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hemming him in: Sakharoff had outflanked him on the north by the capture of Brody and an at first rapid advance along the Brody railroad toward Lemberg. Stcherbatchoff was pressing his whole line hard from a base near Tarnopol. The volatile Letchitski, to the south, had far outflanked him by taking successively Czernowitz, the capital of Bukowina, Kolomea and Stanislavoff, and getting behind him along the Dniester River-the midrib of Galicia. Bothmer, thus very seriously threatened, managed to extricate himself-but with the loss of a considerable portion of his army. He is said to have lost 50,000 prisoners and probably as many killed and wounded. And he probably had not more than 300,000 men all told when the Russian drive began, on June 4, while the intervening months brought continuous losses. It is difficult to believe that Bothmer has more than a third, or at most a half, of his original force. With these he has withdrawn to Halicz, and is there putting up a very stiff fight; but Letchitski, who has won for himself very ample elbow room south and west of Halicz, is once more working up behind Bothmer's position, and the fate of Halicz is, apparently, only a matter of time.

On Familiar Ground

It should be kept in mind that General Brusiloff knows, with close personal knowledge, the whole region in which the four armies under him are fighting. When the war broke out, he had been stationed for several months at Vinnitsa, in Russian Podolia, on the railroad a short distance to the east of Tarnopol. Earlier he was stationed at Lublin, and several times conducted manoeuvres about Lublin and Kholm. He fought westward and eastward through Galicia on the Tarnopol-Halicz-Baligrad line. He won at Halicz one of the earliest Entente victories, just before the Battle of the Marne. So he is now playing the great game on a very familiar chessboard.

But we should not forget the ability of the Teuton Generals opposing Sakharoff and Kaledin. We should add to those

already named the Austrian General Koevess, a really able soldier, especially skilled in mountain warfare, who was withdrawn from Gorizia to meet the Russian threat at the Carpathians--with disastrous results for the Austrian forces about Gorizia. Largely to him, it would seem, has fallen the task of holding the Carpathian passes in Galicia and Bukowina against the flying wings of General Letchitski's army, but his position is suddenly and markedly weakened by Rumania's entry into the war, which now introduces a new threat against these passes, this time from the Hungarian side.

Should Rumania make to the north progress as extensive as she has made to the west through the Transylvanian Carpathians, then General Koevess will shortly find himself outflanked and forced to withdraw his forces into the interior of Hungary, as the Austrian armies in Transylvania have been withdrawn. Indeed, the whole face of the problem, from the Pripet River southward, has been suddenly altered, and altered in a sense very favorable to Russia. This will be clear, if we remember that Orsova, the most westerly point won so far by the Rumanian armies, is about 100 miles west of Lemberg, and still further west of Halicz; and that the upward push of the Rumanian armies, on anything like the level of Orsova, would mean the outflanking of every Teuton position which is now to the east of our old friend, Przemysl; this would give Russia possession of full two-thirds of Galicia, and Russia has already a far firmer hold on Southern Galicia than she had at any time in 1914. The complete conquest of the Bukowina has effected that, and Rumania's declaration has confirmed it.

Rumania's move, indeed, puts a new aspect on the whole problem of the Russian line. It makes, as we have seen, the defense of Halicz by the Teuton powers more precarious; and Halicz is the key to Lemberg. Indeed, it was Brusiloff's Halicz victory, in the beginning of September, 1914, which completed the rout of the Austrian forces holding Lemberg. In the same way the loss of Lemberg would be a serious danger to the Teuton

possession of Vladimir-Volhynski and Kovel, and might easily hurry their evacuation.

Consolidation of Bukowina

So we come to the southern end of the immensely long Russian line in Bukowina, where it now joins the northern end of the Rumanian battle front. The Russians are still fighting in the hill country, among the Carpathian beech woods, which give Bukowina its name, but the whole of the level country along the Pruth and Southern Sereth and Moldava, is firmly in their hands; is already "consolidated" along Russian

lines. The country about Czernowitz is singularly picturesque and attractive, and the little metropolis itself, which in normal times has about 95,000 inhabitants, has decided charm. The Pruth, on which it stands, winds picturesquely through rich corn fields and meadows, between its osier-fringed banks; and, within the city, well built houses and gold domed churches are mirrored in its quiet waters. The city itself is full of gardens, rich in trees, so that it nestles amid verdure. Russians say it looks like Kieff -on a much smaller scale-and Kieff is the most picturesque town in the Russian Empire.

T

Balkan Developments

By a Staff Contributor

[See other Balkan articles, pages 57-84; also military events, pages 41-46]

HE problem of what we may, perhaps, begin to call the Battle of the Balkans is intensely interest

ing, and not a little perplexing. To begin with, it is quite clear that we are very far from having all the facts. For example, we have practically no knowledge of how many of the TeutonTurkish troops are engaged, under Field Marshal von Mackensen, or on his initiative, in the attempted invasion of Dobrudja; compare with this vagueness the precise knowledge of the western front, where, the French authorities tell us, Germany has 122 divisions, or 2,240,000 men. When Turtukai was taken, one party called it a great fortress; the other said it was a mere earthwork. The Bulgarians said they had taken 20,000 Rumanian prisoners; the Rumanians retorted that they had not that many men on that sector. If this be anywhere near the truth, how many Bulgars, Turks, and, perhaps, Teutons are these Rumanians and their Russian allies holding back on the Silistria-Varna line? All this is still obscure, and will only be made clear as the fight progresses.

Again, there are some 350 miles of the

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great River Danube, across which Bulgarians and Rumanians-or at least their territories-face each other; why has no fighting been reported from anywhere on this long, easy line?-nothing beyond a few gunshots fired across the river, at widely distant points like "Tekia, Widin, Lomorjechovo, and Ivichton," to quote a recent dispatch. We need much more information here also. The Iron Gates of the Danube, where the river cuts through the extension of the Carpathians, mark a region very like the Highlands of the Hudson; the "Iron Gates themselves were ridges below high water, very like Hell Gate, and now, like that once perilous passage, blasted out and cleared. From this point, not far below Orsova on the Rumanian-Hungarian frontier, down to the Dobrudja, (whose high plateau forces the Danube northward out of its direct course,) the great river flows between low banks, among marshes. Armies can easily cross it; have repeatedly crossed it ever since Trajan's day; twice, for example, in the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78; twice during the invasions of Serbia in the present war. Why has no army crossed it now?

We must, of course, take the Dobrudja

fighting in its relation to the Rumanian invasion of Transylvania, and also in connection with the Saloniki offensive of the Entente Allies. First, why did the bulk of the Rumanian armies go west, to Hungarian Transylvania, instead of simply crossing the Danube southward and attacking Sofia, not more than seventy or eighty miles from the great river? The reason seems to be political; in Transylvania, (which is a part of Hungary,) and in the Bukowina, (the "Beech-land" which is a Crown land of Austria,) there are some 4,000,000 Rumanians, speaking the same tongue as the people of Bucharest and Jassy; and their union with the present Rumanian Kingdom is as much a part of Rumanian national policy as, for Italy, is the winning of Trent and Trieste. Rumania, knowing Austria's weakness there, knowing that practically all the native Hungarian troops were employed elsewhere, determined at once to seize the "unredeemed" Rumanian territory, leaving the Bulgarian problem to be handled later-perhaps by other than Rumanian forces.

For there are two wholly contrasted reasons which dictate the sending of Russian troops into Bulgaria. The first, the obvious reason is, to defeat the government of the Coburg Ferdinand, as an enemy of the Entente Powers. The second, and the more vital reason, perhaps, is to meet half way the pro-Russian, anti-Teuton movement among the Bulgarians themselves; evidences of which we may see in the fact that Radko Dmitrieff, the ablest Bulgar soldier of the first Balkan war, whose victories over the Turks at Lule Burgas and Kirk Killisse astonished all Europe and decided the war, has been fighting, since 1914, as a Russian officer in the Russian Army; in the fact that General Savoff, the fine organizer, who made the modern Bulgarian Army, was imprisoned at the outbreak of the present war, because he refused to fight for the Coburg Ferdinand against Russia's allies; in the fact that more than a thousand skilled Bulgar officers are even now in Russia, because they wholly disapprove the Coburger's pro-Teuton policy; in the fact

that Bulgar regiments have again and again mutinied, as a protest against the same policy.

If Rumanian forces invaded Bulgaria, they would meet with violent animosity, because of old rivalries, but far more because it was Rumania's intervention that caused Bulgaria's downfall in the "four weeks' war" in the Summer of 1913; because Rumania then took from Bulgaria the Silistria region, to the south of Dobrudja, nearly 3,000 miles in area. It is precisely there that the TeutonBulgar-Turks have now struck; doubtless in pursuance of a promise given by Kaiser Wilhelm that if the Coburger joined the Teutons they would win back for him every inch of territory of which Bulgaria was "robbed " by the Bucharest Treaty of August, 1913. A Rumanian invasion across the Danube, therefore, would fire intense animosities; Russian intervention will find the Bulgarians half friends; for Bulgarians remember that their land is strewn with the graves of Russian soldiers who died to liberate Bulgaria, even though Russian politics did much to estrange what is nevertheless a very real gratitude.

It would seem, then, that the Entente Powers, and especially Russia, are not without hope that Bulgaria (though not the Coburger's party) may yet swing around and at the eleventh hour join the Entente, which now grows daily stronger. Perhaps we have here, in these purely political considerations-or, rather, race considerations-the key of the problem we began by stating: Why there has been no real fighting along the 300-mile Ruman-Bulgar frontier on the Danube.

Political considerations obviously enter into the direction of the Russian invasion through the Dobrudja. This move would seem to be directed, not really against Bulgaria, but rather against Turkey; or, to name the real goal, against Constantinople. It seems fairly certain that England has overcome her long hostility to the presence of Russia there; Russia's defeat of the projected invasion of India by her Armenian-Persian campaign under Generals Yudenitch and Baratoff did much to disarm English questionings. And it has been pretty

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FIGHTING FRONTS IN THE BALKANS, SEPT. 15, 1916 (SEE KEY IN UPPER CORNER.)

openly declared-notably by the wellknown Russian statesman, Professor Milyukoff-that an explicit agreement exists, assigning Stamboul to Russia in the event of Entente triumph. But possession is nine points of the law; therefore Russia is very naturally desirous of finding herself in actual possession of Constantine's city when the great day, comes. And the way thither leads through the Dobrudja and Varna. Russian armies were already within sight of Stamboul in January, 1878, when Disraeli called a halt; but Disraeli is no more;

and his Russophobe policy has followed him.

This would be a reasonable explanation of both the Rumanian movement westward (instead of southward, across the Danube) and of the defense of the Dobrudja by Russian (not by Rumanian) forces. There remain certain things to be accounted for; for instance, the slowness of Russia's advance, which allowed Mackensen's forces to capture Turtukai, Silistria, and a group of fishing villages on the Black Sea. The reason, doubtless, is the extreme difficulty of transporting

the big guns which, to a large degree through the initiative of Mackensen himself, at the Dunayets, have become an integral part of field warfare. There are no north-and-south railroads through the Dobrudja, and very few roads up and down that high, very arid plateau; there is only the Bucharest-Constanza (Kustendji) railroad running east and west, across the fine Danube bridge, one of the largest in Europe, completed, with French Creusot material, by the late King Carol in 1895. So it is exceedingly difficult for Russia to bring her big guns to bear, and, till they are under way, her progress must lag.

On the Bulgarian side, on the contrary, there is a railroad from Varna to Dobric; another from the Varna-Sofia railroad to Rustchuk, thus running along the back of Mackensen's positions; while, from Rustchuk eastward along the Danube, on its south bank, there is a good highway, running through Turtukai to Silistria, evidently used in the movement which captured these two posts. The Turks, it may be noted, will fight very willingly to take Dobrudja, which belonged to them as recently as 1877, and which still has a quarter of a million Turk inhabitants: But one doubts that Turkey can have many available troops.

This would seem to go some distance toward clearing up the northern side of the Balkan battle. We come now to the southern side; to the fighting which radiates from Saloniki, at a distance of some 75 miles from that city, and on a front of some 150 miles. It seems difficult to believe that there are more than 200,000 troops to the north of the fighting line, including Bulgarians, as the main element, with some Germans and Austrians, and, perhaps, some Turks. The problem of this relatively small force, of five or six army corps, at most, is a very serious one. It can draw supplies of munitions along the railroad which traverses the Morava and Vardar Valleys from the Danube and Germany; but their sideways distribution, in mountainous country, is not easy. This relatively small force, then, has two tasks-to defend the valley of the Vardar, up which an allied advance will push toward Nish, seeking

to cut the railroad from German bases to Sofia, and to defend the Struma Valley, up which English and Italian troops are already making a thrust which will be aimed at Sofia itself, the capital and the heart of Bulgaria. It was Rumania's thrust at Sofia, in July, 1913, which brought Bulgaria to her knees and ended the second Balkan war. The Italo-British drive may have the same result, in the next few months, while the FrancoSerbian drive up the Vardar accomplishes two things-liberates devastated Serbia and cuts off Teuton aid from Bulgaria.

If the present Rumanian action about Orsova and the Iron Gates of the Danube, which has already made a good deal of headway, continues very successful, we may, very probably, see a Rumanian thrust southward from Orsova, largely or even wholly on Serbian territory, directed toward Nish, and intended not so much to defeat Bulgar troops as to cut off Bulgaria's Teuton allies, therefore not restrained by the political considerations which, we have conjectured, keep back Rumanian invasion of Bulgaria from the north.

It is always perilous to prophesy, yet it is interesting to speculate on the possible outcome of the Balkan battle. On the one hand it is difficult to see where the Teuton-Bulgar-Turk allies are to get any considerable reserves, while, on the other, there must be unlimited Russian forces available for the Dobrudja drive, large Italian forces ready to strengthen the move up the Struma, with at least considerable French and British contingents ready to support Sarrail. And at neither the northern nor the southern front have the Teuton-Bulgar-Turk forces made any great headway; in the south, indeed, they seem to be either held stationary or losing ground. Therefore, if we take the question of coming reserves into account, as we must, it is evident that the odds against Bulgaria and her allies are exceedingly heavy, while the Generals opposed to them, men like Sarrail and Mahon, will not make many mistakes.

We have said nothing of Greece, because the position of Greece has not been finally decided.

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