r
line at other points and thus bring about the collapse of their drive
against Cracow, by means of which they expected to gain from the south
the road into Germany which had been denied to them again and again in
the north.

The end of January, 1915, found the Germans practically as far in Poland
as the beginning of the month. It is true that they had made little
progress in four weeks, but it is also true that they had given up none
of the ground they had gained. And with the coming of February, 1915,
they reduced their offensive activities at that part of the front and
turned their attention once more to East Prussia. The second week of
February, 1915, brought to the Russians their second great defeat on the
shores of the Mazurian Lakes. By February 15 East Prussia again had been
cleared of the enemy, and parts of the Russian provinces between the
border and the Niemen were in the hands of the Germans who apparently
had made up their minds that they were not going to permit any further
Russian invasions of East Prussia if they could help it. They now held a
quarter of Poland and a small part of West Russia, while the Russians
held nothing except a long battle front, stretching almost from the
Baltic to the Carpathian Mountains and threatened everywhere by an enemy
who daily seemed to grow stronger rather than weaker.

PART VIII--TURKEY AND THE DARDANELLES

CHAPTER LXXXII

FIRST MOVES OF TURKEY

The entrance of Turkey, the seat of the ancient Ottoman Empire, into the
Great War in 1914, with its vast dominions in Europe, Asia, and Africa,
created a situation which it was appalling to contemplate. The flames of
world war were now creeping not only into the Holy Land, the birthplace
of Christian civilization, but to the very gates of Mecca, the "holiest
city of Islam." Would the terrible economic struggle in Europe, the war
for world trade, now develop into a holy war that would bring the
religious faiths of the earth on to a great decisive battle ground?

The seething flames of economic supremacy that were consuming Europe had
threatened from the beginning of the war to creep into the Occident, as
we shall see in the chapter on "Japan and the Far East." Moreover, as
described in "Naval Operations," it was in the waters of the Near East
that the first big incident of the war on the sea took place.

Despite the fact that the public had been looking forward to an
immediate clash of the dreadnought squ