TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE EASTERN CAMPAIGN.
AT the time of writing these words it is impossible to reconcile the official accounts from Berlin and Petrograd as to the situation at Kovno, but for the purpose of this article we may assume that if Kovno has not already fallen it shortly will fall. There is no doubt about the great strategic importance of Kovno. The Russians have tried to hold it with every bit as much energy as that of the Germans who have been assaulting it. If there had been an equal contest between man and man, the Russians would be safe and smiling ; but the weight of mechanical contrivances has been on the side of the Germans. The great sixteen-inch guns with their plentiful supply of ammunition have reduced some of the forts to a heap of ruins, and we can hardly doubt that the long Russian retreat must still be continued. Words would fail us to express the admiration :felt in this country for the masterly coolness and skill with which the Grand Duke Nicholas has kept his armies together in spite of the enormous pressure directed against them. So far he has not left a single army corps to be " mopped up " by the enemy. He has systematically dismantled towns and removed anything likely to be useful to the Germans as he has conducted his orderly retreat. The linking together of his armies has not broken down, and the Russian Staff must be said to have brought their extraordinarily delicate and complicated work almost to the point of perfection. It bad been hoped that when the Niemen-Bug line had been reached the Russian armies would be able to stand indefinitely, for this line has always been the choice of the Russians for defensive purposes. Before the war broke out this was the line which they intended to hold till they were rendered strong enough by preparation to attempt an advance into Silesia. But we all know how events changed that intention. The thunderstroke of Germany against the Allies in the West by way of Belgium decided the Russians, with splendid generosity and boldness, to create a diVensiull. They nut only stayed on a more advanced line in the dangerous Polish salient, but conducted the memorable incursion into East Prussia. This change of plans, absolutely necessary though it was from the point of view of the combined strategy of the Allies, was costly in several ways. If the causes of the great :Russian retreat are various and lie deep, the change of plans, which prevented the carrying out of long and compara- tively undisturbed preparations, was at least one of them. We must now face the facts as they are.
The fall of Kovno, of course, is, or will be, a serious fact in itself. But it is by no means the only fact in the situa- tion. An infinitely greater fact is that the Germans have not yet succeeded in breaking any part of the Russian armies, much less have they succeeded in their favourite plan of envelopment. The truth is that the Germans will not bo able honestly to claim the only success which is reasonably open to them in Russia unless they do drive a wedge between the main parts of the Grand Duke's forces, or do envelop such a large portion as to cripple the remainder. It is true that the Grand Duke is by no means out of danger, and that during the past few days his dangers have actually increased ; but his skill and the skill of his Staff, having showed no signs of failure as yet, should be equal to all the new difficulties. An arrogant intel- lectual confidence among the German loaders is likely eventually to entangle them, for the further they are drawn into Russia the greater their difficulties will become, The summer closes in ; autumn approaches ; winter—the early and rigorous winter of Russia—will soon arrive, and we shall then see whether in the vast spaces of Russia, hitherto deemed unconquerable with excellent reason, it is easier to maintain an army among ice and snow than it was for Napoleon in 1812. Within a few weeks Marshal von Hindenburg will not only be fighting against the Grand Duke ; he will also be fighting against General November.
Newspaper readers are apt, when they road what is undoubtedly grave in the news from Russia, to forgot all the favourable elements in the situation in the whole enormous theatre of the war. In the great French wars there were times when it seemed impossible that Napoleon should be beaten. Yet in the end ho was a broken man and a captive, and Europe was delivered. So it will be in this war ; time, even if the Allies have to fight a war of pure exhaustion, is on our side, as it always must be on the side of those who hold the sea. Prolongation of the war is a terrible thing for us, but let us remember that it will create still more terrible difficulties for Germany. We shall say nothing of her approaching economic straits, but think only for the moment of the prospects before her if she penetrates further into Russia. Her reserves of strength are not so great as her newspapers are drilled to tell us. It often happens that when one side believes itself to have failed to match the strength of the other side, the other side has also reached the top of its effort, and is beginning to decline in energy and power, as when at the battle of Spion Kop both sides wore simul- taneously retiring down opposite sides of the bill. With Kovno in German possession, the Grand Duke will hardly be able to hold the Bobr-Bug line or the great military centre of Brest-Litovsk. The Germans will be across the Niemen, and Vilna will be the next objective of their advance in the north. The large Russian armies on the Bobr-Bug line will find their communications threatened. The menace to Brest-Litovsk itself is already great through local as well as distant pressure. It had been supposed that the great tract of marshes which lie south-east of Warsaw would protect the Russian flank at Brest-Litovsk, but according to the latest news Marshal von Mackensen has thrown troops on to the right hank of the Bug at Vlodava. In other words, the marshes have been an insufficient protection, and the Grand Duke's left flank is threatened. The fortress of Novo Georgievsk, which has been isolated for a fortnight, still holds out, and meanwhile it performs a most valuable office, as its guns command the railway running from East Prussia to Warsaw. This counting up of points tolls, of course, strongly in favour of Germany, but even so there is not a, sign that anywhere is Germany approaching her object of breaking or enveloping the Russian armies. Directly she tried to turn her back or to leave behind a weakened line, the unbroken Russian troops would resume the offensive.
Possession of the railway at Kovno—Kovno is an im- portant junction on the line from Berlin to Petrograd— and the fact of being astride the Petrograd-Warsaw railway at Vilna (assuming for the moment that the Germans will reach Vilna) are quite likely to inflame the German mind so ardently that the tall talk about a rush on Petrograd may really develop into an active plan. If so, we could wish for nothing better. A rush on Petrograd cannot really be a rush. Even German logic at its most logical would probably be prudent enough to want to make sure of Riga before trying to go through the difficult country that lies between the Baltic provinces and Petrograd. The German attempt to secure Riga by sea was not very encouraging. The Russian mine-fields were evidently effective, as three German ships were damaged before the attempt was abandoned. The Germans already hold most of the southern shore of the Gulf of Riga, but that does not make them masters of the mine-field, although the deep-water channel runs near that shore. As we know from our experience in the Dardanelles, it is not an easy matter to dispose of a mine-field. Even if tho Germans should succeed in clearing the Gulf of Riga, they could not do it in a moment. Again, there are the Russian troops along the Riga-Dvinsk line to be disposed of. If Riga itself could not hold out for a long time, the Grand Duke probably would not hesitate nevertheless to allow the garrison there to be cut off if by holding out for a certain period it could delay the German plans, as the fortress of Novo Georgievsk is doing now. When one cause of delay has been added to another, the time the Germans would consume in coming near Petrograd would take them well into the winter. And what then Petrograd is the capital ; but even a capital is for all military purposes a mere name if the armies of the country are still in being, and ready for light, and growing in numbers, and improving their equipment. We should see the Russians fighting under conditions with which they are perfectly familiar against troops who are clumsy at moving in snow and ice, and whose supplies are impeded by icebound waters. In that case we should be glad to be allowed to put our money on our gallant and resourceful ally.
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