Broadly speaking the Russian attack through Persia covered a front of about 200 miles. It must not be understood, however, that this was a continuous "front" of the same nature as the front in the western and eastern theaters of war in Europe. The undeveloped condition of the country made the establishment of a continuous front not only impossible, but unnecessary. Each of the three Russian groups were working practically independent of each other, except that their operations were planned and executed in such a way that their respective objectives were to be reached simultaneously. Even that much cooperation was made extremely difficult, because of the lack of any means of communication in a horizontal direction. No roads worthy of that name, parallel to the Turko-Persian frontier, existed. Telegraph or telephone lines, of course, were entirely lacking, except such as were established by the advancing armies. How great the difficulties were which confronted both the attacking and the defending armies in this primitive country can, therefore, readily be understood. They were still more increased by the climatic conditions which prevail during the winter and early spring. If fighting in the comparatively highly developed regions of the Austro-Italian mountains was fraught with problems that at times seemed almost impossible of solution, what then must it have been in the more or less uncivilized and almost absolutely undeveloped districts of Persian "Alps!" The difficulties that were overcome, the suffering which was the share of both Russians and Turks make a story the full details of which will not be told--if ever told at all--for a long time to come. No daily communique, no vivid description from the pen of famous war correspondents acquaints us of the details of the heroic struggle that for months and months progressed in these distant regions of the "near East." Not even "letters from the front" guide us to any extent. For where conditions are such that even the transport of supplies and ammunition becomes a problem that requires constantly ingenuity of the highest degree, the transmission of mail becomes a matter which can receive consideration only very occasionally. Whatever will be known for a long time to come about this campaign is restricted to infrequent official statements made by the Russian and Turkish General Staffs, announcing the taking of an important town or the crossing of a mountain pass, up to then practically unknown to the greatest part of the civilized world.