The maps. which have been published in this journal since the commencement of the German invasion of Russia have served to give a pretty fair idea of what has been happening. At first they were based upon the claims of the German propaganda reporters, but statements which have since been made in communiques issued by Moscow have permitted of some degree of checking, with the result that a very clear picture may now be formed of the situation along the huge front stretching from the Arctic to the Black Sea. One fact emerges from the latest reports to hand and that is that the initial momentum of the German advance has been slowed down by the energy of the Russian resistance, and German hopes of a swift subjugation of the Russians seem likely to be.denied. Roughly speaking two main actions appear to have developed up to the present. The battle north of the Pripet marshes stretches from Ostrov just south of the Lake Peipus down to Borisov, a town about one-quarter of the way between Minsk and Smolensk. In this area the Germans appear to have a bridgehead on the Dvina as their immediate objective, but it is possible that they are also endeavouring to strike between the Dvina and the Dnieper where those two rivers run almost parallel with each other, the absence of a natural defence having obliged the Russians to rely upon the usual type of fortifications. It is here that the struggle is fiercest for if the Ger-tans could burst there the Russian positions south and north of Borisov would
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.