The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1915. RUSSIAN MOVEMENTS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 141, 17 February 1915, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

WEDNESDAY, FEBR UARY 17, 1915. RUSSIAN MOVEMENTS.

(With which is incorporated The Taihapo Post 'in3 Waimarino News.)

There need be no apprehensivoncss about 'the Russians falling back on their fortifications in Eastern Prussia, as that is the most natural course to lake unless they are foolhardy enough to place themselves in the position that some people think limy are already in by the fact that they arc falling back. When an army has such control of itself, Avhieh the Russians are now disclosing they have, it is a sign of strength rather than weakness. ‘ Russian movements arc explainable by the immensely greater mobility of their opponents, owing to the network of strategic railways builtfor war -purposes within their borders. Russian offensive, lias been impossible to any great extent owing to the vigorous efforts made by the enemy, first to reach Warsaw by a rush across Central Poland, and when that failed endeavoured to execute a successful diversion by an attack in strength in the Carpathians. Both these attempts failed and the cost in life was immensely greater than Yon Hindenberg probably anticipated it might be. A subsequent attack on the Russian flank in Galicia was a miserable failure, for cables advise us that the Aus-tro-German forces retired with great loss of war material, and that their dead and wounded constituted’Avails so high that the Russians used the frozen corpses as parapets. A newspaper eorrespondent. says that the dead and wounded Avere a heaving, shrieking mass, but by the morning all was still. In all such assaults in force, for which Germans are noted. Russia assumes rather an attritive attitude in the earlier stages or until her' artillery can °bo brought into effective use, and then she presents a stone-wall reply to the attack m force, and nor, until there are signs of weakening does she commence the counter-, attacks which haA'p all along proved so deadly and desfrncUve to her enemy. Von Hindenberg has failed in the East centre and on the South-east, in the Carpathians and on the flank in Galicia,,; now he is developing one of his rapid

diversions for an attack right at the other end of a 300-mile hatircfront. Why Russia is falling back on her line of defences is because she cannot concentrate her Iroops anything like so rapidly as Germany, owing purely to the lack of railways in the territory over which she is now operating. To meet forces of immensely greater strength would be to invite defeat; to take the course Russia is taking has proved again and again the prelude to a crushing smash-up and a sickening slaughter of the opposing lines. We need have no misgiving or apprehension of the careful, tactical course Russia is now taking on her right Hank, right UP in North-east Prussia. Even if Russia is pushed back at Snwalki and Mlava, the German gain would be but loss unless, of course, a successful diversion can also be made in f ront-of Warsaw. Russia, however, is not likely to take undue risks ’ in. that quarter, and. as the .‘Kaiser's hosts failed in their supreme effort, with the very choicest of troops, it is improbable that they can accomplish now what they utterly failed in then. Germany was prepared, her arms, guns and soldiers had suffered no loss or defeat; she could attack with everything' in lier favour, while Russia’s army was then only in the stress and hurry of mobilisation. Thai is nor the case now, and whichever part of the im.mcnseMightsug-.tTout Germany may elect to assault, the Russian millions will not be very far away. While their enemy has to rush from one end of rhe 300mile front to the other to effect a surprise, Russia in most eases only has to concentrate, sometimes by bringing reserves forward, and sometimes, as in the present case, by bringing those in the back forward and those forward back to a strongly fortified and suitable battle-ground. These actions are the essence of strategy, and however much men in the 'fightingline resent the backward movements they are as necessary to ultimate success as those of a more showy and gratifying character.