_An Associated Press dispatch from London dated July 20 recorded the
doubt in the English capital of Warsaw's holding out, as follows:_
The Morning Post's Budapest correspondent reports that the gradual
evacuation of Warsaw has been ordered by the Russians.
Continued successes of the great Teutonic movement against the Polish
capital were indicated in the German official bulletin received from
Berlin this morning. This stated that the Russians were retreating
along the whole front between the Vistula and the Bug. The bulletin
reads:
The Germans have occupied Tukum and Windau (Province of
Courland).
Between the Vistula and the Bug the battle continues with
unabated violence.
The Austro-Hungarians have forced a crossing of the Wolicza
River in the neighborhood of Grabovetz and advanced across
the Bug to the north of Sokal, the Russians having during
the night retreated along the whole front between the
Vistula and the Bug.
The Germans captured from July 16 to July 18 16,000
prisoners and twenty-three machine guns.
[Illustration: Scene of German operations in Courland]
That German columns have occupied Tukum, thirty-eight miles west of
Riga, and Doblen eighteen miles west of Mitau, is admitted by an
official statement issued at the headquarters of the Russian general
staff. The same report admits that the Austrians have gained the right
bank of the Volitza and have crossed the Bug River on a front reaching
to Sokal. The bulletin says:
On the Narew front the night of the 18th the enemy took the
offensive, capturing the village of Poredy, on the right
bank of the Pissa River. On the left bank of the Skwa enemy
attacks against the villages of Vyk and Pchetchniak were
repulsed with success. West of the Omulew our troops,
retiring progressively toward a bridgehead on the Narew,
delivered on the evening of the 17th a rearguard action of a
stubborn character near the town of Mahoff. Near the village
of Karnevo we made a brilliant counter-attack.
In the direction of Lublin enemy attacks during the 18th on
the front Wilkolaz-Vychawa (east and north of Krasnik) were
successfully repulsed.
At dawn of the 18th the enemy captured Krasnostav,
thirty-four miles south of Lublin on the Vieprz, and crossed
upstream. During the course of the 19th enemy attacks
between the stream flowing from Rybtchevbitze toward the
village of Piaski and the Vieprz remained without result. On
the right bank of the Vieprz we repulsed near Krasnostav
and the River Volitza many extremely stubborn enemy attacks.
Nevertheless, near the mouth of the Volitza and the village
of Gaevniki the enemy succeeded in establishing himself on
the right bank of this river, after which we judged it
advisable to retire to our second-line positions.
In the region of the village of Grabovetz on the 18th we
repulsed four furious enemy attacks on a wide front,
supported by a curtain of fire from his artillery.
Between Geneichva and the Bug on the evening of the 17th,
after a desperate fight we drove the enemy from all the
trenches previously occupied by him.
On the Bug energetic fighting continued against the enemy,
who crossed on the 18th on the front Skomorskhy-Sokal.
"Can Warsaw be held?" is the question now being asked here.
With the German Field Marshals, von Hindenburg on the north and von
Mackensen on the south, whipping forward the two ends of a great arc
around the city, it is realized in England that Grand Duke Nicholas,
Commander in Chief of the Russian armies, has the most severe task
imposed on him since the outbreak of the European war, and the
military writers of some of the London papers seem to think that the
task is well-nigh impossible.
There was sustained confidence that Germany's previous violent attacks
along the Bzura-Rawka front would never pierce the Russian line, but
the present colossal co-ordinate movement was developed with such
suddenness, and has been carried so far without meeting serious
Russian resistance, that more and more the British press is
discounting the fall of the Polish capital, and, while not giving up
all hope of its retention, is pointing out the enormous difficulty the
Russian armies have labored under from the start by the existence of
such a salient.
_An Associated Press dispatch from London on July 21 said:_
From the shores of the Gulf of Riga in the north to that part of
Southern Poland into which they drove the Russians back from Galicia,
the Austro-German armies are still surging forward, and if Warsaw can
be denied them it will be almost a miracle.
This seems to be the opinion even among those in England who
heretofore have been hopeful that the Russians would turn and deliver
a counter-blow, and news of the evacuation of the Polish capital,
followed by the triumphant entry of the Germans amid such scenes as
were enacted at Przemysl and Lemberg, would come as no surprise.
The German official statement, beginning at the northern tip of the
eastern battle line, records the progress of the German troops to
within about fifty miles of Riga. Then, following the great battle arc
southward, chronicles further successes in the sector northeast of
Warsaw, culminating in the capture of Ostrolenka, one of the
fortresses designed to shield the capital.
The acute peril to Warsaw is accentuated by the Russian official
communication which says that German columns are within artillery
range of the fortress of Novo Georgievsk, the key to the capital from
the northwest, and only about twenty miles from it.
Immediately southwest of the city, seventeen miles from it, Blonie has
fallen, and further south Grojec, twenty-six miles distant, while
German cavalry have captured Radom, capital of the province of that
name, on the railroad to the great fortress of Ivangorod. The
Lublin-Chelm Railway is still in the hands of the Russians, so far as
is known, but the Russian Commander-in-Chief has issued, through the
Civil Governor, an order that in case of a retreat from the town of
Lublin, the male population is to attach itself to the retiring
troops.
The belief is expressed in Danish military circles, according to a
Copenhagen dispatch to the Exchange Telegraph Company, that the
Germans intend to use Windau and Tukum as bases for operations
designed to result in the capture of Riga, which would be used as a
new naval base after the Gulf of Riga had been cleared of mines.