still be engaged in concentrating her masses. Both
calculations were wrong.

But the main reliance of Germany in the east was Austria, whose
whole force, save for one or two corps borrowed by Germany to defend
Alsace and four corps sent against Serbia, was available for the
invasion of Russian Poland. If Austria could organize a resistance
that would last for six weeks, Germany was prepared to do the rest.
This she expected of Austria, and again her calculations were wrong.

A glance at the map serves to explain the opening moves in the
eastern campaign. Russian Poland projects into Austro-German
territory, and is nearly encircled by German East Prussia and
Austrian Galicia. Russian mobilization had therefore to take place
not at the frontier, but behind the Vistula and the armies, once
concentrated, advanced from the Niemen, west of Kovno, from Warsaw,
from Brest-Litovsk on the Bug and from the Rowno-Dubno-Lutsk
fortresses west of Kiev. Thus the military as contrasted with the
political frontier of Russia was behind the Vistula, the Niemen and
the Bug.

The Austro-German plan contemplated a defensive fight on the north,
in East Prussia, and an offensive campaign from the south, aimed at
Lublin and Brest-Litovsk. The Russians on their side planned an
immediate invasion of East Prussia from Warsaw and Kovno and a far
more considerable offensive into Galicia from the Rumanian boundary
to Rowno. The objective of the northern operation was the conquest
of the whole of Prussia east of the Vistula, that of the southern
the capture of Lemberg and the conquest of all Galicia. Combined,
these two movements would abolish the Polish salient and give the
Russian right flank the protection of the Baltic, the left the cover
of the Carpathians. Only then could there be any safe advance by the
center through Poland upon Posen and Breslau and thence upon Berlin.

Russian mobilization was more rapid than Russia's allies could have
hoped for and it wholly confounded the Germans. While the Battle of
the Marne was still two weeks off Russian forces were sweeping west
from the Niemen and approaching Koenigsberg, a second army was
striking north from Warsaw. East Prussian populations were fleeing
before the invaders and a German disaster seemed imminent.

The genius of Hindenburg, who now appeared upon the eastern battle
ground, saved the situation. Gathering in all his available forces
and leaving the Russian army coming from the Nieme