Russia

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 275, 18 November 1914, Page 5

Russia

"WAR'S HIDEOUS INTENSITY."

POWERFUL WORD PICTURE.

Times and Sydney Sun Sebyicei.

(Received 8 a.m.) London, November 17

The hideous intensity of modern war ia described by a correspondent in Galicia. For eight days there was a varying struggle before the Austrians, broken and bleeding, retired from a field strewn with dead and sown deep with the relics of defeat. At. the very centre of this zone of misery two roads intersect, marked by a huge wooden cross with a carved figure of the Saviour, which had hung there for a hundred years.. The top of the wooden upright was shattered by a bullet and an arm was destroyed hy shrapnel. The patient face looks down on a newly-made grave in which lie the shattered remains of 124 men who died almost at the foot of the figure. A little further away there is a spot where a last stand was made. Russian howitzers ploughed up the ground with five feet deep by ten feet across. The ground was literally strewn with pieces of uniforms, with rent and torn pieces in ; every direction. Thousands of men are mouldering in imnamed graves. A battlefield is always depressing, and this one causes peculiar ' sadness, because while prowling over the scene of devastation one hears the roar and tumult in the west, telling that the, same thing is recurring.

NO PEACE FOR RUSSIA.

United Pbess 'Association. London, November 17

The Times'"Petrograd correspondent reports that the peace overtures recently attempted through the Vatican, Luxembourg, and Washington by German diplomats have been more pronounced since the failure of the German coup in Poland has become apparent. To all efforts, however, Russia has turned a deaf ear.

REPORTS FROM GERMANY.

Amsterdam, November 16

An official Berlin report states that the Russian advance near Soldau was repulsed, and strong Russian forces thrown back on Plock on Sunday. The Germans have taken 5000 prisoners and ten machine-rguns. Several Russian Array Corps were driven back on Kutdo.

According to the latest estimates, the Russians lost 23,000 prisoners and 70 guns and machine-guns.

HEAVY FIGHTING IN PRUSSIA.

Petrograd, November 17

The Russians are fighting tenaciously in the Soldau and Neidonburg district. The Germans are determinedly seeking to paralyse the Russian attacks along the southern frontier of East Prussia. AUSTRIANS LOSE HEAVILY AT PRZEMYSL.

(Received 8.45 a.m.) Rome, November 17

The Ginrnale D'ltaliaY Petrograd correspondent says that Russian artillery and cavalry repulsed a desperate sortie from PrzemysJ, and that the Austrian losses were heavy,

CRACOW INVESTED. BUILDINGS ABLAZE AND THE INHABITANTS FLEEING. (Received 9.40 a.m.) , Rome,. November 17. ! Advices from Venice state that part of Cracow which has been invested is ablaze and that the inhabitants are ' fleeing. '(Cracow is roughly 135 miles from Vienna). GERMANS IN RETREAT. RUSSIAN CAPTURES IN GALICIA. (Received 9.40 a.m.) Petrograd, November 17. | Official.—-The retreating Germans destroyed the railway bridges wholesale, greatly delaying pursuit, as they neared their own territory. Thereafter, the extensive network of railways facilitated rapid transfer. The German troops ' against the Russian left movement were covered by strong detachments of cavalry frpm the western fronts, and were partly reinforced by Austrian cavalry.

The Germans took the offensive and led in the battles now in progress on the Plock-Lenczyca-Uneioff front. The Russians captured 10 officers and 1000 men southward of Lyscko, in Galicia.