German and Austrian reports as to the number of prisoners and amount of booty will bear scrutiny, and, taken into consideration with recent disturbances in Italy, may safely be discounted.  The surrender of such large bodies of troops, even in the Russian Army, cannot be forced when the lines of retreat are open or when sufficient notice is given that such lines are dangerously menaced.  It is only when troops are surrounded or when a large hostile force is thrust in between units, as happened some months ago with the Tenth Russian Army in the Masurian Lakes district, that such surrenders occur.

This does not apply, of course, to the wounded, and in the present case the Russians, through the enforced rapidity of their retreat, must necessarily in many instances have left their wounded on the field of battle to fall into the hands of the pursuing enemy.  Certainly the Russian losses were heavy.  Equally certain is it that the battle for the Carpathian passes is now history.

This is evident from a brief review of the Russian position on the Carpathian front, with particular reference to the necessary lines of communications and an outline of the present Russian position as accurately as it can at present be determined.  It must be stated at this point, however, that this position is a matter of doubt, as reports from Vienna and from Petrograd are greatly at variance as to what has been accomplished.

It was noted last week that the Russian line formed a huge crescent, the longer arc of which (and this was the Carpathian front) extended from Bartfeld north, then east along the Carpathian crests, north of Uzsok to a point on the Stryi River.  This line is over 100 miles long.  It was dependent for supplies on five roads, three of which were fairly good dirt roads, the other two railroads; of the latter one runs through Uzsok, and is so far east that only a small section of the line was reached by it.

The main line, however, has been supplied from the remaining four, all of which turn off either from the one lateral railroad from Przemysl to Jaslo or from the dirt road between Jaslo and Sanok, and run south to the various passes.  As this latter road simply loops the railroad between these two points, the entire Russian Carpathian line may be considered to have been supplied by the lateral railroad from Sanok to Jaslo.  In proportion to the number of troops that had to be fed and supplied, these lines were only too few, and the marvel is that Russia was able to keep up the necessary flow of food and ammunition throughout her effort against the Carpathian passes.  The possession of all of these roads was the sine qua non of Russian success.  The loss of any one of them would affect so many miles of her line that the whole line would have felt the influence.