ications in the north had not been
established just where it should have been, and the Russian frontier
fortifications had been found better prepared for resistance than
those of Belgium, while in the south the Austrian base of operations
was entirely in the hands of the enemy.

The second phase of the eastern campaign was therefore opened from a
new base--Thorn, where the main army had been gathered ever since Oct.
27, when the Russian danger had become alarming, and the offensive in
the west had been abandoned. It was suddenly launched with
irresistible force on Nov. 12, and rolled back numerically inferior
Russian armies, whose task it had been to protect the right flank of
the Russian advance on Silesia.

Recognizing the danger to their operations in South Poland and
Galicia, where they had meanwhile approached the line of the Warta,
Cracow, and Neu Sandec, the Russians threw troops into North Poland
from all sides and succeeded in temporarily detaining the German
advance there, while they were continuing their supreme efforts to
break the Austro-German line south of Cracow. But the line held. At
the same time the German drive in North Poland was making steady
headway.

On Dec. 6 the Germans took Lodz, and further north advanced on Lowitz,
and the Russian offensive in the Cracow district was given up. While
all troops that could be spared were sent northeast to support the
prepared lines of the Bzura and Rawka Rivers, the Russians in the
south fell back behind the Nida and Dunajec, joining with their right
wing their northern army in the region of Tomaschew, and extending
their left through the region of Gorlitz and Torka toward the Pruth.
In this line the Teutonic advance was checked. A new German drive on
the road from Soldau to Warsaw could likewise make no headway beyond
Mlawa, while on the other hand in East Prussia the Russian offensive
had been brought to a standstill.

A siege warfare, like that in France, seemed imminent, except in the
Bukowina, where Russian forces during January were driving Austrian
troops before them. The Russian invasion of that province, however,
so distant from all strategically important points, was but a
political manoeuvre.

The first movement of any consequence to occur was a desperate attempt
of the Austrians early in February to push forward with their right
wing in the direction of Stanislau, chiefly to bring relief to the
garrison of Przemysl. Simultaneously they began