in the south and with the object of enveloping the Hermada and clearing the Vippacco Valley and the approaches to Castagnavizza, and, on the low land in the extreme south, the marshes between San Giovanni and Duino. On Sept. 5 he suffered severe counterattacks from Castagnavizza (Kostanjevica) on the lines Castagnavizza-Korite and KoriteCelle, but he captured Selo in the Brestovizza and the Duino railway tunnel. From Aug. 19 to 22 his "diversion" before Hermada was assisted by the Italian and British monitors, commanded by Admiral Thaon de Revel, which later bombarded the shipping and naval depots at Trieste and Pola. On Aug. 29 a squadron of forty Caproni dropped more than 7,000 kilograms of bombs in the fortified woods of Panovizza.

An Austrian War Council

All this time the Austrians, were attempting to create distractions by making heavy attacks in the Trentino region and along the Carnic Alps. Failing here, a council of war was called at Laibach on Sept. 7, presided over by Field Marshal Conrad von Hoetzendorf and attended by the commander on the Bainsizza front, General Boroevic, and the commander of the Carso, Field Marshal Koevess. There it was determined to hold the eastern ridges of the Bainsizza and concentrate attacks against the Duke of Aosta. Turkish and German reinforcements had already arrived on the front. According to Austrian Staff reports, made known at Laibach, the Italians had been able to concentrate 5,000 guns on a three-mile front, against 1,000 of the Austrians. On another front, half as long, 599 had been counted. These had discharged 91,500 projectiles of all calibres in fourteen hours. It was found that the shells discharged from the Italian monitors, which are really floats of a design never before used in warfare, were greater in calibre than those ever before fired from a warship.

I will leave to the imagination all speculations in regard to what the envelopment of Tolmino, the occupation of

Klagenfurt or Laibach (Lubiana)-Laibach would, of course, isolate the entire Istrian peninsula, with Trieste, Pola, and Fiume may mean, and to the supplies of guns and munitions from her allies which, it is authoritatively stated, would enable Italy to secure a decision against Austria.

San Gabriele doubtless dominates San Daniele, but beyond, on the way to Laibach, rises the great Ternova plateau to an altitude at Mount Goliak of 4,400 feet. Still, the possession of San Gabriele should eventually make possible the outflanking of the Austrian positions on this plateau by way of the Chiapovano Valley on the northern side, and by the Laibach road at its southern base. With this accomplished, and with the removal of the danger of flanking which threatens the Duke of Asota's army on the Carso, the great Hermada might be carried by assault or "covered," and the road opened to Trieste. The rest is all speculation, which invites poetry but dismays existing strategy. Still, already by their bridging feats on the Isonzo the Italians have performed the impossible. They may do so again.

The Fall of Riga

The dispatches which came from Petrograd between Aug. 22 and Sept. 15 were so clothed in political digressions that little was really learned of the causes which led directly to the fall of Riga on Sept. 2, or the subsequent military manoeuvres in that region. It was taken for granted that the Germans had merely reached out their hand and grabbed the city from its mutinous garrison; that the Kaiser was inordinately pluming himself on a great military victory, which was really a political one of doubtful value; and that Petrograd might as well be surrendered in the same way and the Government withdrawn to Moscow.

This interpretation of the Petrograd dispatches is entirely wrong; the Germans fought hard for Riga, and won it by their superior artillery. This halfGerman city is of little military value as long as the Russian fleet remains in being. To be sure, three roads are laid open to the capital; but has Germany

the men to deploy over 300 miles, and at this time of year, with a Russian Winter approaching?

General P. A. Letchitzky, who, in the great Brusiloff offensive of 1916, had captured 115,000 Austrians from June 4 till June 12, was appointed to succeed General Klemlovsky in command of the northern armies on Aug. 15. It has not been revealed how he found the morale. of officers and men on the Riga sector; but he has stated to the War Committee in Petrograd that the defenses west and south of the city-from the coast near Kemmern south up the Kurland River Aa and across the Tirul Marsh cut by the Mitau-Riga railway-were never bad, while the artillery southeast along the Dvina was outclassed in both calibre and number by the German guns recently brought up. At that time the Russians are believed to have been reduced on this

front, from Riga to Dvinsk, a matter of 160 miles, to barely 60,000. Klemlovsky's predecessor, the Russo-Bulgar General, Radko Demetrieff, had under him last Spring between 800,000 and 1,000,000

men.

Facing the depleted Russian line last month were the German Mitau detachment of eleven divisions and the First Reserve Army Corps-260,000 men, as far as Friedrichstadt, forty-five miles southeast of Riga-and thence the Eighth Army with four infantry and three cavalry divisions as far as Dvinsk. The German headquarters was at Shavli, fifty miles south of Mitau.

Story of the Retreat

The story of what happened is soon told. On Aug. 22 the Germans began to advance from Kemmern, between the gulf and the Aa, drove in the Russian

cavalry outposts on the Tirul Marsh, and bombarded the Russian positions on the right bank of the Dvina north of Dvinsk. On Sept. 2 they crossed the Dvina near Uxkul, sixteen miles southeast of the city, and advanced up the Mitau-Riga causeway. The advance guard entered Riga that night.

On the same day, Sunday, Letchitzky ordered the army to withdraw to the fortified line east of Lake Stint and up the Jaegel, and then, on the 13th, to the line River Nitzcope-Zegenhoff - Paush - Zegevolt-Lupsala, further east.

According to the report of the Assistant Commissioner to the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, the troops withdrew fighting and inflicting

severe losses on the enemy; the breaking of the front, the report said, was due to the overwhelming superiority of the German artillery fire, which dominated and put out of action the Russian batteries, annihilated the Russian trenches, and compelled the troops of the Guard, who were half decimated, to fall back. After the great German assault of November, 1915, which almost captured the city, practically all the factories were removed to the centre of Russia. In the last week of August nearly all the heavy guns were dismounted and sent to the rear.

Apparently Letchitzky gave up Riga because he found it impossible of prolonged defense with the means at hand. His retreat, however, has made the Ger