The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-08-20
RUSS|A'S FORTUNE GREATLY CHANGED Her Armies Are Stronger and Better Equipped A STRIKING CONTRAST This Shown in Viewing Situation Year Ago and at Present-Utter
 Defeat Now Turned Into
 Victory
A STRIKING CONTRAST

Petrograd, July 29.-The beginning of
 the third year of the war finds Russia on
 the offensive along a large part of her
 western front. Tn the Caucasus Russian | forces are pushing westward we'll be- yond Erzerum and southward toward the Mesopotamian border Her armies have l been reorganized and strengthened and 1 the shortage of ammunition, which was responsible for one of the most spectacu- ] lar and at the same time one of the most successfully conducted retreats in history, has been remedied. Today she has shells, cannon and small arms in abundance. Her munition factories have been inn proved and enlarged and are putting out large quantities of war materials in ad- dition to the enormous shipments arriv- ing from abroad. The personnel of the troops is as high, if not higher, than il was a year ago. The present financial needs have been adjusted through loans placed in England France and America. The outlook today presents a striking 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 victoles, still fiercely engaging in rear guard at tacks The turning point came early in | the fall. On September g the Russians | stopped the Austrians at Tarnapol. The German wave of invasion continued to roll onward, but in the latter oays of September it had spent it's force. The Russian armies turned upon the enemy along the line of the Dwina, Berezina, Shara, Styr and Sereth rivers and checked them there. Desperate repeated efforts of the Germans to capture Riga and | Dvinsk, in which they hoped tu estab- iS again and again throughout the winter, but the Russian line held-and stifi holds. Emperor Nicholas took personal com mand of the armies early in September, and since then has been continuously at general staff headquarters here and there along the front, counselling officers, cheering and encouraging the men. He appointed Gen. M. " Alexeeff, who was the right hand man of General Ivanoff during the latters brilliant campaign in Galicia during the fall and winter of 1914, to be chief of staff, and Grand Duke Nicholas hitherto commander-in-chief, was assigned to command in the Cau- casuS.
 The winter saw offensives and counter offensives locally in various sections of the western front but no definite ad- vance was undertaken until January when the Russians moved forward slight ly along the 200-mile line from Czartorysk to the Roumanian frontier-the scene of General Brussiloff's recent successes; but the spring thaw put an end to the move ment and the armies settled into an- other period of inertia which lasted until the beginning of June when General Brus- siloff, who had recently been appointed successor to General Ivanoff as com | mander of the southern armies, began the | drive which carried the Russian front for ward to the Stokhod and to Kolomea on l the west and overran the entire prvnce of BukoWina.
 Meanwhile Grand Duke Nicholas had been justifying the wisdom of his ap pointment to the command in the Cau- casus. He reorganized the armies which had been carrying the struggle against the Turks with varying success since the beginning of the war, and by New Years had started campaign along definite lines. The Turks were driven back upon Erzerum and the Russians, on February 16, after overcoming what appeared to
 be insurmountable obstacles in the way of difficult mountainous country and fear full weather conditions, forced the sur
 render of Erzerum and scattered the
 Turkish armies. In the succeeding months
 they carried the advance beyond Mama
 khatum, 50 miles furthe. west. On April
 19 Trebizond, an important port on the
 Black sea, capitulated. The more recent
 capture of Beiburt, an important strong
 hold between Trebizond and Mamakha
 tum, followed. To the southward the
 armies occupied the greater part of Kur-
 distan including the cities of Bitlis, Rev
 anduz, Serdasht, Khanikin and Herman
 shah, constituting front of 400 miles
 from the sea southeasternawrd into vest
 ern Persia
 General Brussiloffs advance reached it's
 point of deepest penetration in Bukowina,
 where it pushed the enemy back 65 miles
 and gained an average of 25 miles along
 tnt al of K I
 Sarny railway to Roumania. The Rus
 sian commander cut the forces under
 General Pflanzer into pieces and showed
 them into the Carpathian mountains; had
 General Bothmer fighting on the defen- |
 sive west of the Stripa, General Won
 Boehm- Ermolli hard pressed before Brody l
 in Galicia, the eastern defense of Lem-
 berg; and General Won Linsingen and |
 Archduke Ferdinand engaged in a life
 and death struggle along the Stokhod 1 before Kovel.
 General Brussiloff's stupendous bag of
 prisoners, according to the latest esti- | mates, numbers 300,000 officers and men, | and this is still being increased by thou sands and tens of thousands from week i
 to week. It is declared that probably ] an equal number have been put out of | action, counting the dead and wounded. |
 His booty in guns and equipment runs into extravagant figures.
 Prospects point to average crop con- | ditions. The shortage of field hands and | consequent curtailment of cultivation has
 been partially overcome by the employ
 ment of prisoners of war. The high prices
 of food are due as much to difficulties
 in transportation to shortage of pro-
 visions. The scarcity of meat for civilian
 consumption is due to the fact that the i soldiers who before the enlistment. were
 small consumers, are now receiving daily
 rations of meat Considerable benefit is
 accruing the Russians from the captured i fields, where they are profitng from the
 thrift of the Galicians. One of the first ] acquisitions made by General Brussiloff
 was for hands to harvest the abundant | crops.
 It is a fact widely commented upon
 here, in Moscow, Kiev and elsewhere that the new troops. recently called to
 the colors, are sturdy men of good phy-
 siaue. and equal to the best troops of
 the first line.
 SnaiPs Tongue Cleans Aquarium
 From the Popular Science Monthly.
 Everyone who keeps an aquarium l knows that it is advisable to place a l few snails in the tank. not only be-