OCR Text |
Show ALLIES BRINGING HELP TO SERBIANS RAINS AND ROUGH ROADS IMPEDING IM-PEDING THE MOVEMENT OF TROOPS AND GUNS. Germans Have Taken Offensive Soutl' of Riga, Capturing Larg; Number of Prisoners, While There is a Lull in Fighting in the West. Although there is very heavy fighting fight-ing at some points along the eastern front as well as in the west, the Aus-tro-German and Bulgarian invasions of Strbia and the efforts of the British and French generals to bring help to their little ally before it is too late, continue to occupy the chief attention of the people of the belligerent countries. coun-tries. The Serbians are being helped by the weather, which is cold and winterlike. winter-like. The rains have set in and are impeding the movement of troops and guns, which at the best must be slow over what answer Tor roads in the Balkan states. The Germans, however, claim to have taken the heights south of Belgrade, Bel-grade, while along the Danube the army of General von Gallwitz is pushing push-ing the Serbians back. The Bulgarians also lay claim to a rapid advance into Macedonia, although al-though the French are already reported report-ed to be in contact with them at Giev-geli, Giev-geli, while both the Frencn and British Brit-ish continue to land troops at Saloniki. Neither Russian nor Italian assistance assist-ance has yet developed, but the Italians Ital-ians have -begun a more vigorous offensive of-fensive along their frontier, and have captured Pregasina, an important advanced ad-vanced point of the fortified Riva group on Lake Garda. This will be of indirect aid to Serbia, preventing, as it does, the movement of any more Austrians troops from that frontier. The Germans have taken the offensive offen-sive south of Riga and forced the Russians Rus-sians out of their positions, capturing a large number of prisoners and some guns. On the rest of the eastern front the offensive remains in the hands of the Russians, who are attacking west of Dvinsk, in the center and to the south of the Pripet river. On the whole it appears to observers, observ-ers, says a London dispatch, as if the Germans were satisfied merely to hold their present line, except in the north, where they have made repeated at-tmpts at-tmpts to take Dvinsk. This would mean the fall of Riga and would compel com-pel the Russians to withdraw behind the Dvina river. This ambition has already cost the Germans many thousands thou-sands of men, but they keep on trying, try-ing, first in the north, then in the south and then on the Dvinsk front. At present their attacks are developing develop-ing the greatest force in the north. |