Russia certainly has neither the industrial system nor the industrial temperament to supply herself with what she needs to the same extent as both France and England. She has been fighting now for months, with ammunition when she had it, and practically without it when it failed her. Month after month she has kept up the unequal struggle, and there are many here who think the greater powers that be are going to withdraw to a shorter line, and await refilling of their caissons until the time comes when the Allies can co-operate in the attack on the common enemy. These matters are purely speculation, however, for here we know nothing except that the civil evacuation is going on apace, and that there are many signs which indicate that it may be followed by the military within a week or ten days. The Poles are utterly discouraged, the Russians disgusted and, all things considered, Warsaw at the present writing is a very poor place for an optimist. We hear to-day that the fire brigade has come back from Zuradov, where buildings which might be of use to the enemy are said to have been blown up. Poles have been notified that the Russian Government would give them free transportation from here, and 14 roubles. Factories which have copper in their equipment have been dismantled, and many are already in process of being loaded on to cars for shipment to Russia proper. I am told that the State Bank left yesterday for Moscow, and that they are collecting all the brass and copper utensils from the building next door to the hotel. My chauffeur has just come in and lugubriously announced that benzine has risen to 15 roubles a pood (I do not know how that figures out in English equivalent except that it is prohibitory), when we usually pay three. In addition the soldiers are collecting all private stocks, and there are few of the privately owned cars in the town that have enough in their tanks to turn a wheel with. In the meantime another man informs me that they are tearing down copper telephone and telegraph wires to points outside of the city, and that our troops are already falling back on Warsaw. All of this is very annoying to one who has just finished writing an optimistic story about the situation in the South. Something like this, then, is the situation in Warsaw on Sunday night, July 18. It has never been worse so far as I can judge from my point of view, but I am of the opinion that things are not as bad as they look, and that successes in the South may yet relieve the tension. [Illustration: The evacuation of Warsaw. Copper and bells were all taken away before the Russians left.] THE LOSS OF WARSAW [Illustration: The retreat from Warsaw.] CHAPTER XXIV THE LOSS OF WARSAW Dated: PETROGRAD, _August 15, 1915_.