The great battle for Warsaw

Enemy is claiming successes

To obtain the earliest indication as to how the tremendous struggle for Warsaw may end it is necessary to see what happens to the two Russian armies before Cholm and Lublin, for these are the forces which are bearing the brunt of the attack, and this is the critical portion of the line.

An authority informs us that the armies on the left (Dniester front) can be depended upon, and that the force operating between the Dniester and the army defending Cholm against Mackenson is also satisfactory, capable not only of ultimately asserting its superiority over any attack that may be directed against it but of assisting the Russian army on its right, upon which, as before said, so much depends.

If another authority is now quoted - these two armies (those before Cholm and Lublin) are defeated and the railway line at the rear taken, “ effect will be extremely serious,” but as the first expert describes the men composing them as “the cream of the Russian troops”, Mackenson and the Archduke Joseph’s battering rams may discover that they are butting against something particularly hard.

Probably we are witnessing just now and just here the stiffest fighting the war has yet provided.

The enemy forces, like the Russians, are highly trained troops and no considerations for the lives of their men are likely to influence the enemy generals.

This is not only the crucial point in the eastern struggle but the result may have an important bearing on the course of the whole war.

It may decide the fate of Germany.

Apparently the Russians have three positions which they can defend, so that if they have fallen back from the first there are still two lines upon which to make a stand.

Whatever may be happening at the present time it is fairly clear that the enemy’s attempts to divert attentions elsewhere - North Poland and the Baltic Provinces for example - have not succeeded and if the Russians are now well supplied for munitions (that “if” is of vast importance) the gigantic Austro-German effort is likely to fail.

In that event that the war will be much shortened; in the contrary event, as mentioned yesterday, we may bid good bye to hopes of its early termination.

There is, of course, the fact for Germany the success will have been so costly and so late as to deprive her of the greater hope of a successful issue to the war, but it would encourage her to go on, whereas failure would be much more than a local affair.

The communiqués to hand this morning are calculated to confuse the most diligent student of the operations but it has to be noted that the enemy report is supposed to be of a later date than that issued from the Petrograd.

The enemy makes amazing claims, many of them plainly greatly exaggerated, but there are admissions in the Russian report which show at various points our Ally is giving ground, albeit the general tone of the communication is satisfactory.

The next Petrograd report may be more sombre in character.