A RUSSIAN REPORT.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLI, Issue 11647, 16 August 1916, Page 5

A RUSSIAN REPORT.

ADVANCING ON THE STRYPA. PURSUIT OF THE TURKS. Received Aug. IC, 10 a.m. Petrograd, Aug, 15. A Russian communique states: We continue to advance on the Upper Strypa. Our offensive at Akkiz captured a strong Turkish position. Our cavalry are pursuing the Turks southward. Two of onr hydroplanes successfully bombed au ad Lake Acern, Oourland, and returned safe-

THE ROUTES TO LEMBERG. Discussing the routes to Lemberg, a well-informed correspondent of the London Times says:—Geographical factors, and particularly the railways, are likely to play an important part in the development of the Russian offensive. The vital centres of communication behind the Austrian lines ar'e Kovel, Lemberg, and Stauislau; on the Russian side Rovno and Tarnopol, and to a minor extent, Czortkow. The main railway lines between the five chief centres form a capital W,. of which the upper points lie on the western, i.e., Austrian side. Besides these lines, a railway runs in the north from Kovel, through marshy regions, along the southern fringe of the swamps of the Pripet.

In the south two important railway line the regien of the Dniester; one leads from Stanislau by Nizniow and Buczacz to Czortkow, the other from Stanislao by Kolomea and Czern ovitz to Bessarabia. The left, i.e., northern bank of the Dniester is especially difficult ground ofr roads and railways running east and west, as the lower courses of the numerous left hand tributaries of the Dniester form deep canons. In the northern sector between Kovel, Rovuo and Lemberg there are very few minor lines branching off from the chief railways. in . the south on Austrian teiritory the net is much more developed. If the Russians manage to break through the line of the River Koropiec round Monasterisk they will have reached the open plain between Nizniow and Hslicz, one of the most important strategic sectors in the eastern theatre of war, and "the scene of General Brusiloff’s first victories over the Austrians. Undoubtedly the great mass of splendid cavalry at the disposal of the Russian commanders will greatly facilitate the operations in which the cutting of the communications in the rear, of the unbroken parts of the Austrian front iu of decisive importance. The fact has to be realised that the resent Russian operations aie in complexity and magnitude equal to anything which this war has as yet produced, and as a problem of generalship perhaps even surpass all previous battles.