One is constantly impressed with the isolation of the men holding important minor commands. For days and weeks they are without outside news, and many of them have even only a vague idea as to what is going on in neighbouring corps, and almost none at all of the movements in adjoining armies. I was convinced from the way this General--and he was a fine old type--talked, that he did not consider his men had ever been beaten at all, and that he looked upon his movements merely as the result of orders given for higher strategic considerations. From him we went out to the line on the Zota Lipa. The Russians at this time had retired from the Gnita Lipa (the great Austro-German “victory” where they lost between 4,000 and 5,000 prisoners and I know not how many dead and wounded) and had now for four days been quietly sitting on the ridges of the second Lipa waiting for the enemy to come up. I think no army can beat the Russians when it comes to forced marches, and after each of these actions they have retired in two days a distance that takes the enemy four or five to cover. It is because of this speed of travel that there have been stragglers, and it is of such that the enemy have taken the prisoners of whom they boast so much. The position we visited was on a wonderful ridge crested with woods. The river lay so deeply in its little valley that, though but a mile away, we could not see the water at all, but only the shadow wherein it lay. Our trenches were just on the edge of it while our guns and reserves were behind us. From our position we could look into the rear of our trenches, and across the river where the country was more open and where the Austrians were just beginning to develop their advance. Though the Russians had been here for several days, the enemy was just coming up now and had not yet brought up his guns at all.