The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-17
ENGLAND PREPARES
 TO MEET GERMANY'S
 FIGHT ON SHIPPING
scontinued from Page One,


 shall have their national colors, the names of the ships and the country of their origin painted conspicuously on the sides of all vessels.
 Holland and Italy, like the United States, have protested to Germany against her sea war zone threat and have asked Great Britain not to make free use of neu- tral flags. Similar representations are ex- pected to be made to the two countries tomorrow in joint note by Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
 Question of Diplomacy
 For the time being questions of diplo- macy are arousing more interest than the actual fighting, although military move ments of the first importance are taking place, especially in the east. The Ger man offensive strongly supported by fresh troops. is being pushed with great yigor both along the East Prussian from tier and in Poland north of the lower Vistula. The Russians have evacuated East Prussia except for small area near Lyck. and also are apparently falling back in North Poland, for the Germans today announced the occupation of Flock and Bielsk, which the Russians recap tured from them short time ago.
 While the Germans claim to have in fllcted heavy losses on the retiring Rus sian armies, military men here and the newspaper correspondents in Petrograd continue to refer to the Muscovite move ment as a strategical retirement to the fortified line along the Niemen river, which runs through Kovno, Grodno and Lomza and thence southwest to the for tress of Novoe Georgiewsk.
 Heavy fighting continues in the Car pathians and Bukowina. In Bukowina the Russians also are falling back, but they continue to hold the Carpathian passes farther west and are offering stubborn resistance to the Austro-Ger- man offensive in that region. Here the armies are fighting in deep snow, and both sides are suffering severely.
 The large number of troops the Ger r.ans are using in the east, military ob- servers here believe. will prevent for sometime any attempt by the Germans to break the western deadlock.
 Less Activity
 Although there have been no events of outstanding importance on this front, {. lJne official report of the British op erations from November to the beginning oe February, issued today, snows that there always is more or less activity there. The report says there has been q lot of trench fighting in which the Indians and British territorials have dis tinguished themselves. general French, in the report, pays high tribute to the Indians. He says the territorials have far more than Justified the most sanguine hopes entertain of their value in the field The report adds that reinforce ments are arriving regularly.
 The first of the promised by-Weekly reports of the doings of the British army in France also was issued today. It claims that progress has been made in the region of La Basse, where tho Germans are said to have suffered se- we're losses, and that the British ar tillery has shown marked superiority over that of the Germans.
 There was no further news today of the new German offensive in Alsace or the French offensive in the vicinNy of St. Mihiel
 The relations between Greece and Turkey apparently have become more strained. Although Turkey has offered reparation for the insult to the Greek military attache at Constantinople, it is reported that the Greek minister has left the legation in charge of secre- tary The Turkish minister also has left Athens This Is believed in some quar- ters to be the first step in the rupture of diplomatic relations between Greece and Turkey, which are said also to have been affected by the Albanian inva- sion of Servia.
 The British Parliament tomorrow will debate the motion of the labor party calling on the government to fix max imum food prices.