and, in the
southern. These operations are described in the pages following.

More than three-fourths of Galicia had now been reconquered, and it
was left to the Austrians and the Germans to complete the conquest.
The campaign was one of the greatest operations of the war. An
English military writer thus describes the achievement: "Only a
most magnificent army organization and a most careful preparation,
extending to infinite detail, could execute a plan of such magnitude
at the speed at which it was done by the Austrian and German armies
in May, 1915."

Not yet, however, were the Russian armies destroyed; to the German
War Staff it was not now a question of taking or retaking territory,
but of striking a final and decisive blow at the vitals of Russia.
The continuous series of reverses suffered by Boehm-Ermolli and Von
Linsingen exerted an important effect on the end of the Galician
campaign: it frustrated the plan of eliminating the Russian forces.
The battle lines in France and Flanders could wait a while till
the Russian power was annihilated.

After the fall of Lemberg, Ivanoff withdrew the main body of his
troops toward the river line of the Bug, Boehm-Ermolli following up
behind. Again that unfortunate general was roughly handled--another
of his divisions was annihilated southeast of Lemberg in a rear-guard
action. Von Linsingen directed his efforts against the Gnila Lipa and
Halicz, while Von Pflatzer-Baltin still operated on the Dniester.
For many months the Russians and Austrians faced each other in
eastern Galicia; they were still skirmishing at the end of the
year. Both Russia and Austria had more important matters on hand
elsewhere: the former against Germany in the north, and the latter
with her new enemy--Italy. Galicia became a side issue.

The Galician campaign will rank as one of the most instructive
episodes in military history, an example of unparalleled calculation,
scientific strategy, and admirable heroism, involving, it is computed,
the terrible sacrifice of at least a million human lives.

PART IV--RUSSO-GERMAN CAMPAIGN

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXXVI

WINTER BATTLES OF THE MAZURIAN LAKES

The battle known in the German official accounts as the "Winter
Battle in Mazurian Land" is sometimes described as the "Nine Days'
Battle." In this sense it is to be considered as beginning on the
7th of February, 1915, and ending on the 16th, when the German
Great