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Show vance between the Adige and the Brenta and to fall back against their own frontier, but Count Cadonia knows very well that the sledge hammer ham-mer blows against his forces will be renewed as soon as the Russian offensive of-fensive stops. "Big Push" Not Success. "The 'big push' of the English and French on the western front has not proved the success our enemies expected ex-pected it to be. Although the battles on both sides of the Somnie continue there is now but little danger thai the allies will break through our front. We hold the numerically superior forces of the enemy and give them a chance to bleed themselves to death in vain attacks. "The small gains made by the British Brit-ish and French troops have been very costly and we may well doubt whether wheth-er the allies are willing to continue their terrible sacrifices indefinitely. "The French have done the lion's share of the work in Picardy. They attacked with the greatest bravery, as they did in the Champagne a year ago, but the small strip of territory won by them is nowhere more than four and a half miles wide and they did not succeed in reaching Peronne. In their daily official reports they have far more to say about the German Ger-man counter-blows than about their own attacks. They are already showing show-ing signs of exhaustion and looking anxiously toward their British allies, who have been plainly told by the 'Echo de Pari I nd other French papers pa-pers that 'they will have to get a move on,' to use a slang expression. "Many of the French papers, with the consent of the censor, angrily comment on the fact that the British Brit-ish are lagging behind and have ae complished but little along their see tiun of the Battle front between tht Aucru and the Somme. To refute Urn reproach the English mysterious! hint that their main blow would be struck at another point. This muj be true, but we await further developments devel-opments calmly. The result of tin battles (ought since the first of Julj has convinced us that the numeric-nil enormous British army is not able tc drive us back to the Rhine. "In tile meantime our offensive against Verdun continues unimpaired. We are well able to beat back the desperate counler-nttacks of the French before the fortress and to advance ad-vance nearer our goal, step by step. 1 "The neutral press discusses the possible consequences of the fall o Verdun. We cannot join tills debate, but we know that the German gem eral staff, . trained in the spirit ol Moltke, does not make large sacrifices to gain a temporary success of doubtful doubt-ful value, but always looks far ahead. "The Russian offensive proves more durable than anybody expected. After Aft-er a pause on the southeastern front it has started anew and at the same time General Kuropatkin began tremendous tre-mendous attacks against the lines ol Field Marshal von Hindenburg and Prince Leopold of Bavaria in the North. Bitter Iftittles were fought between be-tween KIga and Dvinsk along the Shtchara, on both sides of the Burano-witchi Burano-witchi railroad and along the Oginskl canal, but everywhere our troops victoriously vic-toriously repeiled the onslaught of the enemy. "Further south, in Volhynia, General Gen-eral von Liusingen has been compelled to fall back across the Stokhod river; west of Lutsk, the Russians have crossed the Galician border at Brody, the army of General von Bothnwr had to retire from the Strypa to the Koropiec, the Russians have advanced a little west of Kolomea and south of thj Pruth the Austro-Huugarlan front has been pushed back to the Carpathians. Carpa-thians. "The successes of the Russians are of little practical value, because our front has nowhere been broken.. In the Bukowina General von Pflnnxer-Baltln Pflnnxer-Baltln faced Russian forces whtch were numerically six times stronger than his. ' For a time his army was in a dangerous position and threatened with annihilation, but he skillfully withdrew toward the Carpathians, inflicting in-flicting heavy losses upon the Russians Rus-sians In regular actions. His lines remained intact and he was able to start a counter-attack as soon as he received re-enforcements. "How long the Russians will be able to continue their offensive cannot be estimated. Grand Duke Nicholas again dominates the Russian general staff and has given orders that the Austro-Germnn lines must be broken regardless of the cost. The present Russian strategical methods are exactly ex-actly the same as during tile first year of the war. The Russians will continue con-tinue their onslaughts until exhaus tion stops them. They may reach the wail of the Carpathians, but there they will surely dash themselves to pieces." FAMOUS CRITIC MORAHT THINKS GERMANS SAFE Sees No Danger to Central Powers Pow-ers in Allies' Joint Offensive. STILL HOLD THE INITIATIVE "Big Push" of English and French Not a Success, Moraht Declares Russians Have No Definite Plan Offensive Against Verdun Is Unimpaired. Berlin. The Berlin "Tageblatt" publishes pub-lishes a long review of the latest developments de-velopments of the war by Maj. Ernest Moraht, the most famous German military mili-tary critic. He sees no danger for the central powers in the present situation, situa-tion, although he concedes that the efforts ef-forts of tbe allies are more serious than ever before. In part he says : "Our enemies are jubilant over their offensive. For the first time, after many failures, they have succeeded In reaching a certain unity of action, but it Is an open question whether the British did not start their attempt at an advance too early and the Russians too late. This question can only be answered an-swered definitely when we learn to what extent the grouping of the German Ger-man forces has been influenced by the strategy of the allies. "French and English military critics crit-ics are astonished by the fact that so far very few transfers of German troops have taken place. Indirectly they admit that the Initiative still remains re-mains on our side In spite of the offensive offen-sive movements started against our lines on all fronts. We are attacking before Verdun as we did before, and on the rest of the western- front our defense has Increased In strength since the allies struck their blow In Picardy. Strategically It matters very little if a fev dents are knocked into our long line here and there. "In the East our defense also is as powerful as ever. The Russian offensive offen-sive has not changed the strategic situation and It will, in my estimation, not succeed, because It is aimless. No Definite Plan. "We are told in dispatches from Pe-trograd Pe-trograd that Leraberg Is to be reconquered recon-quered to re-establish the prestige of the Russian armies, but the events of the last two months show plainly the general staff of the czar had no definite plan when the Generals Brusiloff and Kuropatkin received orders to strike. The military expert of Budapest "Lloyd" sized up the Russian operations opera-tions properly when he remarked last week : " 'The colossus mechanically starts to move, but the Russian general staff does not know w'hich direction it will tnke. That is left to fate. If the steam roller seem to advance In the direction of Kovel the Russian strategists strate-gists announce that they Intend to capture this important railroad center, cen-ter, but as soon as they find their way barred they decide that Lemberg, the capital of Gulicia, really is the object of their efforts.' There is no doubt that the Russian offensive wis principally undertaken to bring relief to the French and Italians Ital-ians and to influence Roumanla. The hope of the allies to bring the Roumanian Rouma-nian army to their side will again be disappointed, however, because the comparatively unimportant successes of General Brusiloff have made but little Impression on the government in Bucharest. "The Italians have nt least temporarily tempo-rarily boon saved by the Russian offensive of-fensive against the Austro-llungarlan front in eastern Galicia and the Bukowina. Buko-wina. The Austrians were compelled to withdraw troops from the Italian front, to give up their victorious ad- |
