r most
necessary belongings, it had become the Government's duty to provide
for them elsewhere in some fashion. If one considers that most of
these people were without any resources whatsoever, and that the
housing and feeding of such vast masses demanded the expenditure of
large sums of money, which apparently were not available, it will
easily be understood that all these men, women, and children of all
ages and conditions suffered not only untold inconveniences, but
actually the pangs of hunger and thirst, which in a great many
instances resulted in the outbreak of epidemics and in the decimation
of whole camps.

How a civilian observer was struck by some of the conditions in Poland
may be gleaned from a description in one of the German monthly
magazines rendered by an artist who accompanied one of the German
armies on its invasion of Poland: "Of course the first thing one
learns to know is the horrible condition of roads in Russia.... One of
the other main difficulties is the lack of cleanliness which results
in so many epidemics among the population. These two conditions
presented serious problems to the invading army; for, of course, it
became necessary to remove the difficulties arising from them as much
as possible....

"The water supply also is of the worst on the eastern front, and when
I wandered in the great summer heat through the trenches or drove by
the hour with wagon and horse through the sandy wastes of Poland, I
could not help but think of the many occasions when the fighting
armies, in spite of all fatigue and hardships, had to go without
drinking water of any kind whatsoever...."

One of the greatest successes which the Germans gained in the summer
of 1915 was the taking of the fortress of Kovno. Indeed it was the
fall of this Russian bulwark as much as anything else that
precipitated most of the Russian losses after the fall of Warsaw.
Considering the importance of Kovno the following report of a special
correspondent of the "Berliner Tageblatt," who was present during its
bombardment, will be of interest. He says:

"The bombardment had reached a strength which made one believe that he
was present at a concert in the lower regions. Guns of every variety
and caliber, up to the largest, had been concentrated here and
attempted to outroar each other. In unceasing activity the batteries
spit their devastating sheaths of fire against the Russian forts and
against the fortified positions which had