PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2548, 24 August 1915, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

.— Such a success as , the Russians cannot hopo to gain for a time on land has come to them upon the sea. The fuller report now available of the naval battle in the Gulf of Ji'ga, of which some early accounts wi:re published yesterday, show that it resulted in] a crushing German defeat. Indeed, it seems not unlikely th;.t •in this ill-starred enterprise the enemy may have lost ships of a greater aggregate fighting value than the whole of. the Russian forces < u - gaged. The Moltke alone, a fast and powerful battle-cruiser of recant construction, is equivalent to many such ships as the small gunboats and torpedoers that the Russians are shown to have had in action, and the Moltke is one of eleven German great_ and small, v/biili have perished in tho abortive attempt to gain command of the Giilf of Riga y Whatever the lclative strength of the_ opposing squadrons may nave been in surface ships' (and the balance was certainly hea<"ly against tho Russians) it is tolerably "ocrtain that it was the Allied submarine flotilla that operated as a decisive- factor, and enabled tie Russians to inflict a smashing defeat' upon wliat would otherwise have been an overwhelmingly superior enemy fleet. • *»* # , Some interesting details of the story have still to do filled in at time of writing. The strength of the Ger-man-squadron can only be inferred from tho incomplete details supplied 'and that of tho Russian from the statement of tho Bussbj fiivabd .that_tho chief units of the Rusvan Baltic Fleet are not in the Gul? of 1 Riga, which is defended by lesser vessels and mines. This statement .is in harmony with such details of the action as are given. However, Jt is established that the Germans devoted a very powerful squadron to,the attack on the Gulf of Riga-. ! At least one capital ship, the : Moltke, was included, and it is ' likely that she was not the only ship ; of her class engaged, though she-is • the only 'one so far reported lost. 1 That the Germans should, have risked even_ one capital ship—an impor- I ta-nt unit in their High Seas Fleet— 1 .in the enterprise, shows how eager 1 they were to extend their hold upon the Baltic coast, and makes the Rus- 1 sian victory all the more important 1 ;and gratifying. Though their ex- ■ perienco of naval warfare has been 1 'somewhat limited, the Germans are ' certainly not unacquainted with the 1 offensive and defensive powers of tho 1 submarine in an area like the ap- '! proaches to the Gulf of Riga. The ] enemy in this battle played for high 1 stakes and lost heavily. i * * * # ■] The Gulf of Riga is more than' 70 - miles wide at its widest part, and 1 has a maximum extent of more than 1 ■100 miles from north to south. ■ The ( greater part of what would other- ; wise_ bo a wido entrance from the 1 Baltic is olosed by islands. There is_ one' passage about twenty miles wide looking north-west into the < Baltic. Tho other passages are much f narrower, but it was apparently one 1 of these nairrower entrances, M'ohn 1 Sound, against which tho Germans < directed tneir attack, for it is men- 1 tioncd by Grand Admiral vosr Tir- i pitz in his report." Mohn Sound < enters tho Gulf of Riga from the < north, and at its narrowest, between 1 Merlin Island and the mainland, it s is about five miles wide. Entering 1 this passage the Germans were tak- f ing the shortest route to their objec- < tive, whioh was apparently not Riga, i at tlio southern end of the gulf, but i the smaller port of Pernow, high up ! on its eastern wast. Pernow, • where the Germans tried to land i troops, is linked up with,the main 1 Pctrograd railway, and it is a hun- f dred miles nearer to Petrograd than 1 the areas now held by the German i land forces in the Baltic Provinces, j Tihe late battle must, therefore, be i placed in a very different category 1 to the naval skirmishes which have ' been fought from time to time in the i Baltic. The Germans have been 1 heavily defeated and driven out of l the Gulf of Riga-, after an attempt to effect a landing at Pernow which, if successful, would have exerted a 1 very important influence upon the 1 Eastern campaign. _ The four trans- £ ports, crammed with troops, men- i tioned in the official message, no £ doubt contained only a covering 1 force, but apparently the whole of f this force, to use the termi applied in ' the cable message, was exterminated, '■ Given a naval victory, this force 1 would have been rapidly built up, I and Pctrograd would have been \ lunch more imminently threatened ' than it is as matters stand. f # * * # j It is possible that the Germans 1 may renew their attempt to master c the Gulf of Rica, but the results of r their initial effort are of a nature I: to nmkfi iib«m paw. Ju ths MoUke 1 tovfi losf oa®, of

s, 1 battle-cruisers in their fleet. A ship .t of 22,640 tons, completed in 1912, I- she had a speed (according to Jane's :- Fit/hi!ntj tihips) of 2S knots, and s like the Goeben, she was heavily h armoured, and carried ten 11-inch ,s guns in her main batteries. Besides !- this fine ship the action cost the s Germans three cruisers, not yet t named, and seven, torpedo craft, f some of them probably destroyers. : 1 It is possible that the four transo ports which were intended to land s troops at'Pornow, as well as the -[ whole of the men on board, probably s at least 8000, were also accounted :I for, though this is not explicitly s stated in the official report. Against 0 these heavy losses the Germans have f nothing to show, except a relatively . insignificant reduction of the Rus--5 sian Squadron and tho removal of . some of the minefields in the entrance f to the Gulf of Riga. These last, 1 however, the Russians will now have g an opportunity of replaoing: Takf ing German reports for authority, the Russians lost two small' gunboats 3 of slow speed and inferior fighting j power, and one torpedo boat, and j had other _ torpedo craft, including , one of their best and latest dest-roy- [ ers, heavily damaged. If tho re- _ spectivo_ lists are complete and comj prehensive, the Russian victory in . the Gulf of Riga was one of the , most satisfactory naval actions ever _ fought and won. Beyond stating j that a German cruiser was blown up , by a British submarine, reports in J hand throw no very definite light _ upon the manner in which the Gerr man ships met their fate, but since the Russian squadron was evidently | heavily outmatched in gun-power, it ' is fairly safe to assume Jk;at the lion's share of the credit for the victory belongs to the submarines. * * * * ( The position reached is that the 1 Germans have paid a heavy price for- experience without getting any * nearer to tho object at which they 1 aimed. _ The full'importance of the • battle in the Gulf of Riga will only ' be disclosed by future events. It is not impossible that naval co-opera-tion with their,land forces in the Baltic Provinces, and sea transport under naval protection, is an essential element in the German plans in tho Eastern campaign. Given effective • naval command of tho Baltic, they might be prepared to undertake an advance on Petrograd which. otherwise they would deem too burdensome to attempt. In that event the naval victory which has been won may prove to be tho virtual turning-point in the Eastern campaign. Nayal co-operation is possibly of secondary importance in the working out of the German plans against Russia, but the nature of the attempt made to master tho Gulf of Riga strongly suggests the contrary. The strength of the squadron risked in tho enterprise- is indicative of a feverish desire to obtain an effective naval command of the Baltic. The Russian victory is important in its immediate aspect, and demonstrates convincingly' that Germany can obtain naval command of the Baltic only, if at all, at a price she will probably hesitate to pay. .But its greatest value lies in the fact that it has nipped in tho bud a military enterprise which was calculated, _ had it succeeded, to add very seriously to the problems of the Russian forces on land, # * * * It-is reported to-day, ostensibly on tho authority of military critics at Petrograd, .'that Russia under pressure _ of her present difficulties may be, induced to seek a separate peace.' The suggestion is one' more ikely to come from German politicians than from Russian military critics. It must be obvious to anyone that no military critics are like T ly to speoulate in this fa-shion upon a question which at bottom is not military but political. Happily, however, it is not necessary to resort to any such general objection in meeting the suggestion referred to. It is specifically .met and answered by the Russian Foreign Minister in a.declaration that tne only foundation for these separate peace rumours is that repeated attempts have been made by the enemy to inaugurate discussions with France and Russia. These attempts, he adds, have been met with an absolute negative, and the bonds that unite the Allies are continually'' growing stronger. Besides being an effective answer to scaremongers ■ and prophets of ill, this is one of the most interesting revelations to which the war has given rise. The . explicit statement-by a responsible : Russian Minister that Germany has : tried to open pcace discussions ' would not. have been made unless • there had been definite grounds to go" i upon, and that '• Germany should ; have afforded these grounds must bo regarded as a distinct sign of weak- i ness on her part. This is all (the more true since oven Germany must . know that each one of the Entente : Powers regards this war as a fight : for lifo, and recognises that_ separate withdrawal would mean either ac- 1 ccptance of German domination or a . single-handed conflict with Germany 1 later on. 1 #*# « i A message dealing with the East- '• em- campaign shows that the Rus-' [ sians have been driven back from ! the River Niemen at K'ovno, a de- . velopment likely to lead quickly to j others, but as -yet the situation has not developed sufficiently to enable . any very definite opinion to be form- } ed as to t'e extent to which tho | Germans are likely to turn their ] late successes to account. Only i small local actions are reported on « the Western front. Italy's deolara- j tion of war on Turkey, as was to be, expectied, has created a considerable ferment in the Balkans, and reports j in the ; main go to show that matters j are developing _ as ' the _ Entente Powers would wish. It is a faot ( not without significance that M. j VeNezelos is returning' to office, not j as Prime Minister only, but as J Foreign Minister, in Greece. A very 1 interesting account is given by the i Daily Chronicle's correspondent at j Athens of the landing lately; effected ' by British troops at Suvla Bay. ' This goes to show that the new movo ' is of much' importance. No now development in the Dardanelles cam- , paign is reported at time of writing, j The Italian campaign has taken a 1 less prominent plaoe in the war news j for some time past than its import- | anco warrants. Its history in a word ] is that of a slow-developing, but i successful offensive,- all tho way I round the mountain frontier from Switzerland to the Adriatic Sea. J Considering that Italy has an active j army of' something like a million 1 men at command, and great reserves 1 to draw upon, the progress made ] may appear to be unduly slow, but it is fully explained by tho nature of the defences which the Italian armies are called upon to overcome. , Except in a section of twenty miles- [ or so of the Isojizo front, running ] north from the Adriatic, the Aus- i: trians arc. defending what is per- r iiailß tiiw sbl'miMSt fveptlsv id Uic v .wqf.14.1 gswfltipq asatiw I

p ed, they are fighting on or ahead of the main chain of the Alps and in s the Trentino they hold .a great wedge J of mountainous country, much of it y impassable by armies, extending :i south into Italy from the main Als pine chain. Though they are thus 3 favoured by the natural strength of t their frontier, and have an almost , unending series of mountain for- . tresses to assist their dcfencc, the - Austrians are slowly yielding posi--1 tion after position in face of, the a Italian offensive. No speedy or brillianfc success is to bo looked for, 1 however, in such campaigning. ' * # * # t As reports during the last day or 5 two have shown, the Italians arc " f gaining ground alike in their eonverging attacks upon the Trentino, 1 upon the northern frontier extending east from the Trentino, and. on the Isonzo front. Until, however, they can obtain a commanding hold upon the Austrian railways penetrating their northern frontier, the Italians will not be secure against a counterinvasion, assuming that the Germans make the necessary force available for the purpose. Two great railway junctions, Franzcnsfestc, at the northern end of the Trentino and Tarvis, opposite the north-eastern coruor of Italy, represent the main objectives of the Italians so far as the operations on the northern fronts nro concerned, and tho positions which will give them an effeotive t -command of the Alpine chain. They . are fighting within about 20 miles of ' Franzensfeste,- and are only six or j seven miles away from Tarvis, on , the west and south, but under the . conditions of Alpine campaigning i these, distances are not to be rapidly traversed. . •** * « It is on the Isonzo front, which is , on the road to Istria, that tho Italj ians have made the most pronounced progress, and even more rapid re- . suits might be looked for in this re- , gion if it were not likely that the operations on the n'orthern frontier, where progress is so much more difficult, are regarded meantime as of paramount importance. As it is, tho Italians have done a good deal to clear the way for an invasion 'of Istria. Gorz, tho principal Austrian fortress on the Isonzo, is still holding out, but is in a fair way to bo isolated. _ The main northern line from Vienna to Gorz was cut by_ tho Italians months ago, and the railway on the south, passing through Monfa-lcone, is also in'their hands. A continuation of their present advance across this Carso plateau'will ultimately cut the only remaining_ railway serving Gorz, and from this line they are not fnany miles distant. A. further short advance 'would place the Italians in possession 'of the railway junction of DiVacca, and this would mean the isolation of Trieste and Pola so far as'-railway communications are concerned. From Trieste the southern Italian troops are now only about a dozen miles distant.