Outlook is discussed

Russians still retiring

Galicia is not clear of the Russians, and our Allies are still fighting with splendid skill and courage, but the retirement continues.

The weight of the attack has compelled them to give way to South-East of Lemburg on the Bobrka-Zurawno front, but the falling back was preceded by a stubborn resistance in the course of which some 1,600 of the enemy were taken prisoners.

Fresh defences are now being taken up on the Guila Lipa River, which runs 15 miles east of Bobrka and 35 of Zurawno.

Yesterday’s German communiqué claims still further success on the southern Dniester, Halicz being occupied, and all the crossings of the river on its entire front captured and dominated.

North-East of Lemburg, it is further claimed, the Austro-German forces are approaching the River Bug, while further west, in the movement against the Tanew, there are said to have reached Cieszanon, a few miles from the frontier North of Jaroslaw.

They have also brought great forces into the field on the left bank of the Vistula and on the Ozarow-Zavikhost (North of the confluence of the San with the Vistula), but their offensive here, according to the Petrograd communiqué, met with no success.

It must be confessed that, despite the statement that ‘the highest authority in Petrograd describes the Russian position facing the Germans as extremely satisfactory’, the outlook is not what would be desired.

That there is no loss of morale in the Russian troops is evident and there is also no doubt that, so far, the Grand Duke has been able to make his own disposition without haste or flurry.

Much- in fact all - depends, however, upon whether he has read the mind of the German General Staff right.

The claim commented upon yesterday, that a wedge has been driven into our Ally’s forces, and that the Russian armies have been cut in two, it is now possible to doubt, but, even with this newly-regained faith in the Grand Duke, fears as to the future persistently obtrude.

If they are ill-based, so much the better, and it is impossible to altogether ignore the very hopeful forecasts which find favour in certain quarters.

The Germans are now forced with the problem of the best use to make of their recent successes and guesses are being hazarded as to their immediate plans.

Geographically and politically it seems pretty certain that their immediate objective should be Tarnopol -t he important railway junction which serves most of southern and eastern Galicia - for, as one authority has put it, ‘to hold Tarnapol would be to hold all Galicia, to remove very far indeed any prospect of a Russian offensive, and to make for easier the project’.

It is further stated that, if such a project is in hand, ‘of striking at the all-important Russian railway which connects Warsaw through Brest Litowsk and Riovno, with Kieff’.

From the military point of view the German aim, equally clear, is the destruction or dispersion of the Russian armies which recently lay in and about the triangle Lemberg-Stryj-Zaleszezky.

So far the German plan has fallen short of success.

The blow at the western arm (round about Bobrka) came so near it, however, that we had the claim (commented upon above) that the Russian line was broken.