firm grip of East Prussia and
Austrian Poland, thus protecting the flanks of their center. Had
they been able to hold their grip, then they could have straightened
out their entire line from north to south, and Warsaw would have
been safe. But we shall see both their extremities driven back;
therefore Warsaw was in danger, in spite of its fortifications.

That the Austrians should have allowed themselves to be thrust
back over the Carpathians is one of the surprises of the early
stages of the war. For these mountains are only second in size
in all Europe to the Alps themselves, forming the eastern wing
of the great European mountain system. They are about 800 miles
long and nearly 250 miles wide in parts. Some of the higher peaks
reach 8,000 feet above sea level.

Imagine the vision of an army marching along the roads from the
foothills to the mountains leading through mysterious, shadowy
spruce forests, where the soil is covered with rich carpets of
moss. Foaming streams ripple in among the moss-covered bowlders.
Then the paths emerge on the cheerful, emerald-green pastures of the
slopes, alive with the flocks of goats, sheep and cattle, attended
by their shepherds. A little farther and the whole scenery changes,
and the armies approach tremendous mountains of solid granite,
ominously dark, shining like hammered iron, rising abruptly from
the stone debris and black patches of mountain fir, and towering
bluffs and crags seem to pierce the sky with their sharp peaks,
bastions and jagged ridges, like gigantic fortresses. Clouds of white
mist, driven and torn by gusts of wind, cling to the precipitous
walls, and masses of eternal snow lie in the many fissures and
depressions, forming large, sharply outlined streaks and patches.

The Magyars inhabit the great central plains of Hungary which
constitutes ethnologically a vast island of Magyars in a sea of
Slavs. The Carpathian slopes on the Hungarian side of the ranges,
including the mounts of the Tatra--with the exception of the Zips
district, which is peopled with German-Saxon colonists--are inhabited,
in their western parts, by two million Slovaks, in the eastern
parts by half a million Ruthenians or Little Russians, and on the
Transylvanian side by nearly three million Rumanians. The border
lines between these Rumanians and the Magyars and between the
Hungaro-Slav groups (Slovaks and Ruthenians) and the Magyars lie
far down within the borders of the great central Hun