hts of grueling fighting,
they did so only to throw up immediately new defenses and force the
invaders to repeat their onslaught again and again. At any other time of
the year this part of the country would have yielded little ground for
fighting; for it is covered extensively with swamps. But now the bitter
cold of midwinter had covered these with ice solid enough to bear men
and even guns. On January 28, 1915, the Germans at last threw the
Russians out of their strong intrenchments at Bolimow. But others had
already been prepared a short distance to the east, at a small village,
Humin.

The attack on this particular position began in the morning of the last
day of January, 1915. For three days the battle raged until, late in the
afternoon of February 2, 1915, the Germans took Humin by storm. At times
it is difficult to decide whether battles involving vast fronts and
equally vast numbers, or those fought in a small space and by
comparatively small numbers are the more heroic and ferocious. In the
latter case, of course, individual valor becomes not only much more
noticeable, but also much more important and details that are swallowed
up by the great objects for which great battles are usually fought stand
out much more clearly. It will, therefore, be interesting to hear from
an eyewitness, the war correspondent of one of the greatest German
dailies, the "Koelnische Zeitung," what happened during the three days'
battle of Humin:

"It was seven o'clock in the morning of January 31, 1915. Punctually, in
accordance the orders given out the previous evening, the first shot
rang out into the snowy air of the gray morning at this hour from a
battery drawn up some distance back. Like a call of awakening it roared
along, and fifteen minutes later when it had called everyone to the
guns--exactly to the minute the time decided on by general orders--the
battle day of January 31, 1915, began with a monstrous tumult. With
truly a hellish din the concert of battle started. A huge number of
batteries had been drawn up and sent their iron "blessing" into the
ranks of the Russians. Field batteries, 15-centimeter howitzers,
10-centimeter guns, 21-centimeter mortars, and, to complete the wealth
of variety, 30-centimeter mortars of the allied Austrians joyfully
shouted the morning song of artillery. A dull noise roared around
Bolimow, for in back of the town, before it, to the right and to the
left, stood the various guns in groups of b