ust as
his left had had to fall back on similar positions against Russky.

The action for Lemberg itself opened, by a curious coincidence, the
campaign which was the anniversary of the first fighting round Sedan,
and closed precisely at the moment when the tide of German advance in
the West was turned.

Forty-eight hours decided the issue. It was, perhaps, Russky's
continual extended threat to envelop the left of the Austrian position
and to come upon Auffenberg's communications which was the chief
factor in the result; but that result was, after the junction of the
two Russian armies, no longer really in doubt. The first heavy assault
upon the trenches had taken place upon the Wednesday morning at dawn;
before nightfall of Thursday the two extremes of the Austrian line
were bent back into such a horseshoe that any further delay would have
involved complete disaster. It is true that the central trenches in
front--that is, to the east of the great town--still held secure, and
had not, indeed, been severely tried. But it remains true that von
Auffenberg had committed the serious error of risking defeat in front
of such a city. And here some digression upon the nature of this
operation may be of service to the reader, because it is one which
reoccurs more than once in the first phases of the war, and must, in
the nature of things, occur over and over again before the end of it.

Examples of it already appeared in the first six months of the war, in
the case of Lille and in the case of Lodz; and it is a necessarily
recurrent case in all modern warfare.

A great _modern_ town, particularly if it has valuable industries, is
a lure as powerful over the modern commander as was a capital or the
seat of any government or even a fortress for those of earlier times.
To abandon such a centre is to let fall into the enemy's hands
opportunities for provisionment and _machinery_ for his further
supply; it is to allow great numbers of one's nationals to pass as
hostages into his power; it is nearly always to give up to him the
junction of several great railways; it is to permit him to levy heavy
indemnities, and even, if he is in such a temper, to destroy in great
quantities the accumulated wealth of the past.

On account of all this, it requires a single eye to the larger issues
of war, and a sort of fanaticism for pure strategy in a commander
before he will consent to fall behind a position of such political
and material value,