New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-08-25
Fighting in the Gulf of Riga.

II is impossible to make out from the
fragmentary reports of fighting in the
Gulf of Riga exactly what has happened
there. The earlier dispatches spoke of a
battle in which the Germans had been
driven out of the bay with the loss OF
one battle-cruiser, three cruisers, seven
torpedo-boats and four barges filled with
troops. This was the announcement Salc
to have been made by the President of the
Duma, and the battle-cruiser was express
ly identified as the Moltke.
A later statement from Russian naval
headquarters is more vague in reckoning
the German losses. Admitting the destruc-
ton of the Russian gunboat Sivutch, 1T
notes that she had previously sunk the
enemy torpedo-boats," but the number OF
torpedo-boats is not given. All we are told
is that between the 10th and 21st two
enemy cruisers and no less than eight tor
pedo-boats were either sunk or placed
hors de combat" The Moltke is not named
at all but zone of the most powerful
dreadnoughts of the German feet" is said
to have been torpedoed by "our gallant
allies" not in the gulf, but in the open
waters of the Baltic. There is no mention
of the attempted landing Of troops, and
the cautious conclusion is that "the enemy
appears to have evacuated the gulf" A
still later statement adds an auxiliary
cruiser to the German losses already an
Inounced. and intimates that "the impor
lance of this fight consisted in preventing
the Germans for certain time from fore
ing our position"
No report of these operations has as yet
come from Germany, and the news we
have is too contradictory to justify def
mite conclusions. The later reports are
certainly less glowing than the first, and
all that can be gathered from them is that
the Germans have suffered temporary
reverse in the attempt to take Riga. If
the statement made in the Duma was well
founded we should be justified in regard
ing this as one of the most important
naval engagements that have occurred so
apparently qualified by the subsequent
reports. The loss of the Moltke, one of
the most formidable of Germany's fight
ing ships, would be serious matter but
was the Moltke lost? In the later an.
nouncements we are left in doubt whether
the unnamed "dreadnought"-supposing
this to be the Moltke-was actually sunk.
No announcement has been made by the
British Admiralty as yet. In any case,
this event appears to have been indepen-
dent of the fighting in the Gulf of Riga.
which was evidently an affair in which
small vessels only were concerned.
1t is disappointing that no particulars
are given in the official reports Of the
landing or attempted landing of troops.
Except in the announcement attributed
to the President Of the Duma, the barges
are not even mentioned. According to a
dispatch from Petrograd, however, three
large transports approached the shore
and before the landing could be effected
they were all sunk. If this is true the
enterprise Of the Germans was extraordi-
narily bold, not to say reckless. Without
anything approaching an assured COM
mand of the sea they apparently UNDER
took to land a considerable force with
out even siencing the batteries at the
point of landing. Some further explana-
ton of the expedition is surely necessary,
for it seems hardly credible that they So