again. Even if, in isolated cases,
destruction, and even death, was merited or made inevitably necessary,
in the greatest number of cases the suffering was as undeserved as it
was severe.

From a military point of view the net result of the fighting during the
first six months of the war most decidedly was in favor of the Germans.
February, 1915, found them conquerors along the entire extent of the
Russo-German front, and the Russians those who had been conquered. In
spite of the successful campaigns which German arms had won, however,
they had fallen far short of what they had apparently set out to do, and
in that wider sense their successes came dangerously near to being
failures. But even at that they were still ahead of their adversaries;
for though they had not gained the two objects for which they had
striven most furiously--the possession of Warsaw and the final
destruction of the offensive power of the Russian armies--they held
large and important sections of the Russian Empire, they had driven the
Russians completely out of Germany and forced them to do their further
fighting on their own ground, and they had reduced the effectiveness of
their armies by vast numbers, killing, disabling, or capturing, at a
most conservative estimate, at least twice as many men as they
themselves had lost.

During the first three weeks of August, 1914, the Russian armies had
invaded East Prussia and laid waste a large section of it. Then came the
debacle at Tannenberg, and by the middle of September, Germany was freed
of the invader, who had lost tens of thousands in his attempt to force
his way into the heart of the German Empire. Not satisfied with these
results, the Germans on their part now attempted an invasion of large
sections of West Russia, pursuing their defeated foes until they reached
the Niemen and its chain of fortresses which they found insurmountable
obstacles. It was once more the turn of the Russians, who now not only
drove back the invading Germans to the border, but who by the beginning
of October, 1914, faced again an invasion of their East Prussian
province. However, less than two weeks sufficed this time to clear
German soil once more, and by October 15, 1914, the Russians had again
been forced back across the border. By this time the German Commander in
Chief, Von Hindenburg, had learned the lesson of the Niemen. Instead of
battering in vain against this iron line of natural defenses, he threw
the majori