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Show PROGRESS OF THE WAR. Having foiled to hasten the fall of Riga by an attack from the sea, the Germans settled down two weeks ago to persistent and furious attacks along the line from Riga southeast to Friederich-stadt. Friederich-stadt. These attacks have begun to tear holes in the Russian defenses, and the indications are that Riga soon will be threatened with an attack from the rear. Should this situation develop the Rus- greater forces of Moslems are required to meet the foe a real shortage is apt to develop suddenly. The allied warships have resumed their activity inside the straits. Mine sweepers have been at work and it is likely that the warships have bombarded bombard-ed the Gallipoli forts from these waters. ; A French airman sank with a bomb a ! Turkish transport anchored inside the straits. A few days later a British submarine sank four Turkish transports in the Sea of Marmora. Conflicting reports of operations in Alsace leave the public in doubt as to whether the French have really captured heights which dominate the region of ' central Alsace. The fighting here has been of a desperate character for several months and the French have met with considerable success. A week ago they announced that they had taken the last heights overlooking the valley near Col-mar. Col-mar. Since then the Germans have claimed the recovery of certain mountain moun-tain positions at this point. The allies have kept up a very heavy bombardment of the German lines in i France and Flanders. Whether this is preparatory to a general advance can only be conjectured. It is probable, however, that the purpose is to interfere inter-fere with the strengthening of the German Ger-man trench pas it ions and to., weaken them progressively until such time as a drive may be thought advisable. A drive all aloog the line by either side is improbable, as it would be most costly. There have been persistent reports that the English have been capturing or destroying a large number of German submarines and corroboration" has been lent by the fact that the submarine which sank the Arabic, more than two weeks ago has not reported at a German Ger-man base. The English have made no announcement that the submarine was sunk, but this is in line with the admiralty's ad-miralty's policy of silence regarding the war against submarines. The only way to judge whether a great number of submarines sub-marines has been lost by the Germans is to draw inferences from the number of merchant ships torpedoed. Although the Germans have been building submarines subma-rines with great rapidity, they do not appear to have increased the destruc-tivness destruc-tivness of their submarine warfare. sians no qouox Will evaluate me C4i.jp rather than endure a siege. Riga will be a great loss to the Russians Rus-sians because it will clear another long line of the coast for German operations from the sea. They can place troopB nearer Petrograd by a landing along the north shore of the Bay of Riga and will not be under the necessity of confining their operations merely to a land ad-I ad-I vance. The landing will enable them to 'supply their troops from the sea, although al-though they will be threatened by Russian Rus-sian naval raids. The successes of the Germans along the Riga front in the last week have consisted con-sisted of the capture of a bridgehead northwest of Friederichstadt and of the bridgehead at Frioderichstadt itself. Up to date, however, they have not forced a crossing of the Dvina river. When they accomplish this they will be to the rear of Riga and can begin a turning movement move-ment to invest it. It must not be forgotten that the Russians have made a long and tenacious tena-cious fight in this region. The drive of the Germans into L'ourland province began be-gan even before the drive against the Muscovite line in Galicia on May 1, Libau, a port to the southwest of Riga, was captured by the Germans on May 8 and they advanced toward Mitau, a town in the neighborhood of Riga. Since that time the antagonists have swayed back and forth over a few miles of territory ter-ritory while the Russian lines in Galicia were being drawn back more than 100 miles. Undoubtedly the best Russian strategists have been operating in the Riga region and, moreover, supplies have been adequate on this front while scarce almost everywhere else. Thus the Russians Rus-sians have been enabled to hold their own during four months and are still in a position to offer stubborn resistance. Grodno, the last fortress on the Russian Rus-sian second line of defense, fell into German hands on September 1. It had been evacuated by the Russians and when the Germans made their entry they captured only 400 of the enemy. Olita, a smaller fortress, had been taken by the Germans a few days earlier. Between the Riga region and Galicia the Russian line has stiffened, although the retreat continues slowly at some points. In Galicia the Russians won a temporary success when the Austriaus attempted to expel them from their last positions on Austrian territory. The Russians checked the advance by a sudden sud-den counter-attack along a line of twenty-five or thirty miles, in which they captured 3000 men and thirty cannon. About the same time, however, the Aua-trians Aua-trians captured the fortress of Lutsk in Russia, just north of the Galician frontier. fron-tier. This made the Russian position to the south untenable and the soldiers of the czar retired to new positions. Nevertheless, they still hold parts of Galicia. Their obstinate stand in this region may be as much for political as strategic reasons. Rumania 's frontier is not far away and the news of the Russian Rus-sian victory no doubt will be freely eir? culated in that country. While the Russians have been meeting meet-ing with defeat in their own country, they seem to be holding back the Turks in the Caucasus. The Turks probably are not even as well supplied as the Russians in this region. Constantinople and the Dardanelles continue to attract the observation of the entire world because, rightly or wrongly, it is assumed that the Teutons are planning to go to the aid of the hard-pressed Turks. The Balkan barrier bar-rier is in the way and must be removed by diplomacy or force. Teutonic and entente diplomats are engaged io duels in all the Balkan capitals to win the hesitating hes-itating nations to their respective sides. So far the duels appear to have been a draw. Meanwhile the English and French continue to keep their grip upon the Gallipoli peninsula and even to improve their positions a little, despite the desperate des-perate resistance of the Moslems. In the Suvla bay region, where a new landing land-ing was made early in August, the fighting fight-ing has been of a ferocious character at close range and the losses on both sides have been enormous for the numbers of troops engaged. The British had the misfortune to capture a hill of the utmost ut-most strategic value and then to lose it in a counter-attack. Since then, how- ever, they have made substantial advances ad-vances and have driven the Turks into still narrower quarters. The shortage of Turkish munitions spoken of so confidently confi-dently several months ago appears to be more or less of a myth so far as the Gallipoli peninsula is concerned. Still, as new landings are made by the allies and |