The Way Round

THERE is much that is perplexing in the eastern situation, and, with the scanty news available it would at present be sheer waste of time and space to attempt either a forecast of Russian strategy or to analyse closely the position as it now appears.

If we accepted as fact the rumour as to the evacuation of Vilna, we should find ourselves contemplating the possibility of the main Russian armies being cut off from Petrograd, and it is hard to believe that either voluntarily or perforce the Grand Duke is thus leaving the way open to further dramatic German successes.

It is difficult also, especially after the determined but futile, attempt of the German Fleet to penetrate into the Gulf of the Riga, to believe that the Germans have abandoned their designs of Courland and yet there seems to be evidence of a very abrupt southward march of the enemy from the Riga region; while the statements about Milna suggest that the Russian line has already turned, and that, willy nilly, the Grand Duke has decided to abandon the position upon which it was understood his armies were retiring from Warsaw.

The more one seeks for light the more opaque the atmosphere becomes, and it is wise, therefore, to deal merely with unassailable and indubitable fact rather than to dabble in theories as to what may or should be happening in the near future.

Among the incontrovertible items of this morning’s news, then, we will take the outstanding intelligence, and leave facts unembroidered to guide the student of events to more or less safe conclusions.

Kovno's relation to Vilna is so apparent that no excuse is needed for dwelling on the information Petrograd supplies to the intensity of the struggle now proceeding there, as well as upon the results so far as the fighting has gone.

The official message is one of the most thrilling we have had within recent days and in it are several revelations.

First, we perceive that, despite the almost reckless expenditure of ammunition during the past three months, the Germans have still a vast supply of shells, or, at all events, continue to use them so freely as to at least suggest that their stories are exhaustible.

The first attack on the Kovno defences was made on Saturday and begin with a bombardment by guns of all calibres up to 16 inches. "The hurricane," says the communiqué, "lasted not less than two hours," but the Russian batteries vigorously replied, and when the enemy assaulting Columbus advanced, in close formation against the Russian positions they found an undemoralised opposition and were hurried back along the whole of the front attacked.

A second assault was made at noon when the enemy fire "increased to a terrible intensity," but the Russians, entirely unshaken, firmly withstood the hail of projectiles. The "incessant cannonade lasted all day," and at nightfall great masses of infantry dashed to the assault. Trenches were taken by the sheer weight of the attack but the Russians never looked like wavering and at the close of the fighting, the enemy, after suffering most terrible losses, only retained some works in a neighbouring village.