RUSSIAN OPERATIONS IN POLAND

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2380, 9 February 1915, Page 5

RUSSIAN OPERATIONS IN POLAND

ADVANCE TOWARDS THORN ENEMY DISASTROUSLY DEFEATED IN THE CARPATHIANS \ (Rec. November 8, 10.50 p.m.) Potrograd, February 8. Official.—"We hare made successful night attacks oil Rypin (about 35 miles due east of Thorn). "Our artillery routed'a German column which was marching towards Bolimow (east of Lowicz), and captured its guns. "Fighting has occurred along the wjiole of our front in the Carpathians. We have shattered the enemy's resistance at three fortified positions at Mezo' Laborer (on the Hungarian side of the Carpathians, 42 miles south-west of Przemysl), and pursued him for several versts (a. verst is Toughly 3-oth of a. mile), capturing 172 officers and upwards of ten thousand men, thirteen guns, and twenty-two machine guns. "The enemy's attacks at Tukholka, in the Beskid Pilsses, wore repulsed with' heavy losses, and they retreated in disorder." The Prime Minister has received the following message from the High Commissioner, dated London, February S, 4.50 a.m.: — "Petrogract reports that lighting iu tho luster Szeszuppe valleys (in East Prussia ,in the area of the operations around Tilsit), has been very fierce and sanguinary. On tho left br.nlc of the there have been violent artillery duels. On the left bank of the Bziirn, near its mouth, tho Russian-? have captured a very important stiatcgical position. In tlio Carpathians the Russian progress continues, and two thousand prisoners have been taken." fTlie Bzura. falls into the Vistula about .40 miles west by north of Warsaw.] THREE GERMAN COMPANIES ANNIHILATED. Petrograd, February 7. The Germans threw a barrel bridge across tlje Rawkn, and three companies crossed. The Russian guns destroyed the bridge, and the companies were •ip .to ojo.u pun jjo

TITANIC CONFLICT ON THE VISTULA AND RAWKA. (Rec. February 0, 0.5 a.m.) TU , .. t, i , Romfli February 8. Messagero s Petrograd correspondent reports that tho conflict on the \ istula and Rawka was titanic. Soldiers fell in thousands, tho bodies I being piled three feet high. The rcscue of tho wounded was difficult, as many were buried under their comrades' corpses. WAR LORD VISITS THE EASTERN FRONT.: _ _ . . _ . Berlin, February tf. Official.—The Kaiser has gone to the. Eastern fighting line, via Czenstocliowa. He telegraphed his congratulations to the Germans for the storming of the heights of Craonne. t, ■ j • n „ -r- . Rome, February 7. it is rumoured in Berlin that the Kaiser, after his visit to the Westernfront, ordered his commanders to abstain from sacrificing too manv men in operations of secondary importance. One consequence of this order'is that the Germans are beginning to behove that the German troops in the -West are numerically inferior to those of the enemy. RUSSIAN STRATEGY IN POLAND What is the real pivot of the Russian, strategy in Poland?" "In appraising the strategical merits of the enemy's moves on the Russian front it should be remembered that the real objective is not the possession of Warsaw or the relief of Przemysl, etc., but the prevention of the Russian invasion of Silesia" (wrote the "Times's" special correspondent on December 21 last. "This explums the feverish activity of the German high command, and their apparent inability to stick to a consecutive line of operations. The Russian and Allied plans are well served thereby. The enemy comes out to. be destroyed instead of waiting in his trenches at home. But all his efforts can only stave off tho day of reckoning. Cracow is the real pivot of all the operations at present developing. The desperate flanking moves on the Bzura and from the Carpathians only serve to indicate that the Russians hold the pivot firmly whence in good time they will sweep the flanking columns off the road anil advance into the heart of Germany." The "Morning Post's" correspondent takes the same view. "Such hard fighting as that recently seen in Poland," he says, "has not been equalled' in the world's history before. It has brought no results. Russia sought no results here, and is not disappointed. Germany sought results which are. of supreme importance to her—not the taking of Warsaw or the taking of anything else, but the breaking of Russia's strategic scheme. She has failed miserably to effect the one thing which, made it worth while to invade Poland for_ the second time." The Russian High Command, despite the manoeuvring of its armies hither and thither to counter the German moves, lias steadily advanced to its main purpose, the invasion of Germany at the psychological moment. "A good deal of the exposition of the Russian situation which has lately appeared in the London Press," says the "Morning Post's" correspondent, "shows tho influence of Germanic versions,' which, of course, endeavour to concentrate entire attention upon the narrow point where Germany has attempted and failed to turn the Grand Duke from the execution of his strategic scheme. Poland has been of supreme importance from the German point of view all through, and that view is held by many writers on the military situation in tho Press of Russia's Ally, England. I have many times stated plainly, that from the Russian point of view Poland has no supreme importance in this or any other war."