July 1.
If the Germans are satisfied with the communique which the High Command issued on Sunday after some days' delay, they must be very easily pleased. They were promised news of great successes and have been given figures of the alleged destruction of Russian aeroplanes and tanks which only the most credulous can possibly believe, and stories of penetrations through the Russian lines, which in fact after a week's severe fighting has resulted only in fair progress being made in the northern sector of the line with the greatest advance probably in the direction of Minsk concerning which reports from the two sides are completely at variance. Probably the best comment on the much adver~ tised German communique comes from Berne and may be taken as neutral. It is claimed that the German statement reveals a number of important facts. Neither Low nor Minsk had been captured up to Sunday. It is possible that they may fall soon, but the man ner. in which the Russians are defending, every step suggests that the capture of those two towns will be costly. Riga, which the Germans prematurely claimed to have captured, was still in Soviet hands on Sunday.
The number of Soviet prisoners alleged to have been captured—40,000,—is relatively small considering the extensiveness of the whole action and the vast numbers engaged. That {otal may be swelled if the Germans Succeed in capturing the contingents they claim to have surrounded between Byelostok and Minsk, but the German suggestion that another Battle of Tannenberg is under way "needs to be accepted with some reserve. It is possible, but unlikely, that the Russian High Command would make the same mistake as that-which led to that catastrophic defeat in the last war, and it may be advisable to regard German claims in this connection with some degree of scepticism. While the German communique has much to say about the damage inflicted upon' the Russians, it is completely silent as to German losses in men and material, save for the allegation that 2,582 Russian aeroplanes have been destroyed at the expense of 35 German
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.