k and Dubno had been
retaken; two hundred thousand men and hundreds of guns, had been
captured, and the Austrian line had been pierced and shattered. Further
south the German army had been compelled to retreat and the Russian
armies were in Bukovina and Galicia. On the 10th of August Stanislau
fell.

By this time two Austrian armies had been shattered, over three hundred
and fifty thousand prisoners taken, and nearly a million men put out of
action. Germany, however, was sending reinforcements as fast as
possible, and putting up a desperate defense. Nevertheless everything
was encouraging for Russia and she entered upon the winter in a very
different condition from her condition in the previous year. Then she
had just ended her great retreat. Now she had behind her a series of
successes. But a new difficulty had arisen in the loss of the political
harmony at home which had marked the first years of the war. Dark days
were ahead.

CHAPTER VI

HOW THE BALKANS DECIDED

For more than half a century the Balkans have presented a problem which
disturbed the minds of the statesmen of Europe. Again and again, during
that period, it seemed that in the Balkan mountains might be kindled a
blaze which might set the world afire. Balkan politics is a labyrinth in
which one might easily be lost. The inhabitants of the Balkans represent
many races, each with its own ambition, and, for the most part,
military. There were Serbs, and Bulgarians, and Turks, and Roumanians,
and Greeks, and their territorial divisions did not correspond to their
nationalities. The land was largely mountainous, with great gaps that
make it, in a sense, the highway of the world. From 1466 to 1878 the
Balkans was in the dominion of the Turks. In the early days while the
Turks were warring against Hungary, their armies marched through the
Balkan hills. The natives kept apart, and preserved their language,
religion and customs.

In the nineteenth century, as the Turks grew weaker, their subject
people began to seek independence. Greece came first, and, in 1829,
aided by France, Russia and Great Britain, she became an independent
kingdom. Serbia revolted in 1804, and by 1820 was an autonomous state,
though still tributary to Turkey. In 1859, Roumania became autonomous.
The rising of Bulgaria in 1876, however, was really the beginning of the
succession of events which ultimately led to the World War of 1914-18.
The Bulgarian insurrection was crushed b