8 
LAND & WATER 
July 20, 1916 
trenches will be drawn, probably en conlrepente, that is 
just behind the crest of the southern lulls(they are hardly 
hills — more like waves of land), and the game will begin 
over again. Meanwhile, it would not be surprising if the 
Germans, who are in some strength just north of all this, 
were to try a counter-attack in the direction of Torczyn 
to relieve the pressure upon the south. We shall see. 
Meanwhile the retirement upon the Lipa has cost the 
Austrians and the Germans,^ out of perhaps 60,000 to 
70,000 men engaged, the loss of 13,000 prisoners and 30 
guns, more than half of which were cmplaced heavy pieces. 
In other words they lost very few field pieces in their 
rapid move, but they had no time to withdraw ail their 
big stuff. The proportion of officers [captured to men 
remains extraordinarily high. Upon the Lower Lipa the 
proportion was over one officer to 30 men, and even in 
the action as a whole, coimting the tremendous fighting 
without surrenders, wliich must ha^•e taken j)lace by 
Pustomity and the main road, it was higher than one 
officer to 40 men. When we consider the fact that the 
number of officers killed in an action upon the front lines 
IS nonnally higher in proportion than the number of men 
killed ; that the Stalls are to the rear and protected in 
the general retirement ; that the officers have if they are 
but slightly wounded, as a rule, a better chance of escaping 
capture than the men, the numbers of the officers which 
have been taken regularly throughout this Russian 
offensive is among its most remarkable features. The 
point has been noted throughout the military press of 
Europe and is here only repeated. 
In Southern Galicia our Allies are still holding their 
hand, perhaps with the object of dispersing the enemy's 
plans of copcentration, perhaps for other reasons of which 
we are not told. 
The capture of the Kolomea district with its important 
adjunct, the seizure of Delatyn, gave them the entry to 
the Jablonitza Pass with its road and railway. As I said 
last week, one could not tell whether the Russians would 
work for pushing up Southern Galicia and forcing Bothmcr 
to fall back from his central position — that is for taking 
Stanislau — or whether they would attempt an invasion 
of Hungary across the Carpathians, or whether they would 
try both together. But I said that the first of these three 
doubtful courses was the most likely. Meanwhile a 
political tlireat to the Hungarian plains seems certainly 
to be in their mind, and they are pursuing it, as I suggested 
might be the case, not across the Borgo Pass, the valley 
from which westwards is divergent from the northern 
valleys, but in a convergent fashion upon Marmoros Szigct, 
the first point of importance upon the Hungarian side of 
the Carpathians, and the gateway to the great Hungarian 
Plain. Of an advance from Delatyn they say nothing, 
but of cavalry work along the southern road which leads 
from Kirlibaba to Marmoros Sziget (the first important 
point in Hungary) we are told that Russian cavalry have 
already crossed the crest of the mountains. There is a 
good road all the way from Kirilibab.a down into Hungary 
by the valley of the Visso, but with no railway for muni- 
tions. The Carpathians are here low ; the crest under 
3,000 feet ; the Passes lower still, and the rise gradual 
upon either side. But between the two roads, the 
Jablonitza with its railway as well as a high road, and the 
Kirlibaba road, there is rather a ragged lump of moun- 
tains which makes hason difficult between the two 
columns — if indeed it be the intention of the Russians 
to pursue this adventure upon any considerable scale. 
A Study of the Italian Front— I. 
IH.WE just returned from the Italian -front where, 
by the courtesy of the authorities, I was given every 
facility for seeing the condition and disposition of 
the national forces and especially of judging the 
nature of that mountain warfare which we have sp little 
understood in this country and the effect of which is yet 
of such moment to the whole campaign. 
• I propose to examine in this and further articles which 
are to follow in sequence, the problem presented to the 
Italians upon the front between the Swiss border and the 
Adriatic : its place in the great campaign as a whole : 
the way in which the Italians have met that problem : 
and the details of that very difficult task of theirs, the 
peculiar conditions of which have not hitherto, I think, 
been fully appreciated in this country. 
The first thing to seize in the whole matter is here, as 
everywhere, the question of numbers. What proportion 
of the enemy does the Italian effort contain or occupy 
upon this southern front ? 
If we represent the field armies of the two Central Powers 
by the figure 28, then including all the divisions they have 
on the Polish, the Western, the Italian fronts, and also 
the small forces they still maintain in the Balkans, and 
such men as they have been able to lend to their Turkish 
fRANC:^. 
'Ul- 
V t r 
Ally, we may put the number of Austrians immobilised in 
the South by the Italian armies at a figure which has 
fluctuated between 2| and 3|rd. 
That is the numerical statement of the case. But were 
we to stop at that we should very much under-estimate 
the effect of the Italian effort in the whole Alliance. 
This containment of what is numerically but a 9th or 
so of the total enemy forces has under the special circimi- 
stances of the Alpine War, three very important char- 
acteristics which in quality render the effect greatly 
superior to the mere effect of quantity. 
These three characteristics are as follows : 
(i) The Austrian armies here occupied are pinned to a 
district communication with which is in many places a 
difficult matter and everywhere restricted. 
(2) The political character of the Dual Monarchy renders 
the immobilisation of a considerable fraction of their 
forces upon this particular national frontier a far more 
embarrassing matter than would be the case were the 
Austro-Hungarian armies the homogeneous thing which 
Prussia has made of the German army. 
The position of the Italian communications was also 
certain sooner or later to tempt the enemy to a par- 
ticular offensive in this region, the failure of which would 
be of a spcial consequence. That offensive we know has 
been undertaken and has failed, and the consequences o\ 
that failure the whole war is already beginning to feel. 
Let me expand these three points, for they are essen- 
tial to a comprehension of the position. 
(i) {a) As to the peculiar situation of the Austro- 
Italian front relative to the rest of the lines ip the war. 
If the Austro-Italian front were merely the continua- 
tion of some existing front^as for instance the Rou- 
manian border hitherto neutral is merely the continua- 
tion of the Russian front in the East, then the presence of 
the Austrians upon it would be of far less value to us 
than is actually the case. 
(b) If the ground upon which the Austrians are thus 
immobihsed in the south were not what it is, Alpine 
ground, the effect would have been of less moment than 
it actually is. 
But both under {a) and under ( h) you have 
special conditions which greatly increase the va'ue to us 
of the withdrawal of so many Austrian divisions to what 
was a year ago the new Italian front. The distance at 
