If the city of Kiev has indeed fallen into German hands, the Russians will. have experienced the most serious reverse since the invasion of their country started. But the claims of the Germans in this respect have not yet been admitted by the Russians Whose communiques are confined to the dri the suburbs of the city and that heavy statement that severe fighting is proceeding
slaughter is being inflicted-upon the attackers. "What the Germans appear to have done is to have worked round the strong western defences of the city, and to have attacked from the north and south with numerically superior forces. According to a correspondent of the Russian journal, "Pravda," the Germans, supported by masses of armoured cars and aircraft, broke through the outer fortifications rendering the situation critical. That is very far from the German claims to have captured the city, and the chances are that their allegations are merely anticipatory of what they hope will occur. If the Russians at Kiev are fighting anything like their fellows ins Leningrad it may still be some time before the German claim can be substantiated.
The same correspondent states that the defenders were not sparing their lives, amd would not yield the city cheaply, and, if this indeed proves to be the case, the Germans, if and when they completely occupy the place, should find it no more than the empty Shell which has been the case of many other towns subjected to the traditional scorched earth policy. The Russians claim that during the forty-five days the Germans have been battling for Kiev they have lost ten divisions while a further fifteen have had to be brought Mp indicating that their casualties faust have been ín the neighbourhood of 200,000. There will in all probability be more, in which event the Germans will have
be on the eve of achieving. In considering dearly for the success which they appear this latest development it should be borne in mind that the Russian command has at all times contemplated the possibility of having fo retreat if necessary as far back as the Urals, and of carrying on the war from there and the real test of the success of their methods must be the damage inflicted upon the enemy.
1f the worst comes to the worst with regard to Kiev it would not be the first time that the city has been devastated. That happened once before in 1483, when the khan of the Crimea laid it low. The history of the place is such that it cannot satisfactorily be separated from that of Russia. According to Nestor's legend, it was founded in 864 by three brothers Kiy, She&ek and Khoriv. After their deaths it was seized by the two Varangians Askold and Dir, followers of Rurik. Rurik's successor Oleg conquered Kiev in 882 and made it the chief town of his principality. It was in the waters of the Dnieper opposite the town that Prince Vladimir, the first saint of the Russian church, caused his people to be baptized, and Kiev became the seat of the first Christian yghurch, the first Christian school and ofthe {first library in Russia. For three "hemgred and seventy-six years it was an independent city, for eighty years it was subject to the Mongols, for two hundred and forty-nine it belonged to the Lithuanian principality and for eighty-five years to Poland.
The Magdeburg rights, providing for the administrative independence of cities, were enjoyed by Kiev from 1516 to 1835 when they were abolished, and the ordinary form of town government introduced. Five years later it was made subject to the common civil law of the Empire. The old monastery, the Kievo-Pecherskaya, was the chief establishment of its kind in Russia, and, in the days of the Empire, was visited by no fewer than a quarter of a million pilgrims annually. There were four distinct quarters in the monastery, the most interesting of which were the Nearer and Further Caves. The first series of caves, dedicated to St. Anthony, contains eighty tombs while the second, dedicated to St. Theodosius, a saint greatly venerated in old Russia. held about forty-five. Founded in the eleventh century by Anthony and Hilarion by the middle of the twelfth century it had become rich and beautiful, but the Mongols under Prince Batu ruined it in 1240 and it remained deserted for two centuries. Restoration was begun by Prince Oblkovich, but a conflagration laid the buildings waster in 1716, their later beauty being due to the activities of Peter the Great.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.