The Alaska daily empire., 1915-08-07
WHERE GREAT BATTLES HAVE
 BEEN FOUGHT

-,-
 On every field where the German armies are now lighting in Che enyir- ons of Warsaw great battles have gone before. for Warsaw has always been the chief stronghold for the de. fense of Poland, Che industrial. com merclal and Financial center as we'll as the physical center toward which all Polish lines of communications take their way. The greatest of Bur opean conquerers have passed that way and dealth with Warsaw as one of the haif.dozen most Important towns on che Continent. As @ mili- tary problem. Warsaw is conscien- tiously studied by the leading soldiers of Europe, and there are few fields for which the possibilities have been better canyassed. The geography of the country immediately surround ing this great city, the scene of the supreme test of strength between Teuton and Slav. is described in a bulletin just issued by the National Geographical society which reads
 Strong Qualifications
 "Girdled by a formidable plan of Notifications and by fortified towns. which build a circular line around the metropolis. Warsaw is the best de- tended city in Eastern Europe. It's immediate line of forts are thrown before it at a radius of about sixteen miles from the heart of the city. In the immediate line of fortified towns beyond the Warsaw forts, varying from % to 40 miles in distance from the city. are Garowin in the south. east. Grojec in the South, S1iernie- vice in the southwest, Blonie in the west. Novo Georgievsk in the north west, Pultsk and Segrje in the north, and Praga across the Vlstula to the east. The most powerful of thes fortresses is Novo Georglevsk.
 "The country around Warsaw is a plain, low and flat. intense cultivated, and dotted with many industrial vile lages. The plain stretches away to the Prussian frontier. TO the south there are hill clusters, while in the North, throughout the region adioin- ing the confluence of the Narew and the Bug with the Vistula, there are considerable stretches of tangled and treacherous marsh land. During the spring and autumn rains this region frequently suffers from disastrous floods. The floods now and then prove to be terribly destructive. No- vo Georgievsk fortress lies upon the confluence of the Bug and Vistula, and the swampy stretches near it are part of its scheme of defense.
 "The vistula cleaves through the district. through fortresses before Warsaw. through the heart of the me- tropolis. and through Actresses to- ward the German frontier, in a broad expanse of between Q quarter and a third of a mile in width. Parts of the rivers banks are high, and Warsaw stands over the VIstula on a steep terrace, lying between 100 and 14O feet above the river. Six great trunk lines traverse tho plain to Warsaw, connecting the Polish city with Pet rograd. Moscow Kiev, Danzig Berlin and Vienna. Over these railways and down the broad vistula almost the whole trade of Russian Poland has taken its way through the first city.
 Country Before Warsaw
 "All the country before Warsaw is an open way of farm and factory While the soils are not very fertile. being chiefly clay and sand deposits, large crops are raised upon them, crops that have been forced higher and higher to meet the needs of the great next-door market Then too. the Warsaw district is the most mod ern and progressive district in Po- land. progressive in its agriculture as in its manufacture and trade The industry of the metropolis spreads out over the city. through the neighboring villages and towns. For 20 years the Poles have turned their energies to in dustry with all the seriousness which they formally displayed in politics, and with better organization Warsaw and the flat country in which it Hes are the heart and inspiration of Pol ish industry"