IN THE EAST.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 June 1916, Page 5

IN THE EAST.

SURPRISE GERMAN ATTACK. V SOUTH-EAST OF RIGA. ; REPULSED WITH HEAVY LOSSES. Received June 29, 10 p.m. _ Petrograd, June 29. A communique states: South-east of i Riga the enemy oi) the iiight of the , 27th, after a heavy bombardment, and Remitting clouds of gas, attacked in great forse ill the direction of Pulkarn. Reinfdlrcements opportunely arrived, and we succeeded ir repulsing and inflicting • heavy lossee. In their endeavor to arrest our offensive in Bukovina. the enemy are neglecting no means to prevent our building " bridges at many points, but the engineers and the bridge corps are surmounting all difficulties and displaying admirable seif-iHcriSce. : Wx l defeated the Turirs at Latuburmia and Talayatrahine. in the direction of RUSSIA'S OBJECT. -POST-WAR ACTION. Stockholm, June 28. • ■ M. Itfcshap, Secretary to the Duma, interviewed, .raid Russia's object was to ■-feet seaward through the Dardanelles. • Possibly after the war Sweden would . receive ae a gift the Aland Islands. A German'market in Russia would be im--1 . possible after the war. • AUS'iitfAXS REFUGE IN KOUMANIA. . ■ v Bucharest, June 28. . '.' .Three hundred and ten Austrians took refuge in Romania and were disarmed. An' Austrian officer Remarked: "The Ruv jsiah artillery was superior to ours, and it was impossible to withstand the Cos- ' lukft/'" i BUKOVINA. The Austrian Duchy of Bukovina, which haß an area of 4035 square mile;, ' i and a pppulation of 814,000, is bounded on the east by the northern cornier of the Russian province of Moldavia, on the wttt, by the plains of Eastern Hungary ana the district of Translyvania, and on the north by the Austrian province or Galicia. The district is traversed—especially on its southern parts—by irregular mounted ranges, rising in places 'to a height of 6000 ft., and constituting a Scuthern continuation of the Carpathian which fringe almost the whole western border of Galicia. Froin these highlands there are five main PMifes leading'to the west, namely. tb» Stjfrol, the" Kirilbaba, the Rodna, tne Borna VntTa, and the Borgo Phsses respectively. . The Styrol and the Rodna are entered by way of the while the Dorna Vatra must be first • crossed by an army using the Borgo Pass. Of the total area of Bukovina, 43,17 per =,cent, is covered by dense 'forests. ■ Tlie Dniester River, which flows from Oalicia to, Bessarabia, skirts the northpastern border of the duchy. The principal rivers flowing through the di'tricc , are the Pruth and the Sereth with its affluents the Suczawa, the Moldava. and the Bistritsa. Of the total population, 40 per cent, are Authenians, and a further 35 per cent. Roumanians. Commerce' is ' majnly in the hands of the > Jews and the Armenians, whilst the official language and the language of the law courts is German. The most south-westerly portion of Calicia, known as the Pokucie district, adjojning Bukovina, has formed, together with the duchy, the scene of -some of-the most sanguinary fighting of the war. The Pokucie district is also 'bounded on the west by Translyvania, its main artery of communication ruining along the Pruth valley to Koloro«a. The'deep canyon of the Lower Dniester separates Pokucie from the more northern portions of Galicia. In the Bukovina-Pokucie sector there, are two railway lines. One of them ■runs west to Kolomea,' and then in a southern-westerly direction across the Carjtathians by way of the Jablonica Pass to Budapesth. The LuzaYiy-Zalesiczyki-Czortko line runs from Bukovina to the Austrian district of Podolia. north of At the southeastern end, of the sector, the river valleys and roads all open into Roumania, and tie population is mainly Roumanian ibv language and extraction. ' Kuty is a'town on the border between ' Bukovina and Southern Galicia. It lies on the River Czeremosz, a right bank tributary of tnte River Pruth, 35 mile 3 due west iof \ Kimpolung ' 8 '& town in Southern ' Jtakovina, on the River Suczawa, 50 ' piles south and west of Czernovitz.