line Novo Alexandryn-Lubartow. In the centre Woyrsch had extended his Muciejowice bridgehead and was passing all his forces over the Vistula for the advance on Siedlce-Lukow, and under this threat the Russians had entirely evacuated the left of the Vistula. Warsaw city fell on the 5th, though the German IX. Army was unable to force the river-there a kilometre broad-till the 8th. Ivangorod was evacuated on the 5th. Thus the German front had assumed a still more pronounced N.E. direction than at the beginning of the Mackensen manœuvre; owing to its battle and route conditions, Linsingen's Army was back instead of forward of the alignment, and the Russians had retreated clear of the dangerous central salient to a line marked by the Liwiec, the Bystrica and, facing Mackensen, the middle Wieprz, the Swinka and the Ucherka. The Austrian I. Army, occupied principally with flank-guarding Linsingen along the Bug, had advanced its right to Vladimir Volhynskiy but no farther. On the other flank of the Russian retreat Gallwitz was firmly held for the time being. In other words the Russians-handled with great skill by General Alexeiev, commander-in-chief of the N.W. front, were successfully effecting their retreat to that line (Kovno-Grodno-Brest-Litovsk-W. of Kovel-LuckDubno) which had been already in peace-time regarded as the line of safety for deployment. In territory, they had abandoned no more than they would have been prepared to give up gratuitously in their pre-war concentration scheme.

But this in itself was, after a year of warfare, a confession of defeat. The enormous losses of that year in men and materiallosses such that the great army of peace-time with all its resources had practically ceased to exist and the stocks of arms no longer sufficed to equip even the men in action, let alone new formations, with rifles-left no doubt that as a dominant factor in the war Russia was out of the reckoning. In the light of after events, the decision to continue the struggle after the loss of the San line in June is seen to be the first step to the Russian Revolution. Yet, on purely military grounds, it was justifiable on the assumption that the French effort to break through the Champagne front would succeed. Only this confidence in victory in September, indeed, can explain the stagnation on the Western front from April to August (broken only by the May battle in Artois), enabling Falkenhayn to withdraw some 12 divisions for the Eastern operations.

By August it was evident that the chances of cutting off any considerable formed army of the Russians in the Kielce region was at an end, and again there came up on the German side the controversy between Falkenhayn and Ludendorff as to what the operations were intended to achieve. Falkenhayn held firmly to the view that the Russian army must be beaten before any wide enveloping movement was undertaken to surround its débris. Writing after the war, he maintained the same opinion, only reproaching himself with not having compelled G.H.Q. East to give Gallwitz 20 divisions instead of 14. And certainly, if prisoners and booty were considered, he had in fact inflicted what by all military standards was a “sufficient " or "decisive " blow-for by the middle of Aug. the Russian losses in prisoners alone had reached the figure of 750,000 since May 1, nearly 50% of their combatant strength as it had been at the end of April. But the time-limit was close at hand, and the withdrawals of forces to France and Serbia, delayed as long as possible, had now to be begun. The weeks remaining must, according to Falkenhayn, be devoted to inflicting as much additional loss on the Russians as was possible by frontal pressure coupled with flank attacks on the middle Niemen and east of the Bug, i.e. in the immediate vicinity of the frontal fighting, and possibly raids by light forces on the communications behind Kovno and Brest-Litovsk. At a suitable date the operation would be closed down, and the best line of defence taken up as a winter front.

Ludendorff, on the contrary, considered that the actual annihilation of the Russian armies was the only "sufficiently decisive result" that would give freedom of action in the West, and with renewed insistence-which went as far as a personal

reinforcement of his left (Niemen army) with a view to quick swooping down on Vilna and Molodechno and the closing of the "corridor." The axis Orany-Lida, originally suggested, was now too near for the required effect, but the principle was the same, and the movement would originate from a more favourable situation of the Niemen army than that existing in June. Preparations for the attack on Kovno by the X. Army were already well advanced, and Ludendorff considered that even at this stage complete success would be possible.

At this period the fighting on the Vindava-Schavli-Dubissa line had definitely turned in favour of the German Niemen army, the Russian V. Army receiving little or no further reinforcements when Mackensen's and Gallwitz's attacks developed. Below was progressing beyond the line named in each of the three directions Mitau-Riga, Poneviesh-Dvinsk, Keidamy-Wilkomir, and about Aug. 1 his various columns, totalling about 7 inf. and 5 cavalry divisions, were approximately on the line River Aa-R. Musha-E. of Poneviesh-Keidamy. To the southwest, the German X. and Russian X. Armies were still making war in the same fashion as in March, the Germans based on the Suwalki-Schali lines, and the Russians on their Kovno-Niemen-Grodno fortifications, making periodical thrusts in the region between. But the last important Russian thrust was delivered early in May, as a "relief offensive" toward Schali; and the German reaction became a methodical advance toward Kovno and Olita, which at the time here considered brought their left almost up to their opponent's stronghold. Behind the German advanced line preparations had been made for the siege of Kovno, an essential part of the scheme which Ludendorff still advocated.

The Final Phase.-It was evident that the scheme of bringing Below and Eichhorn down upon Vilna and Molodechno, and capturing Kovno in time, would call for the reinforcement of either or both, and, on this ground principally, Falkenhayn preferred to continue the campaign on the same lines as before, though a little later he conceded to Hindenburg freedom to dispose as he chose of the forces in his own area and to Mackensen freedom to pass to the E. of the Bug. Conrad, meantime, was planning an operation in East Galicia with the II., South and VII. Armies.

Thus the last phase of the tremendous campaign consists of 4 parts: (a) the frontal drive of (right to left) the Bug Army, the XI., Woyrsch, IX., XII. and VIII., (b) the attack on the north flank and the rear of the "Corridor" by the German X. and Niemen Armies, (c) the N.E. swerve of the Bug Army and the A.-H. I. Army, and (d) the autumn campaign in E. Galicia. All these were carried out without any great regrouping or reinforcement, and indeed, as regards (a) the forces concerned, were gradually reduced in order to form the army for the Serbian front and to increase the reserve in France. In the case of the operations in E. Galicia, the Russians followed a clear purpose and the parts of their efforts were coördinated. But elsewhere, under the tremendous pressure of the row of hostile armies stretching from Lomza to Wlodawa and Vladimir Volhynskiy, the only general policy was that of gaining time at the expense of ground and of avoiding envelopment at all costs, and the day-to-day situations were met as best they could be. On the German and Austrian side the offensive energy of the troops was beginning to approach its limit, except as regards troops N. of Grodno, so that it may be said that the allied left and the Russian left alone retained the capacity for fresh achievement, while the rest were wearing each other out at an increasing rate.

The central campaign, between the Bobr and the Bug, may best be summarized by recording the battlefields of each of the German armies in succession.

Protected on its right by the Austrian I. Army, the Bug Army fought and won the battles of the Ucherka (Aug. 7-12) and of Wlodawa (Aug. 13-17), and in concert with the XI. Army continued its advance northward along the Bug against Brest-Litovsk. Meantime, the crossing of the Bug was authorized in so far as concerned the establishment of bridgeheads; and in

leaders became involved in fighting E. of Wlodawa, which inevitably formed the starting-point of an offensive against the eastern communications of Brest-Litovsk. By Aug. 21, then, the greater part of the Bug Army was engaged on the line of the Kapajowska from its mouth to Switiaz lake inclusive, well inside the region of the great marshes; the remainder (Beskidenkorps only), still west of the Bug, was nearing the outworks of Brest.. To the left of the Bug Army, the XI., already being reduced for the forthcoming Serbian campaign (for the conduct of which its staff was presently withdrawn), moved forward correspondingly against the W. of Brest. On Aug. 19 its left had reached Janow on the Bug below the fortress, while the Beskidenkorps stood at Koden on the same river above it. To the left of the XI. Army, again, the Austrian IV. Army at that date lined the Bug between Janow and Niemirow; and beyond Joseph Ferdinand, already N. of the river, was Prince Leopold with Woyrsch's and his own armies, which, as soon as they had debouched from Ivangorod and Warsaw, had made rapid progress, as the Russian centre retreated at the fastest possible pace to escape while Gallwitz and Mackensen were still being held off. The German IX. and Woyrsch Armies stood, on Aug. 19, N. of Niemirow, facing the line of the Pulwa and the Nurzec on which the Russians were preparing to make a stand.

Meantime Gallwitz, in his bridgehead position in the angle of the Bug and Narew, had overcome the Russian counterattacks, but not before their purpose of keeping open the railways and roads for the retreat of the Warsaw and Ivangorod forces had been achieved. The battles of Ostrow (Aug. 8-10) and Tschishew-Sambrow (Aug. 11-12) and the advance in the direction of Bielsk which ensued were thus similar in character to the operations of the IX. and Woyrsch's Armies, viz.: a direct pursuit where an envelopment had been hoped for. At the date of Aug. 18-19, Gallwitz stood between the Nurzec and the upper Narew, facing Biala, where the Russians were prepared.

The rightmost troops of the XII. Army, viz. those which in the battle of the Narew were facing south against counter-attacks from Novogeorgieysk and the strong points of the lower Bug, had now been combined with the leftmost troops of the IX. Army for the siege of Novogeorgievsk, in an army group under von Beseler, the captor of Antwerp; and the siege, pressed with energy, was nearing its close. On the 20th the place, with a large garrison, surrendered. On Gallwitz's other flank, the right of the VIII. Army had conformed to his advance and was taking the direction of Byelostok; its centre had mastered Lomza and Wiszna on Aug. 10; and its left was again, as in Feb., battering Osowiec, which fell to the superheavy artillery on the 22nd. Kovno, as will be seen, had already fallen on the 18th, to the attack of the German X. Army.

Throughout these pursuit operations large numbers of prisoners continued to be taken by the Germans, and the Russian fortress artillery swelled enormously the total of captured guns. At Novogeorgievsk some 85,000 men and 700 guns were taken. Shortly it was to be the turn of Brest-Litovsk and Grodno, though these places were not defended after the withdrawal of the battle-lines outside them.

The later stages of the frontal pursuit may be very briefly dealt with. The general direction of the Woyrsch, IX. and XII. Armies was eastward. From Aug. 19-24 Woyrsch and the IX. Army were engaged in mastering the Pulwa-Nurzec line, on which the Russians delayed their opponents long enough to cover the evacuation of Brest-Litovsk against interference from the N.W. or N. From the 25th to the 31st these two armies were involved in a fresh series of combats in and about the " primeval forest" of Byleovitsa. Meantime the XI. and (till its withdrawal) the Austrian IV. Armies, with the Beskidenkorps of the Bug Army, had attacked Brest-Litovsk concentrically from the W. and S., and the last Russian rearguards had been driven out of the evacuated stronghold on the 26th, The Germans and Austrians then continued the pursuit eastward, where the operations of the Bug Army and the Austrian I. Army (presently to be described) came into line with theirs in the early part of Sept. The XII. Army drove the Russians from the Bielsk posi

tions on the 26th, from the Swislocz river a few days later, and from the Naumka-Wereczya line on Sept. 4, at which date the IX. Army and Woyrsch had at last debouched from the Byelovitsa forest towards the Jasiolda river.

In general, the effort of the Bug, XI., IV., Woyrsch and IX. Armies in the earlier stages of pursuit had tended to crowd the Russians into the area round Brest-Litovsk, and at a certain stage in this process the Bug Army had been authorized to push through the marshes E. of the river so as to reach the line of communications Brest-Litovsk-Kobrin-Pinsk. At the same time the Austrian I. Army about Vladimir Volhynskiy advanced to Kovel, and thence eastward (see Autumn Campaign in East Galicia p. 907) while from Kovel its cavalry worked up through the marshes northward to join the swinging right wing of the Bug Army. But that army, although it drove the retiring and diminishing forces of its opponent N.E. from the Kapajowska to Kobrin, was unable to reach that point before the Russians evacuating Brest-Litovsk had flowed past it. The Russian rearguard stood to fight on a line N.W.-S.E. through Kobrin, but, the Austro-German Cavalry Corps of General von Heydebreck from Kovel arriving on their flank, they soon fell back to the oblique line of the Dnieper-Bug canal, where they were temporarily secure against all but frontal pressure. Thus in this quar ter too the pursuit became a direct one. The Russians were driven by the Bug Army and by what remained of the Austrian XI. and Austro-Hungarian IV. Armies-the whole now commanded by Linsingen-out of the canal lines in the battle of Horodec (Aug. 31-Sept. 1) and out of the defences of DrohiczynChomsk (Sept. 4-6). But Linsingen's offensive, more and more hampered by poor communications, came to an end with the occupation of Pinsk on Sept. 16, and positions were taken up here which remained unchanged till the end of the war.

With the almost simultaneous capture of Brest-Litovsk, Bielsk, and Grodno (the last named fell to the German VIII. Army on Sept. 2-3), the Germans obtained possession of that line across the northern corridor which had usually been regarded as the Russian stabilization line. Falkenhayn, however, took full advantage of the shortening of front which resulted from the directions taken by his armies. and then at last Ludendorff's scheme came into play.

Such an operation as Ludendorff contemplated, or at least one from the middle Niemen, Falkenhayn had been willing to agree to from the first; and as the occasion approached he relaxed his hold on Hindenburg's dispositions, stipulating only for the observance of his general directions and for the release of certain divisions for the West. In practice he approved the attack on Kovno. Ludendorff promptly took advantage of this, and the intended wheel-in upon the rear of the "corridor" was already in progress before the fall of Grodno and BrestLitovsk. On Aug. 8 the X. Army was able to begin the siege of Kovno. Ten days later the fortress was in its hands-even earlier than at Novogeorgievsk, Osowiec, and Brest-Litovsk. On condition of strengthening either the Niemen army or the left of the X., therefore, Ludendorff's plan had become feasible, if feasible at all, while masses of the enemy were still south of Brest-Litovsk, on the Pulwa and the Nurzec, about Bielsk and Byelostok and Grodno. At that date, Aug. 18, the Niemen army had pushed its left columns close up to the Riga-Uxkuli bridgehead on the Dvina, and to Friedrichstadt on that river, whence its centre and right ran southward along the Jara and Sventa to the north side of Kovno. It was still very strong in cavalry, but some of its transport had been taken for the armies pursuing through the devastated areas to the South.

Nevertheless, no serious advance was made to the westward from Kovno for more than a week, and even then part of the X. Army swerved full to the south against Olita to open an advance in the direction of Orany, and also to help the VIII, Army in cutting off Grodno, now a pronounced salient. At this late stage Ludendorff himself had doubts of the efficacy of the westward movement, and for a moment contemplated taking the direction favoured by Falkenhayn, viz.: Orany, Lida, Baranovichi. Not only was this the shortest route to the enemy's

heart-the shortest, that is, as measured by the time necessary for concentrations and for rebuilding routes-but it offered hopes of driving a large mass of the enemy into the marsh region round Slonim, where the avenue of escape was narrowest (whereas at the latitude of Vilna-Molodechno the corridor broadens out considerably). However, he chose, in the end, to follow the current scheme of operations, as offering "annihilation" of the enemy as a prize, though admittedly that prize might escape him. On the 28th, therefore, with the expressed or implied consent of Falkenhayn, the X. Army was ordered forward on Vilna, with centre of gravity on the north wing, north of the Vilya. Reinforcements were collected from the troops lately besieging Novogeorgievsk and from the VIII. Army, which, after the fall of Grodno, would evidently be crowded out of the line. The Niemen army was directed to press up to the Dvina bridgeheads and, especially, up to Dvinsk, to coöperate with its left wing in the operations of the X. Army north of the Vilya, and to prepare a mass of cavalry to break through the thin line of the Russians near Swentsiany and seize or destroy the railways at Molodechno and Minsk.

The last great battle of the campaign, known as that of Vilna-Molodechno, began after the Grodno episode had been closed on Sept. 9. At that date Linsingen was advancing on Pinsk, Woyrsch and Prince Leopold driving the enemy slowly from one river-line to the next, over the Jasiolda, in the direction of Slonim; and Gallwitz and the remnant of the VIII. Army were pressing slowly forward up the Niemen in the same direction. The Niemen army was, by its activity between Riga and Dvinsk, forestalling and perhaps diverting the attack of new Russian forces which were coming up from the Baltic provinces. From Wilkomir, north of the Vilya, to Orany, the X. Army engaged the very heavy forces that the Russians had collected for the last effort to hold the flank of their corridor-the final act of command of the Grand Duke Nicholas before the Tsar took over the control from his able hands. The German offensive progressed slowly, like all offensives against the Russian flanks in this campaign, but after some days it was judged that the forces on the Dvina and amongst the Dvinsk lakes had obtained sufficient security for the left flank, and on Sept. 11 the German cavalry divisions broke through the cordon west of Novo Swentsiany and made for Swentsiany and Molodechno. On Sept. 14 the horsemen reached and broke the Vilna-Molodechno line at Smorgon. At Wilejka and farther north at Glubokoye they cut the vital Lida-Plotsk line. A party even reached the Minsk-Orsha line at Smolewice.

This last crisis was also the most dramatic. The first wave of cavalry was followed by others till about seven divisions were collected about Wilejka, Smorgon and Molodechno. But, recovering from their first surprise, the Russians quickly sent troops from Vilna and from Minsk, as well as from the southeast of Dvinsk, to clear their intercepted lines of retreat. These had to be recovered at all costs, for, while the forces retiring before Gallwitz, Leopold and Woyrsch still had the lines focussed on Baranovichi at their disposal, these could not help the northern masses, and it was in the north, towards Vilna, that the centre of gravity lay.

Thus a race to build up forces about Smorgon, Molodechno and Wilejka set in. The Russians, having the better communications and consequently the larger forces, won it. They drove back the German cavalry, after a continuous skirmish of five days, to the west of Smorgon and the northwest of Wilejka. Two days later the first infantry divisions arrived on the German side from the left of the X. Army. The détour of these troops along the north bank of the bending Vilya had enabled the Russians, moving on the shorter line, to reopen their line of communications; and, with this, the battle of Vilna became, like the battles farther south, a slow frontal drive. Thereupon Falkenhayn ordered operations to be broken off and more divisions to be withdrawn for other theatres, and fixed in general the line to be taken up as a winter line. The concluding operations of the campaign, mostly completed in early October,

which, so far as the Hindenburg, Leopold, and Linsingen groups were concerned, ran from Tuckum, on the gulf of Riga, past the south side of Riga and parallel to the Dvina to Novo Alexandrovsk, and thence southward by Lake Drisvyaty and Lake Naroch, Smorgon, Krewo and Baranovichi to Pinsk, south of which point Linsingen's right came into touch with the left of the Austrian operations in East Galicia.

Autumn Campaign in East Galicia.-In East Galicia the pursuit of the Russian VIII. and IX. Armies, after the GrodekLemberg break-through in June, had been left by Conrad and Falkenhayn to the Austrian II. Army, the German-Austrian South Army, and to Pflanzer-Baltin. Although the first impressions of the victors in that battle had been that the Russian armies remaining in East Galicia were incapable of more than retreat and rearguard fighting for a long time to come, in fact it cost the Austrians and Germans much fighting and manœuvring to establish themselves on the line of the upper Bug and the Zlota Lipa; and Pflanzer-Baltin was at one time subjected to a heavy counter-attack by General Lechitsky's Army, for in this quarter the Russians had an ample supply of reinforcements in their Odessa army. Towards the end of July, however, the fighting in Galicia died down.

Towards the end of August, as a part of the same final offensive act which produced the battle of Vilna-Molodechno in the other flank, Conrad initiated a campaign which was intended to confirm the separation of the northern and southern groups of the enemy and to clear the latter out of Austro-Rumanian territory definitively. The thinness of the defensive cordon in the Pripet marshes, revealed by the lack of serious opposition to the movements of Puhallo's I. Army on and beyond Vladimir Volhynskiy, and the advance of Heydebreck's Cavalry, Corps across the swamps and forests to Linsingen's Drohiczyn battlefield, led the Austrian command to make its effort on the north side of the Lemberg-Brody watershed. Profiting by the general shortness of the line between the Bug and Vistula, Conrad withdrew the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand and the IV. Army from the Brest-Litovsk field of operations in the last few days of August, concurrently with the withdrawal, mentioned p. 906, of the German XI. Army for Serbia. During the gradual withdrawal of the IV. Army, Puhallo began his offensive from the line Vladimir-Volhynskiy-Kovel in a south-easterly direction, The fighting which followed is described in the article Rovno, BATTLE OF. The incoming of the Austrian IV. Army on Puhallo's left, on the one side, and the arrival of reinforcements for Ivanov's VIII., XI. and IX. Armies, on the other, led to the battle spreading along the whole front from the Pripet to the Pruth. In sum, the Austrians, after advancing from Kovel to the rivers Goryn and Putilowka N.W. of Rovno, and from the Zlota Lipa to the Galician Sereth, were checked and driven back by a counter-attack group formed by Brussilov's VIII. Army in the region of Rajalowka. The rest of the Russian front taking up the movement, the Austrians were driven back from the Sereth to the Strypa, and from the Horyn-Stubiel line to the upper Styr and Stokhod, while the centre held practically all its gains. From the fourth week of September the battle, after some further fluctuations on the left, became a stabilized trench-warfare conflict which dragged on till mid-November, when both sides settled down in their winter lines. These ran from the Pripet along the Styr and the Kormin and thence past Dubno to Zborow and so along the Strypa. From the Strypa mouth to the Sereth mouth, the Austrians retained positions north of the Dniester, and from that point Pflanzer-Baltin's front substantially followed the frontier to Rumanian territory E. of Czernowitz. Thenceforward up to the opening of the great Russian offensive in 1916 the only important operations which took place in East Galicia were the relief offensive known as the "New Year battle" (see. STRYPA-CZERNOWITZ) initiated by the Russians in the hope, which was not realized, of calling off Austrian troops from Montenegro, and the Russian capture of the Dniester bridgehead of Uzcieszko on March 19-a divert ing attack in aid of the spring offensive of the north.