NEWS OF THE WEEK,
-T"past week has been full of great events and of what are, or at any rate seem to be, the beginnings of developments on new lines. We have dealt in our first leading article with the main features of the situation in the .Eastern theatre, and especially with the great movement to the north and north-east, in which Riga and Kovno are involved, and also with the explanation, believed in in certain quarters, that the Germans contemplate a dash on Petrograd rather than another attempt to catch the retreating Russian armies in a wide encircling movement. All this, however, is specula- tion. The main fact which reneains over is that up till now . the Germans, though they may be, as they assert, "in hot .pursuit," have as yet failed to overwhelm any of the Russian field armies, These are Steadily falling back to their new lines, fighting strong rearguard actions as they go, but rearguard actions whiell are often quite as injurious to the pursuers as to the pursued.
