As we

Meantime, farther east, the Austro-German armies had reached the river almost along the entire line between Jezupol and Zaleszczyki, forcing several passages across it below Nizniow. But these successes proved of no avail. have previously stated, below Nizniow it is not the river itself that matters, but its "dead belt," the belt of river-loops, cañons and forests. After having crossed the river itself, the enemy nowhere succeeded in emerging from that zone.

By June 16 it was fairly clear that the line of the Dniester could be nowhere forced to any considerable depth and on a front sufficient to

enable bigger bodies of troops to open an attack against the Russian flank; hence the attack against Lwow, if it was to be taken, had to proceed from the west.

During the lull in the fighting on the Middle San Mackensen effected round Jaroslav a new concentration of artillery similar to that which had won the day round Gorlice. He secms also to have received fresh reinforcements in men. A new "phalanx " was gathered west of the San, mainly in the district between Piskorovice and Radymno.

On June 12 a violent bombardment was opened against the Russian positions. On the same day Austro-Hungarian troops crossed the San and occupied Piskorovice and Sieniava. On the 13th the advance extended to the entire line, from the River Zlota down to the Radymno-Javorow road; it was continued on the 14th. The heavy Austrian batteries adapted to motor-transport were accompanying the advancing troops and breaking down the resistance of the Russian troops. By the night of June 14 the Ninth Austro-Hungarian Army Corps (Fourth Austro-Hungarian Army)" stood before Cieplice, and the entire army of Archduke Joseph-Ferdinand was slowly wheeling from the San towards the River Tanew. On the same night Mackensen's troops reached a line extending from Oleszyce by Nova

FORTS NUMBER 10 AND 11, PRZEMYSL, After the Bombardment by the Austrian Heavy Artillery.

Grobla and Vielkie Oczy* to Krakoviec. Meantime General von der Marwitz reached Mosciska. On June 15 Cieplice and Dachnow were taken and the enemy's forces approached Lubaczow, Niemirow, Javorow, and Sadova Visznia. The report sent out by the Wolff Bureau on June 16 says: "The Army of Colonel-General von Mackensen has captured since June 12 more than 40,000 men and 69 machine-guns." It is evident that this sentence applies to the entire group of armies operating in Galicia, not merely to the Eleventh German Army. Thus by June 12, in the German official and semi-official language, Mackensen had replaced as commander of the Galician armies the Austro-Hungarian Generalissimo, Archduke Frederick.

On June 16 the Austrian troops of the Fourth Army, continuing their "left-wheel," advanced through Maydan and Cewkow and crossed the Russian frontier, facing due north. Meantime Mackensen's Army, advancing with its characteristic impetuosity, had passed Lubaczow, Niemirow and Javorow, and was pressing forward across the hills against the line of

Rava Ruska, Magierow and Janow. The Army of General von Boehm-Ermolli was moving along the high road towards Grodek. Late in the afternoon of June 16 it came into contact with the Russian rearguards near Wolczuchy, about three miles west of Grodek, by the night it reached the River Vereszyca and occupied its western bank. About midnight it captured by assault the western part of the town of Grodek.

On June 17 the advance of the Fourth Austro-Hungarian Army to the north continued between the Vistula to the Jaroslav-OleszyceBelzec road. In the corner above the junction of the Vistula and the San our Allies, conforming

to the retreat on the right bank of the San, fell back on to their old positions between Tarnobrzeg and Nisko. West of the San the Austrians occupied on that day Krzeszow, Tarnogrod, and Narol, thus establishing themselves on the entire line, along the Tanew front. During the fighting of the following week the valley of the Tanew served as an effective cover for the northern flank of the Austro-German Armies which were advancing against Lwow. The valley of the lower and middle Tanew is one huge marsh for about 35 miles to the east of its junction with the San; that marsh is about 10 miles wide and covered with forests. Only very few roads lead through that region. Whoever would dare to leave the beaten track is lost; he would perish in the bog. Even where the marsh ceases, the ground is still unfavourable to military operations; it is soft sand in which men and horses sink deep and across which heavy transport is impracticable. Having reached that region, the Austrian troops could securely hold it with small forces.

From the junction of the San and the Tanew till Narol, for a distance of 45 miles, the Austro-German forces were facing due north; between Narol, Rava Ruska and Magierow, on a line of about 15 miles, the front was turning toward the north-east; south of Magierow the other armies of General von Mackensen "* were holding the line of the Vereszyca down to its junction with the Dniester. The distance from Magierow to Lelechow on the Upper Vereszyca amounts to 10 miles, the line of the Vereszyca down to Kolodruby on the Dniester to 30 miles. The new line offered our Allies fairly good defensive positions. Several ranges of hills, rising to an average height of 1,200 ft., extend between Narol and Magierow. Similarly the line of the Vereszyca, which is covered against the west by the river, and by ponds and marshes, is reinforced by a chain of wooded hills which exceed in height by several hundred feet the level of those extending to the west of the line.

* Quoting that passage from the German official communiqué the Viennese Neue Freie Presse adds in brackets the following remark: "It is not known whether Mackensen commands several armies, or which armies are under his command." Thus notwithstanding its exceedingly, one might say excessively, close connexion with Berlin, the Neuc Freie Presse seems to have

had no "official knowledge about the "supersession" of Archduke Frederick by Mackensen.

From Rava Ruska to Komarno, on a front of over 40 miles, a furious battle raged during June 18 and 19 and throughout the intervening night. The Austrians succeeded in capturing a few positions of our Allies in front of Grodek and Komarno, yet it was not on the Vereszyca that the decision was to fall. With the help of their heavy artillery the Germans had borne down the resistance of our Allies in the north, and on June 20 Mackensen's Army occupied the towns of Rava Ruska and Zolkiev. The line of the Vereszyca was turned and our Allies had to fall back on their lines in front of Lwow.

On June 21 our Allies rallied to resist the advance of the enemy in front of Lwow, the capital of Galicia, which had been in their possession ever since September 3, 1914. Eight miles to the north of the town they held against the troops of Mackensen a line extending from Zoltance past Kulikow towards the hills north of Brzuchovice. West and south-west of Lwow they were defending the line of the River Szczerec, against the army of Boehm-Ermolli; its high eastern banks and its chalk-rocks were offering good positions for defence. The battle round Kulikow and on the Szczerec was fought on June 21. During the following night the Russians fell back on to their last positions round Lwow, the evacuation of which had by then been completed.

The fiercest fighting took place along the Janow-Lwow road. Here, on a narrow front between the village of Rzesna and Hill 320, across the high road, our Ailies were offering a last resistance to the advance of the Austrians. Their flanks were covered by marshy streams, the positions themselves had been carefully built and fortified. Premature attacks delivered by the enemy ended in disaster for the attacking columns. Then followed the usual bombardment by the batteries of heavy howitzers. The Russian defences were smashed and across their wreckage the Austrian infantry was storming to the cast, towards Lwow. About the same time the enemy was crossing from the north the hills on the Mlynowka and carrying the last Russian trenches on the Lysa Gora

Lwow was entered by the enemy on Tuesday, June 22, at 4 p.m., after having remained for 293 days in the possession of our Allies.

W

HEN the tension of the brief diplomatic crisis that followed the presentation of the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia was relieved by the declarations of war on Russia and on France, by the invasion of Belgium, and by the consequent intervention of Great Britain, the anxiety of the German people gave place to an outburst of jubilant patriotism and warlike enthusiasm. The first outburst of joy did not last long. The crowds in Berlin and other capitals might cheer, and the politicians and newspapers might rejoice, but the country as a whole was pretty well aware that the coming struggle was such as the world had never seen, and that Germany had assumed a task with which Bismarck's three wars provided no comparison.

Nevertheless, the common belief was that the war would be short. There was great anxiety about the possibly disastrous blows that might be expected from the British Navy, and the people vented all its wrath and sarcasm upon the failure of German diplomacy to divide Germany's enemies and to prevent the coincidence of naval war with the great trial of strength on land. But, apart from that peril, it was hoped that a smashing blow would be given to France in a very brief space of time, and that Germany could then feel secure Vol. V.-Part 57.

against invasion and continue offensive opera-tions in the light of events and at greater leisure. The country rapidly settled down to the business of economic preparation for such emergencies as could then be foreseen, and if the wonderful resistance of Belgium was a bitter disappointment and sadly disturbed the dream of the early fall of Paris, Germans generally found relief in a passionate explosion of feeling against England. Meanwhile, the still, small voice of conscience, protesting against the wrong done to Belgium, was drowned by a hoarse chorus of calumny and vituperation. It took some months for the German Government to build up the lying tale-chiefly by absurd manipulation of such documents as were ultimately found discarded or forgotten in the Foreign Office at Brussels-that Belgium had long before the war abandoned her neutrality and thrown in her lot with France and England. The German public was fooled by coarser methods. While the German army tore its way, murdering and pillaging, through the little State whose neutrality Germany had guaranteed, the German public was fed on stories of Belgian cruelty and treachery and taught that the Belgians earned their fate by "pouring oil on German soldiers or gouging out German eyes. They soon forgot the fatal words, which echoed and re-echoed through the whole

civilized world, of the Imperial Chancellor, in his speech in the Reichstag on August 4:

The wrong-I speak openly-that we are committing we will endeavour to make good as soon as our military goal has been reached. Anybody who is threatened as we are threatened, and is fighting for his highest possessions, can have only one thought-how is he to hack his way through.

The Chancellor tried subsequently, especially in another speech in the Reichstag (December 2, 1914) to explain his words away. All the intellectuals of Germany toiled at the same task, like murderers striving to wash bloodstains from their garments. After a year of such efforts Professor Schoenborn, of Heidelberg, summed up the results in the following delightful formula:

These sentences can, of course, be rightly understood and appreciated only if regard is had to the whole situation in which they were spoken. They were uttered at an hour of fate of the German Empire, to a political gathering, and as part of a Government declaration of high policy. They were not intended, therefore, to constitute, and could not constitute, an impartial and considered theoretical judgment, from a legal standpoint, upon the morits of this German procedure. On the contrary, they are one section of a political action.* If that was good enough for the professors, it is not surprising that for the public Belgian neutrality soon became "the English swindle."

*From a large volume of German apologetics, called "Deutschland und der grosse Krieg" (page 566), published in July 1915.

Meanwhile the nation answered as one man to the call of the Emperor and the Government, and the whole country was inspired by the spirit of unity and determination. As every competent judge of German conditions had predicted, the great Socialist party, although it embraced one-third of the whole people-and probably at least one-half of the men who first took the field-offered no serious opposition whatever. After brief deliberation and an unimportant difference of opinion behind the scenes, the Socialists voted for the war credits that were immediately demanded by the Government. As the war progressed their attitude showed certain fluctuations, but it was never such as to give the Government the slightest anxiety. They were quite content, it seemed, with an empty phrase, such as that in which the Kaiser after his speech from the Throne on August 4 exclaimed: "I no longer recognize parties. I know only Germans." It is true that when the Kaiser followed up this demonstration by proposing to shake hands with the party leaders, the Socialist leaders did not accept the invitation, but they soon bowed to public opinion and did nothing to mar the increase of admiring loyalty which, as we shall see, the Emperor most adroitly used.

The more preposterous the abuse of all