it had not eliminated Russia.

Unless the Germans were prepared to repeat the fatal Napoleonic
march upon Moscow, there was now nothing for them to do but abandon
their eastern campaign for the winter, to dig in and hold until the
spring permitted new operations. But this offered to the Russians a
period of recuperation and rest. In the spring they would have new
armies and fresh artillery. These circumstances were the measure of
the German failure in their second offensive. In their first they
had set out to dispose of France and had suffered defeat at the
Marne. In the second they had undertaken to put Russia out, and
after a long series of victories, Russia had escaped and was now
beyond their grasp.

From the military point of view the Russian failure was even more
serious than the French, because it came a year later, and at the
hour when the superior numbers and resources of the enemies of
Germany were already beginning to tell.

THE THIRD GERMAN OFFENSIVE

The two preceding German campaigns had been based on purely military
considerations. The first was a true Napoleonic conception designed
to grasp a Napoleonic opportunity. The second was partly imposed
upon Germany by Russian success and Austrian failure. There was no
longer a question of destroying the opponents in order, it was a
question of eliminating one and then finding a basis for peace with
the others. The third German campaign, that in the Balkans, was
political quite as much as it was military. It was designed to
provide Germany with some profit for her great sacrifices and her
great losses, but it was no longer a question of the conquest of any
considerable foe.

By the operations of British sea power, Germany had now practically
lost her colonial empire. It was certain that with peace she would
not again be permitted to make use of British colonies or ports, as
she had done before. Her overseas commerce with belligerents and
their colonies was bound to be ruined, even if peace came soon, for
the period of the war it was, of course, abolished.

The entrance of Turkey on the German side had opened for the Germans
a new field for industrial exploitation, if there could once be
opened a road from the Danube to Constantinople. This field would be
beyond the reach of sea power. Once Germany had taken actual command
at Constantinople, once the railroad from Hamburg to the Bosphorus
was open, it was possible to threaten Britain in Egypt, and perh