of the Strypa. For Kolomea commands the 
railway over the jablonitza Pass, i.e., the main avenue 
of approach from Hungary and Kolomea occupied, all 
(ialicia north of it is threatened. It is upon the fate of 
Kolomea that we must h.x ourselves in order to judge 
the news in this section during the next few days. 
Ill 
The Central Austro-German Salient 
The third sector of the movement concerns .the centre : 
Roughly speaking, the positions from near Brody to near 
Buczacz covering Lemberg. 
Here we must be careful not to fall into an error which 
misled opinion not a little when tilings were going against 
us on the eastern front, and which may equally mislead 
it now that things are going in our favour. 
The object of the RussLiin Higher Command, like that of 
every other Higher Command in this war, is not to occujjy 
territory nor to get " within so many miles of " places in 
the newspapers, nor to parade through " conquered " 
towns, but to obtain a decision against the opponent : 
that is, to put as many as possible of his armed men oiit of 
action with the smallest possible expenditure of armed 
men upon their own side. 
This military object is necessarily common to every 
Higher Command in any war, but it is peculiarly true in 
this war, and above all in the present critical phase of Ihis 
war, that it is the object of the Allied Higher Connuands. 
W'ith the Austro-Germans in their present situation ; 
with the (lerman temperament what it is ; with the type 
of neutral opinion the enemy hopes to affect ; and with 
the chance offered him by the baser Press even in the 
Allied countries, the mere occupation of territory and the 
parading of troops through occupied towns, has got a 
certain political value for the enemy's commanders. 
■ Strategically they were beaten long ago and they know 
it. Therefore, their remaining chance is largely political. 
But with the Allies it is just the other way. Strategically, 
if we regard them as one indissoluble body, the game is 
already theirs and has long been so ; and the one thing 
that could imperil their ultimate victory would be allowing 
political considerations— the mere retention of a town or 
the mere advance over territory — to interfere with their 
strategical conceptions. 
All talk, therefore, of the Russians " advancing on 
Lemberg " ; of our hopes that they will " take " Lem- 
berg, etc., of their being " only so many miles from Lem- 
berg," are as foolish and beside the nuirk, as the rubbish 
about the Germans being " only four miles from the citadal 
of Verdun." The Russians are not out to "take" 
Lemberg, but to disarm the Austrian forces in as large an 
amount as possible. 
Now, as we were saying last week, if they could get 
round south-westward from the Lutsk region towards 
Lemberg. while the Austro-German central forces covering 
Lemberg were still engaged far to the east, they would 
have a chance of cutting off great bodies of the enemy. 
There are two ways of disarming any enemy deployed 
m front of you. One is to smash his organisation by a blow, 
the other is to envelo)) him so that he surrenders. The 
Russians have accomplished a part, but only a part ol 
their task in the first method. Their great blow has put 
out of action certainly more than one-third of the Austro- 
Germans between the Marshes and the Roumanian 
frontier, perhaps nearer one-half. But they have not 
destroyed the organisation in front of them any more than 
the enemy destroyed the Russian organisation in his great 
advance last year. To do that they must somew^ierc try 
and envelop. The capture of the Bukovina (and 
Czernowitz means that) puts them upon one flank of the 
mam Austro-German forces in the centre. An advance 
southward and westward from the region of Lutsk 
