The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-07-31
Cars Men on the Offensive Along the Greater Part Of Their Western FrOEt-Out- look Today In Striking Con- trast to Conditions a Year Ago.

of the third year of the war finds Rus sia on the offensive along a large part of her western front. In the Caucasus Russian forces are pushing westward well beyond Erzerum and Southward toward the Mesopotamian border. Her armies have been reorganized and and the shortage of am- which was responsible for one of the most spectacular and at. the same time enc of the most suc- cessfully conducted retreats in history, has been remedied. Today she has shells, cannon and small arms in Her munition factories have been improved and enlarged and are putting out large quantities of war materials in addition to the enormous arriving from abroad. The personnel of the troops is as high, If not higher, than it was a year ago. The present financial needs have been adjusted through loans placed in Eng land, France and America.
 The outlook today presents strik- ing contrast to that of last August which saw the fall of Warsaw and the continuation of the retirement of the Russian armies, with the Germans and Austrians, buoyed up with a long succession of victories, still fiercely engaging in rear guard attacks. The turning point came early in the fall. On September the Russians stopped the Austrians at Tarnopol. The Ger man wave of invasion continued to roll onward but in the latter days of September it had spent it's force. The Russian armies turned upon the ene- my along the line of the Dwina, Bere- gina, Shara, Styr and Sereth rivers and checked them there. Desperate repeated efforts of the Germans to capture Riga and Dvinsk, in which they hoped to establish winter bases, failed. They attacked again and again throughout the winter but the Russian line held-and still holds.
 Emperor Nicholas took personal command of the armies early in Sep tember and since then has been con- tinuously at general staff headquar- ters here and there along the front, counselling officers. cheering and en-
 couraging the men. He appointed General M. V. Alexeieff. who was the right hand man of General Ivanoff during the latter's brilliant campaign in Galicia during the fall and winter
 of 1914, to be chief of staff. and Grand Duke Nicholas. hitherto com mander-in-chief, was assigned to com
 mand in the Caucasus.
 The winter saw offensfves and counter offensives locally in various sections of the western front but no definite advance was undertaken un- til January when the Russians moved forward slightly along the 200 mile line from Czartorysk to the Rumanian frontier-the scene of General Brus-
 siloff's recent successes; but the spring thaw put an end to the movement and , the armies settled into another period of inertia which lasted until the be- ginning. of June when General Brussi- loff, who had recently been appointed successor to General Ivanoff as com. mander of the southern armies, be.
 gan the drive which carried the Rus
 sian front forward to the Stokhod and l to Kolomea on the west and overrar
 the entire province of Bukowina.
 Meanwhile Grand Duke Nicholas
 had been justifying the wisdom of hi
 appointment to the command in th' Caucasus. He reorganized the armies
 which had been carrying the struggle
 against the Turks with varying sue 1 cess since the beginning of the wal and by New Years had started a cam paign along definite lines. The Turk were driven back upon Erzerum ant
 the Russians, on February Is. afte
 overcoming what appeared to be in
 surmountable obstacles in the way O ! difficult mountainous country ant fearful weather conditions, forced tn
 surrender of Erzerum and scattere' the Turkish armies. In the succeeding months they carried the advance be yond Mamakhatun fifty miles furthe
 west. On April 1s Trebizond, an i'm
 portant port on the Black Sea, capi tulated. The more recent capture o
 Beiburt, an important stronghold be tween Trebizond and Mamakhatun
 followed. To the southward the arm
 ies occupied the greater part If Kur
 distan including the cities of Bitlis Revarduz, Serdasht, Khanikin am
 Kermanshah. constituting front O 400 miles from the sea southeastwar
 into western Persia.
 General Brussiloff's advance reach ed its point of deepest penetration Il Bukowina, where it pushed the enem
 back. sixty-five miles md gained al average of twenty-five miles along total front of 275 miles from the Ko vel-Sarny railway to Rumania. Tn Russian commander cut the force under General Pflanzer into piece , and showed them into the Carpathia mountains; had General Bothme fighting on the defensive west of tn . Stripa, General von Boehm-E -Ermoi , hard pressed before Brody in Galicio , the eastern defense of Lemberg, an General von Linsingen and Archduk
 Ferdinand engaged in a life and deat struggle along the Stokhod befor'
 Kovel
 General Brussiloffs stupendous ba of prisoners, according to tho lates