Eastern News

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 55, 8 March 1915, Page 5

Eastern News

PROHIBITION OF VODKA.

REMARKABLE RUSSIAN RESULTS RECORDED. NO DRUNKEN SOLDIERS. Times and Sydney Sun Service. (Received 8 a.m.) London. March 6'. The Times' correspondent with the Russians says: "The most profound believer in Prohibition never imagined how far-reaching could be the benefits of the prohibition of vodka. That it increased efficiency was first in evidence by the promptness of the army mobilisation, while during the period when money was tight, the deposits in the savings banks enormously increased. It is impossible to buy even a glass of beer at any of the hotels or restaurants. I haven't seen for six months a tipsy officer or soldier. By one stroke Russia has freed herself from a curse that has paralysed her peasant life for is nothing short of a revolution. Graft and corruption have been stamped out of the army service, and the improvement in organisation has added to the comfort' of the soldier's life, resulting in the highest morale."

RETREAT IN BUKOVINA.

HUNDREDS OF DESERTERS FROM THE ENEMY. United Pbebs Association. (Received 8.40 a.m.) Rome, March 7. The Austro-Hungarian army in Bukovina, which is under two German generals, is in full retreat. The men are deserting and being taken prisoners in hundreds.

DETAILS OF THE FICHTINC.

GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN LOSSES.

United Press Association. Petrograd, March 6

The Russians captured 153 officers, 18,522 men, five guns, fifty-two ma-chine-guns, 519 horses, and many trains in the Stanislavoff region, in ten days. They captured 12 guns, 29 mac-hine-gnns, 122 caissons, and many trains at Przasnysz.

The Germans in superior numbers almost surrounded the Russians at Przasnysz. At Lyskovo the Russians turned the tables on February 24th, when they captured Krasnosoltz and bent back the German left to Schliar, took Przasnysz, and enveloped the other flank westwards, preventing the retreat towards Mlawa. The remnant is now falling back on Thorn. The Russians on the 26th and 27th forced two army corps to retire into a neck seven miles wide between Dzeelin and Schlair. Of one army corps, mostly freshly-trained men, only a quarter escaped.

It is estimated that General von Hindenberg lost over a quarter of a million last month.

Nearly thirty thousand were killed at Przasnysz.

Details of the fighting at StanislavofT show that the Austrians at the outset had twenty big guns on heights commanding the Russian positions. After initial successes the infantry advanced in "four lines, each comprising four regiments, with auxiliary troops. When a hundred yards had been covered a masked Russian battery opened against the artillery and infantry. After the latter had been heavily shelled the Cossacks galloped in, throwing the lines into confusion. The Cossacks then withdrew, and quick-firers took up the work, mowing down the Austrian front line and forcing the others to retreat. The Austrians thereafter vainly endeavored to make a stand in the Lukwa district. Their losses were enormous.

Official.—-The enemy were dislodged from the heights northward of Lomza. We are continuing the offensive in Eastern Galicia, after expelling the Austrians from fortified positions at Bistritza.

A semi-official despatch states that ;he Germans captured in Grodno were vithout bread for three days. There yere numerous cases of gastric diseas-

The fortress of Oswiecz is successfully withstanding siege. In the Carpathians the Austrian attacks are everywhere becoming feebler.

THE RUSSIAN TIDE ON THE FLOW. London, March 6.i The Times' correspondent at Petrograd says that between the Niemen and the Vistula the snow has disappeared, and spring is in full sway. The battle lines are moving irresistibly towards German soil, and the Kaiser's stauuehest regiments cannot stem the tide.

REICN OF TERROR in BUKOVINA

The Chronicle's Nove Silit/.a correspondent reports a reign of terror in Bukovina. Spies swarm the province, denouncing innocents for Roumanian sympathies, and extorting money by threats of denunciation. There have been wholesale executions at CV.ernowibi, and Austrians lied, fearing persecution.

MISCELLANEOUS. Times and Sydney Sun Service. London, March 6. A French military expert at War

saw states that the Russian success at Prasnytz opens the Prussian frontier at its most vulnerable point. Forced inarches by night and day through the snow resulted in a masterly envelopment, from which the Germans were only able to extricate the remnant of three arym corps with the greatest difficulty. An observer in the Carpathians states that the most terrific mountain battle in the annals of the world is proceeding among snow-clad precipices and unexplored woods around Diikla. The snow is so deep that men killed by the bayonet remain standing.