s during the war.

"NICHOLAS."

The grand duke addressed his former armies before departing to his new
sphere of activity as follows:

"Valiant Army and Fleet: To-day your august supreme chief, His Majesty
the Emperor, places himself at your head; I bow before your heroism of
more than a year, and express to you my cordial, warm, and sincere
appreciation.

"I believe steadfastly that because the emperor himself, to whom you
have taken your oath, conducts you, you will display achievements
hitherto unknown. I believe that God from this day will accord to His
elect His all-powerful aid, and will bring to him victory.

"NICHOLAS,
"General Aide de Camp."

Another of the small southern tributaries of the Niemen which offered
excellent opportunities for resistance of which the Russians promptly
availed themselves, was the Zelvianka River, which joins the Niemen
just west of Mosty. The fighting which went on there for a few days
was almost exclusively in the form of rear-guard actions, and was
typical of a great deal of the fighting during the Russian retreat.
Whenever the Germans advanced far enough and in large enough numbers
to endanger the retreating armies, the latter would speed up as much
as possible until they reached one of the many small rivers with which
that entire region abounds. There sufficiently large forces to delay
the advance, at least for a day or two, would be left behind to use
the natural possibilities of defense offered by the waterway to the
best possible advantage, while the main body of the army would move
on, to repeat this operation at the next opportunity. In most
instances these practices held up the German and Austrian advance just
exactly in the manner in which it had been designed that it should.
Furthermore, the Russians would not give way until they had inflicted
the greatest possible losses on their enemies, and in that respect
they were frequently quite successful. For first of all many of these
rivers have either densely wooded or very swampy banks which lend
themselves admirably for defense to as brave a fighting body as the
Russian army, and which proved exceedingly treacherous to the
attacker; and in the second place the Russians, of course, had the
advantage that they were fighting on their own soil, while the Germans
w