om here it follows the
line of the Bobr to northwest of Ossowetz, which is under our fire,
and runs by way of the region to east of Augustowo, by Krasnopol,
Mariempol, Pilwiszki, Szaki, along the border through Tauroggen to
the northwest. This is from beginning to end entirely on hostile
soil." This long line, it appears, was under the supreme command
of Von Hindenburg, while Von Mackensen had charge of the great
drive to the south.

The statement here quoted was issued as reassurance to Germans
who had been made nervous by reports of a Russian invasion of East
Prussia, and was connected with the Russian raid on Memel.

Until June there was practically no change in this great line,
except that on its northern end it was swung outward into Russian
territory to include a large part of Courland, the River Dubissa
roughly forming the dividing line until the front swung eastward
toward Libau, in the line of the Libau-Dunaburg Railway.

The tasks of both German and Russian troops were similar. Comparatively
weak German forces held the front in the region of the Niemen, the
Bobr, and the Narew, safeguarding such Russian territory as had
been seized by the Germans, and protecting East Prussia against
invasion. Opposed to them lay considerable Russian forces whose task
it was, supported by the fortresses of the Narew and the Niemen,
especially Grodno, to protect the flank and rear of the Russians
standing in Warsaw and southward in the bend of the Vistula, with
the Warsaw-Vilna Railway behind them, while great decisions were
fought for in the Carpathians and Galicia.

In Poland, between the lower and the upper courses of the Vistula,
the Germans about the middle of February, 1915, having occupied
the Rawka-Sucha ridge of upland, had developed fortified positions
along the rivers Bzura, Rawka, Pilica, and Nida. The bad weather of
the winter and early spring, which had turned the roads of Poland
into pathless morasses, made against extensive operations, and the
momentous undertakings carried out on the wings of the eastern front
led the German General Staff to refrain from important movements in
this section, where the Russians had strongly fortified themselves
for the protection of Warsaw. It was not until the Teutonic allies had
gone over to the offensive in the Carpathians and in western Galicia,
and the Russians had withdrawn to the Polish hills of Lysa-Gora early
in May, that, favored by improved weather conditions, oper