In the direction of Lublin enemy attacks during the 18th on the front Wilkolaz-Vychawa (east and north of Krasnik) were successfully repulsed.
At dawn of the 18th the enemy captured Krasnostav, thirty-four miles south of Lublin on the Vieprz, and crossed upstream. During the course of the 19th enemy attacks between the stream flowing from Rybtchevbitze toward the village of Piaski and the Vieprz remained without result. On the right bank of the Vieprz we repulsed near Krasnostav and the River Volitza many extremely stubborn enemy attacks.
Nevertheless, near the mouth of the Volitza and the village of Gaevniki the enemy succeeded in establishing himself on the right bank of this river, after which we judged it advisable to retire to our second-line positions.
In the region of the village of Grabovetz on the 18th we repulsed four furious enemy attacks on a wide front, supported by a curtain of fire from his artillery.
Between Geneichva and the Bug on the evening of the 17th, after a desperate fight we drove the enemy from all the trenches previously occupied by him.
On the Bug energetic fighting continued against the enemy, who crossed on the 18th on the front Skomorskhy-Sokal.
"Can Warsaw be held?" is the question now being asked here.
With the German Field Marshals, von Hindenburg on the north and von Mackensen on the south, whipping forward the two ends of a great arc around the city, it is realized in England that Grand Duke Nicholas, Commander in Chief of the Russian armies, has the most severe task imposed on him since the outbreak of the European war, and the military writers of some of the London papers seem to think that the task is well-nigh impossible.
There was sustained confidence that Germany's previous violent attacks along the Bzura-Rawka front would never pierce the Russian line, but the present colossal co-ordinate movement was developed with such suddenness, and has been carried so far without meeting serious Russian resistance, that more and more the British press is discounting the fall of the Polish capital, and, while not giving up all hope of its retention, is pointing out the enormous difficulty the Russian armies have labored under from the start by the existence of such a salient.
An Associated Press dispatch from London on July 21 said: