eral along the whole front from Blonie W. of Warsaw, by Kal- varya S. of that city, along the Vistula and the San to Przemysl (relieved on the gth) and thence across the Chyrow gap to the Carpathians. Here and there both sides sought to force the water barrier. In most cases no foothold was obtained, but where a bridge-head could be established, or where it existed as at Warsaw and Ivangorod, effort was concentrated.
By the i4th the assembly of Russian forces about Warsaw and Ivangorod was so great that no less than three army staffs were required to direct operations in order from right to left the I. (brought down from Kovno region), the reconstituted II. and the IV. (from the San): on the left of the IV. was the IX., on the left of this the V., while the III., VIII. and VII. (Dniester Group) held the front of the San, Chyr6w and the Dniester foreground. The process continued on the following days; the V. Army, taken out of the line S. of the Vistula, was put in between the II. and IV., the IX. was brought up to Ivangorod, and more and more Russian troops passed the bridge-heads, while the thinned lines of both sides contended on the San- Chyrow-Turka front without material changes, and the opposed detachments of the Russian Dniester Group and Hoffmann and Pflanzer-Baltin fought local battles on the various routes be- tween the mountains and the Dniester.
On Oct. 17, Ludendorff, already warned of the strength of the enemy's Warsaw armies by events and by a captured order, advised Hindenburg to retreat. The want of success on the Chyrow front indicated that the scheme for which the German IX. Army had been brought to the Vistula had failed, and the IX. Army and Dankl's I. Army were now exposed to the convergent attack, from Warsaw, from Ivangorod, and from Zawichost, of five hostile armies, while Josef Ferdinand, Boroe- vic, Bohm Ermolli, and the forces eastward were pinned.
The retreat after a last attempt to gather a striking force on the Pilica for a blow against the Russian II. and V. Army made at the expense of thinning the front of the Austrians be- fore Ivangorod set in on the 2ist, and spread from left to right as far as the Vistula above Zawichost. The San-Turka line, on the other hand, continued to be held by the Austrians, fight- ing being concentrated principally upon the right of the II. Army, where a break-through was narrowly averted on the 27th. During the next days, the lost ground was regained; and prog- ress was made between the Carpathians and the Dniester by the smaller forces operating there. But on Nov. 2, operations were suspended on the whole front S. of the upper Vistula.
During this period, the E. front of E. Prussia had been sub- jected to attack, as had been expected. Rennenkampf , advanc- ing from Kovno and from Ossoviec as well as frontally, had pressed back the VIII. Army (von Schubert, later von Francois) to Kibarty and to the W. of Lyck. Francois, sanguine in tem- perament, defending his own corps district, inspired by a per- sonal order from the Kaiser to protect E. Prussian territory, and conscious that the work in the lake defences was incomplete, was determined to hold his forward position to the last possible moment. Falkenhayn, objective in mind and uneasy in spirit, reenforced him with the new XXV. Res. Corps, which retook Lyck and Grayevo, threatening Suvalki from the south. The front then became quiet, for the Russians had no serious offen- sive intention. Their I. Army was already on its way to War- saw when the German counter-advance took place, and the X. Army left to flank-guard the northern corridor was reduced in strength to 13 divisions, as compared with some 47 in Poland and 30 from Zawichost to Turka. On the Mlava front, held by von Zastrow with a Landwehr Corps called the XVII. Res., all was quiet in the period of the Vistula-San operations.
The Campaign of Lodz-Cracow-Limanova. The retreat had been foreseen in time for the German IX. Army to make elabo- rate preparations for delaying the enemy's advance along the south-westerly railway lines by which, evidently, his intention was to reach Upper Silesia and the Moravian gap. In the course of the retreat the demolitions planned as well as the evacuation of stores and supplies, were carried out, if not completely, at any rate sufficiently for their purpose. But both Hindenburg's
and Conrad's headquarters realized that they had now to deal with the full effort of the enemy. The " steam roller," after breakages and delays, had started. By Oct. 31 the German IX. Army had gone back to the line Syeradz-Szczercow, Novo Radomsk, Wloszczowa, Chechiny, the Austro-Hungarian I. Army to Kielce, Opatow, R. Opatowka. On Nov. 1-2 the latter was driven back from the Opatowka line, necessitating the withdrawal of the IV. and III. Armies from the San and the abandonment of the offensives in progress on the E. of the Stary Sambor region. A few days later the Russians had again invested Przemysl and were advancing to the Dunajec. The centre of gravity, however, was no longer S. of the Vistula.
The crisis brought out, in the three men who had to deal with it, Conrad, Falkenhayn and Ludendorff, the characteristic quality of each.
Conrad proposed to Falkenhayn that no less than 30 German divisions should be brought over from the W. at once, bringing Hindenburg's strength up to 1 about 53 divisions. Forces in the Carpathians and in E. Prussia were to be economized, and the bulk of the Austro-Hungarian and German Armies were to seek decisive victory in battle in Poland. Now that the Russians had gathered, and gathered so far W., it would be possible to bring this about without fear of their retreating into the limit- less interior of their own country. In short, the war could now be won in the E. It could also be lost, for unless some such decision were attempted, Conrad held' that it would be necessary to retreat to the Danube. Falkenhayn, on the other hand, was becoming convinced especially by the experience of Ypres, that the war would be a protracted trial of endurance, and must be handled on the principles adopted by Frederick the Great in the latter part of the Seven Years' War, viz. a wary, economical defensive, with offensive sorties on every favourable oppor- tunity or necessary occasion, but no staking of all upon a throw.
If Conrad was the Lee of the Central Powers, Falkenhayn was their Johnston. Had the Southern Confederacy possessed a Grant, the parallel would be complete, for Ludendorff met the problem as Grant would have met it, by a strategy that was at once objective and grandiose. Hindenburg was now com- mander-in-chief of the German eastern front, and his head- quarters could deal with the situation as a whole. Ludendorff 's plan was to transfer the bulk of the IX. Army by the Silesian railways to W. Prussia (Thorne-Hohensalza region), whence by a sudden advance through the north-western part of Poland, he could strike upon the right or right-rear of the enemy's sys- tem. Toreenforce the offensive mass, the E. front of E. Prussia was to be stripped almost bare of troops and the country in front of the lakes and the Angerapp deliberately evacuated and broken up. 1 The S. front of E. Prussia (Zastrow's and other formations) was to participate in the offensive by advancing on Plock, Ciechanov and Przasnysz, with tha mission of flank- guarding the main attack on the E. side of the Vistula, and of keeping the Russian I. Army busy on the" axis Mia va-Ciechanov; and to ensure that these forces should not be drawn away to the E., they were placed directly under General Headquarters. To fill the place of the IX. Army in S. Poland, Woyrsch's Land- wehr Corps was reenforced, and by agreement with Conrad, Bohm Ermolli with the bulk of the Austro-Hungarian II. Army, was brought on rail from the Carpathians to the upper Warta, while to the left of Bohm the " Posen " 2 and " Breslau " corps of Ersatz and Landwehr were brought forward on the Kalisch . Sieradz line. To prepare for the worst, arrangements were made for destroying the mines of Upper Silesia. By all these drastic measures, Ludendorff expected to obtain a partial suc- cess that would suffice, without at present calling upon Falken- hayn, to provide the mass of divisions asked for by Conrad. At the moment at which the plan was put into effect, more was scarcely possible. The continuance of the retreat, especially on the front of the Austro-Hungarian I. Army which was taking
1 Von Frangois resigned his command in indignation and was re- placed by von Below.
2 This was the second reserve of Posen. The first, as Bredow's division, was already on the field.
