OCR Text |
Show PROGRESS OP THE WAR. Washington received . news three weeks ago which disclosed the Russian plan to evacuate Riga as soon as the German offensive began in earnest. Russian troops probably knew of the government's plans and did not offer much resistance even when commanded to do so at points along the Dvina river some distance from Riga. On the whole, however, the plans of the Russian Rus-sian staff were carried out successful!' as is indicated by the small number of prisoners taken by the Germans. Three weeks ago the civilian population popula-tion of Riga was removed and later the factories were destroyed, the docks and piers and naval works blown up and some parts of the city burned'. Meantime Mean-time the Germans attacked southwest, south and southeast of Riga, pressing press-ing the Russians back toward the Dvina river. The principal attack was in the region of the Uxskull bridgehead, about fifteen miles southeast of Riga. Having Hav-ing seized the bridgehead on the western west-ern side of the river, the Germans concentrated con-centrated a terrific fire from big guns, trench mortars and smaller guns on the opposite bank. Some of the Russian regimenls immediately wavered and ran away. Ultimately the Russian commander com-mander ordered a retirement to the heTghts, some distance back from the river bank. The only resistance thereafter there-after made to the crossing of the river by the enemy was with artillery. Two pontoon bridges were destroyed, but eventually the Germans bridged the river and pushed on. On the east bank of the river the Germans moved out in a circle, but their principal effort was along the bank in a northwesterly direction toward Riga. So swiftlv did thev advance that the Russians did not have a chance to complete com-plete all their work of destruction. Some of their regiments were still west of the river and were in danger of being be-ing cut offj but the rear guards held back the Germans long enough to permit per-mit their comrades to escape. After Riga had been abandoned tire Russians began a general retirement to a new line of defense. What that line would be was not clear at first to the Germans. They sent out their cavalry to keep in close touch with the Russians Rus-sians for scouting purposes and also to round up stragglers. The Germans captured several hundred hun-dred large guns on the east side of the Dvina and many naval guns in Riga and the near-by port of Duenamuende. When the Germans entered Riga the Russian naval forces, consisting of cruisers and destroyers, convoyed merchant mer-chant shipping and floating defenses to the mouth of the Dvina and thence northward along the coast of the Gulf of Riga in the direction of the Gulf of Finland. The Germans were still afraid to send into the Riga gulf any cruisers and destroyers for fear of destruction by mines, but they dispatched a few U-boats to attack the. Russian warships and the merchant ships. In only one recorded instance did a Teuton U-boat come into touch with the enemy vessels and in that case the U-boat was compelled to submerge by fire from a merchantman. The submarines then vented their vengeance by shelling the coast ineffectually. The Russians have now taken up a position on a line which starts at the gulf coast about forty miles north of Riga, runs eastward into the hill, district dis-trict at Wenden and continues eastward east-ward and southeastward in a semicircle until the line unites with the old line on the Dvina. Whether the Germans will be able to push on to Petrograd is a mooted question. ques-tion. The Russians might claim, as did the Germans last spring when they retired re-tired along the Somme river before the French and Russians, that they had won a "strategic victory." The Germans had brought up an immense im-mense amount of war material for an attack, but had no chance to use it. Xow they must laboriously transport it across the Dvina river and establish lines of communication in a naturally inhospitable country which has meager railroad facilities. It is probable that an advance toward Petrograd cannot meet with much success this year, for the lake and hill country which intervenes inter-venes between the Russian capital and the German front is rather easily defended. The Italians began the week with bright hopes of success. North of Gori-7.ia Gori-7.ia they had moved eastward across the Bainsizza plateau and had attacked Santo Gabriele and Santo Danicle. To the south of Gorizia they had moved along the Carso plateau and near the coast had assaulted the Hermada mountain moun-tain fortifications. Tho Austriaus had been bringing up reinforcements for a week and were now prepared to counter-attack vigorously. vigor-ously. The zenith of Italian success was reached when the Roman troops scaled the height of Santo Gabriele and and attained the summit. They did not retain their positions, however, and in the two or three succeeding days lost ground, being forced back toward Gorizia Gori-zia and Monte Santo. The chief Austrian blow was struck from the region of the Hermada. This is the extreme flank near the coast. The fortifications are very powerful and had held up the Italian advance at the foot of the mountains despite the tremendous tre-mendous artillery fire from Roman batteries bat-teries and from British and' Roman monitors. Charging out from these fortifications the Austrians retook considerable con-siderable ground in several' days of fighting and captured 6500 prisoners. The Italians have taken more than 30,-000 30,-000 prisoners. The Vienna official communication is not candid when it says that "the Italians cannot be said to retain a foot of ground that they captured." This apparently refers to the entire line, but really refers only to the small sector near the Hermada. The Italians still hold practically all their gains in the other sectors along a front of thirty or forty miles. The French have begun a new offensive of-fensive at Verdun. The ' purpose of these swift drives which have netted good gains is to place the French in possession of all the strategic points for the big offensive next year, as it is not to be expected that the British and French can carry out their plan to recover re-cover Belgium this year. Aerial warfare increases every week. The British and FTench have been bombarding bom-barding scores of objectives far back of the German lines and1 have even dropped bombs on German towns. The Italians continue to hurl tons of dynamite dyna-mite down on Trieste and Pola. The Germans, by way of reply, have made three or four raids over England. At Chatham the naval barracks was struck by a bomb and 107 sailors killed. A raid on London was carried out successfully. suc-cessfully. All of the enemy machines engaged in these raids escapedi except probably one or two. Twenty British merchant ships of more than 1600 tons were sunk by submarines. Fighting on the British front at Ypres and on the Canadian front at Lens has been marked by few gains. The Germans have occasionally retaken trenches wrested from them. The apparently ap-parently insignificant nature of the fighting is no criterion of the losses, which have been heavy on both sides. In East Africa the Germans have been forced to retire again as a result of converging operations by the British and Belgian troops. One German force surrendered. |