Eastern News

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 84, 9 August 1915, Page 5

Eastern News

BERMANS BEING HELD. ' f EXCITEMENT AT RICA. | Pnitbd Press Association. I. (Received 8.40 a.m.) u ,, 1L telegram from Riga reports tlu^fc. milch excitement was caused by tije, snaral of. an officer from the front who gaPopcd through the streets and aunosoced' iu the crowded parts that the (Unmans were being held. PUMIAN DEFENCE OF THE \ SUBURB. KHTILtERY DUELS ACROSS THE 1 i RIVER. / ' - S«*‘ V (Received 9.5 a.m.) s ; ( ' . i Berne, Augusts? ■ ,'fc Berlin telegram states that tip}' SSasiauß firmly hold the suburb ''df I Rriiga artillery duels are pvc/ j: ceiding across the river.\ is (beautifully situated‘till this left bank of the Vistula, arid •tends .on a terrace, 120 ft to 100 ft abioTO the river, to which is descends . hyi sleep slopes, leaving a broad beach at>'its base. The suburb of Fraga, on the right bank of the Vistula, here ioOyda to 660yds broad, is connected with Warsaw by two bridges—the railway bridge, which passes close under the guns of the Alexander Citadel to thb north, and the Alexander Bridge (1666 ft. long, built in 1865, at a cost of £634,000), in the centre of the town). GERMAN PROGRESS REPORT. PUBBIAN8 1 STUBBORN RESISTANCE. ’(Received 10.30 a.m.) Amsterdam, August 8. 3C German communique states: Our forces on the Narew approaching the road. Loiriba-Ostrow-TTyskow, are ' meeting with stubborn resistance in some places. We reached the Bug ’ southwards of Wyskow, occupied Sierock, and captured the fortifications infrontof Novogeorgiev.sk. We gain- ' ed the east bank of the Vistula near Warsaw. The Russians continue to retreat before General von Woyrsch’s pressure. General von Mackensen’s left wing between the Vistula and the Bug -drove the Russians northwards towards Wieprz, and the right wing Continues the battle. “NOT ON YOU LIFE! KAISER’S PEACE OFFER TURNED DOWN BY RUSSIA. (Received 8.40 a.m.) Petrograd, August 8. . The Bourse Gazette learns from an * Unimpeachable source that the Kaiser knode a peace offer to Russia last week through the King of Denmark. Russia replied that there could be no peace 14 iwesenfc'. “BY HIS GRACE. 1 ’ THE KAISERS REPLY. (Received 8.30 a.m.) * Amsterdam. August 8. Tha Kaiser, acknowledging the King of Wurteraburg’s congratulatory telegram said: “We can see . in the fall of Warsaw a significant ktep on the road along which the Almighty by His Grat e has led us. Rely-

log on Him, om- glorious troops con|inuH to fight’to an honovablo peace.”

EVAC y ATI ON OF w A RSA W.

SCRAPPED/ i i. •' t,'; i l ' -v»i - j <■,.•{} r ~ United Association. j I .(V V^ o ok|}(>ln), A' correspondent of the. Daily News lias arrived from Warsaw, iHe*isays tjnitvthe .firfyt iiutimatioij 0/ fivSi'Utttibn was ion) Jhly'Ey when 1 the Authorities inquireSl how.« many I passes \»?cler.<ivquired'>.4or «the"tßuiititrhr colony. The (evacuation begari-ori fifteenth'. I’hoilSiauds ,of feoiods waggons; ’had! already been • accumulated With' goods, and, men, women and children were hurried eastwards as fast as : they could be taken. Fully* lialf the- population .went, also hundreds and -tshowsatids of peasants from villages, whose homes had been burnt and crops gathered or destroyed. ■'> BtWything' 'df' taHlfii Ju me£M.ven church bells—was. remov- »•«* ■ src,T , )!<>' v<ji. ■ < -ti'k '*y m y>‘ ( cd. The factories were destroyed) alii at yj ;■• ,1 tor the machinery, ,m them had been ‘ art' 1 apcl’ anti-’’ nuaiian treasures, 'and/alsb Clipjhn’s hen rt Win tlie Cfiurcli of" the ' Holy' >1 f n !A , .i!(!i .jd | ,m 1 •.c'n-v,- 1; Cross, were sent to .\l9scow. )I , - 1 - j.. SCI 6 ' '".I !(■■•■ '' ■ 1 I'm \ ll ■jildjjc r TFn , 1 ’.■)(>!if* v ; (,n FORTHVIVID, DETAILS. , ;üb‘ '■ ■■ “■ ; s -‘ i ffr ; : .y.■■ New York,' August 7. The Chicago Daily News gives a vivid 'description of the systematic evacuation of Warsaw, which extended for a fortnight, forming a fine tribute to the calm and panicless methods of the Russian authorities and Allied Consuls. All the archives have reached Moscow. The American Consul remains at Warsaw. ; The.iefugees also include the officials of the law courts, with three million sterling of court funds. ■ ; 1 Ivii, -‘>-

4 When the evacuation was announced, the Warsaw police visited every house, and sought to induce the inhabitants to leave Poland and go to Russia. While 350-,ooQu;thousand citizens were thus departing almost another 350,000 trooped lip from the neighbouring districts, chiefly peasants,, .though in some cases they were men who were worth £200,000 a month ago, but are now penniless. F.ndless lines of tired and dust-whitened peasants, with cattle and portables, thronged the roads and bridges converging to Warsaw. Meanwhile, the factories were being feverishly stripped, the owners being granted free transport for their plants over the eastward road. They dynamited those plants that were embedded in concrete, and the noise could be heard day and night in all parts of the city. Every fragment was dynamited, and the metal immediately railed eastward.

The newspapers made their final appearances, and then the linotypes were rooted up and carted l UWay. The police visited every printing office, dismantled the presses, and took the type. Hardly a ton of copper fittings is left in Warsaw. Gangs of soldiers stripped the telegraph wires and poles for leagues, and even the machinery of the public water supply was removed, making a typhoid epidemic probable. ■ The huge bronze' bells of tho churches were unslung, lest they should be converted into Krupp cannon, Tlie jewellers buried their slocks and joined the endless columns of laden carts and lorries crowding the eastward roads. Only a group of soldiers, with their legs dangling from the sacks, distinguished peasants’ belongings from the banks’, with their millions of roubles in paper money, hastily thrust into potato sacks. Two thousand hackney carnages, driven by their owners, traversed the thousand miles to Moscow.

Throughout the churches were open, find crowded with woeping Poles iu,ui

Russians, who wore putting up their final prayers. All crops were destroyed wliere no troops could he spared to

gamer them. Three bridges, including the new Prago, a mile long and costing £l,200,000, were lined with sandbags, and wires set in readiness to explode/the land mines as the Germans entered. Five thousand wounded are left behind, they being in too serious a condition to bo removed. The only Britisher left is a Miss Kennedy, who is in hospital with pleurisy. ,

The Russian police hastily trained many civilian Poles in their duties, supplying them with revolvers and rifles. Pro-German Poles prepared a. list of pro-Russian Poles, and it was handed to the Germans, as' the German generals signified their intention to hang the leading anti-German Poles. Well-to-do Russian Polos accordingly fled. The police, at the last moment, shot five pro-Germans, whom they found brandishing a rope and jeering outside the house of a pro-Rus-sian.

CERMAN OUTRAGE.

JAPANESE VOLUNTEER MUTI-

LATED.

(Received 8.45 aim.) Petrograd, August 8

A Japanese volunteer who reached Vilm.l had had both his ears cut ott by the Germans.

THE CERltfnN PLAN.

Petrograd, August 7

Although Russia hopes that the German attempt to squeeze the Russians between the Forces advancing on the Narew and the Chohn-Lubliu front has definitely failed, German strategy has, a much more ambitious scheme of the same kind iu view. This is a planned advance in the event of the Russians reaching the Niedenburg line . The Germans, by occupying Riga.., would be- favourably placed for working down the Dwina, aiicl taking the new Russian position by a realmovement. This will require an enormous number of troops, manoeuvring over a vast area, and is liable to many mishaps,* but the ,best military opinion •in Petrograd refuses to regard the danger-lightly.' Much depends on the fighting on the extreme German 1 left. The Germans are iemploring 250,000 men between Kovno and’ the Dwina. 'lf they bVeak through there, befdi'e th6 ! Russians clear tlie N'arew-Vi.'ttula-Bug 1 jtl'Oli } ’ a different situation will Alike'.. •' 1 1 ; 11

i > TliA'enem^‘% 1 attacking 1 brir 1 firsfcf Ihie 1 'positions' ‘of thfe ’fdrtress ■on the ; P)aiik’ of ’the' Nie'mbn 1 , neap Kovrio:Oiiv ‘heavy batteries kVe vigorously bombarding the enemy near Ossowoecs. The enemy at dawn developed an intense fire, launched clouds of asphyxiating gases, and assaulted the fortress positiipii.s, carrythe vvoi/s;, near Spsna, our jSrje and’ .counter-attack; . dislodged'’ ’ them. ( Srtugninnry fighting is proceeding neiVr the Narew, on the rpaijl to ; Ostroff. The enemy, after desperate l 1 11\ !;.n li h■ j i. ’ n )•”. ■. » T encounters, ii|cre.ased tjiff. grpund Jtjiey , occupied, We. repiilseci, injbhß t i;egip;i of Serotsk, by, heay/., artillery fire, and on the,nights .of .August 5and 6 successfully repulsed, the eneiqyV pontoon parties on the Vistula. Most desperate ■ actions are being fought between the Vistula amt' the Bug, from Kodrovo to Kotsk, and in the region of Wieprz, horth of Lenza.