been able to gather made futile any
further hope of taking Warsaw with the forces at his command, only two
possibilities remained to the German general: To make a stand to the
west of the Vistula until reenforcements could be brought up, or to fall
back to his bases and there concentrate enough additional forces to
make a new drive for Poland. He chose the latter, undoubtedly because it
was the safer and less costly in lives.

How quickly the German retreat was accomplished we have already seen. In
spite of their rapidity, however, the Germans found time to hold up the
Russians, not only by severe rear-guard actions, but also by destroying
in the most thorough manner the few railroad lines that led out of
Poland. In this connection they proved themselves to be as much past
masters in the art of disorganization as they had hitherto shown
themselves to be capable of the highest forms of organization.

About November 10, 1914, Von Hindenburg had completed his regrouping.
The line along which the Russians were massed against him stretched
from the point where the Niemen enters East Prussia, slightly east of
Tilsit, along the eastern and southern border of East Prussia to the
Vistula at Wloclawek, from there to the Warta at Kola, where it turns
to the west, along and slightly to the east of this river through
Uniejow-Zdouska-Wola to Novo Radowsk. From there it passed to the
north of Cracow in a curve toward Galicia, where strong Russian armies
were forcing back the Austrians on and beyond the Carpathians. Along
this vast front--considerably over 500 miles long--the Russians had
drawn up forces which must have amounted very nearly to forty-five
army corps, or over 2,000,000 men. These were distributed as follows:
The Tenth Army faced the eastern border of East Prussia west of the
Niemen; the First Army the southern border of this province, north of
the Narew and both north and south of the Vistula; the Second, Fourth,
Fifth, and Ninth Armies, forming the main forces of the Russians,
fronted along the Warta against lower Posen and Upper Silesia, while
the balance of the Russian armies had been thrown against the
Austro-Hungarian forces in Galicia.

Against these Von Hindenburg had three distinct armies which were
available for offensive purposes. The central army under General von
Mackensen was concentrated between Thorn and the Warta River; a southern
army had been formed north of Cracow and along the Upper Silesian
borde