and bands prowled
among the ruins and pillaged such of the civil population as still
remained. A never-ending procession of caravans traversed the streets,
which were chock full of wounded and dying. The hospitals were
overcrowded and the injured laid out in rows in the churches."

On December 4, 1914, the Russians, by the capture of Wieliczka, gained
another step in their campaign for the possession of the broad passes to
the south and west of Cracow. Wieliczka is a small town, about nine
miles southwest of Cracow and three miles from the line of forts. It is
built over salt mines, a short railway bearing the product thereof to
the larger city.

On the northwestern side, the Russians were only a few miles from the
city. It was only the Austro-German army, sitting in trenches and making
occasional attacks on the Czenstochowa-Oilusz-Cracow line that prevented
the complete encirclement of the place. The contest between these forces
was mostly a slow artillery duel from day to day.

It was now the turn of the Germans to relieve the Austrians, if they
could, from a critical position. For months before, the Austrians had
been sacrificed in the interest of the German plan of winning a
crushing victory in France, and during the retreat from Warsaw it was
the Austrians who bore the brunt of the fighting as a rear guard. Again,
when the Germans found themselves hard pressed between the Warthe and
the Vistula, they flung the Austrian reenforcements to fresh defeat at
Wienun.

It was the contention of Austrian military writer that in order to
maintain an effective resistance to the Russians at this time and
afterward, the Germans should continue to withdraw troops from the
western front.

The Russians seemed to feel secure at this time in holding back the
German forces in Poland and so were passing forward their campaign in
Galicia, in an effort to interpose a wedge between the forces of the
opposing nations.

Russia also had a special motive for exerting every effort to inflict
some signal disaster upon the Austrians. It was only by such means that
she could relieve the pressure on Serbia and thus save the smaller Slav
state from being overrun by the victorious Austrians.

The Russian campaign against Cracow had been little effected by the
fighting going on at Lodz. The Russian forces in the region of Cracow
had a clear line of retreat, if retreat should be necessary, and were
not needed for strengthening the resistance