ost terrific reversals of fortune ever produced in
military history.

For quite a month it had been an open secret that considerable masses
of German troops were being transported to the Carpathian front. What
was not known, however, was the magnitude or the plan of these
preparations. Never was a greater concentration of men and machinery
more silently and more speedily accomplished. All along the south of
the range, on the great Hungarian plains, there assembled a gigantic
host of numerous nationalities. But it was away to the west, in that
narrow bottle neck where the Dunajec flows from the Polish frontier
down to the Tarnow Pass, that the mighty thunderbolt had been forged.
Thousands of heavy guns were here planted in position, and millions of
shells conveyed thither under cover of night. Countless trains carried
war materials, tents, pontoons, cattle, provisions, etc. Finally the
troops arrived--from the different fronts where they could be spared,
and new levies from Germany and Austria-Hungary. Smoothly and silently
men and machines dropped into their respective places: All was ready;
not a detail had been overlooked; German organization had done its
part. The commander was Von Mackensen, nominally Commander of the
Eleventh German Army, but in reality supreme director of the whole
campaign.

During April, 1915, a number of changes had taken place among the
commanding officers of the Austro-German armies; the new dispositions
of groups along the battle line differ considerably from those which
obtained during the fighting for the passes. The line was now
enormously strengthened, and more compact. This applies only to the
Germanic side; there is little change on the Russian. At this stage
the Russian front on the west of Galicia extended from Opatovie on the
Polish frontier along the Dunajec, Biala, and Ropa Rivers by Tarnow,
Ciezkovice, and Gorlice down to Zboro in Hungary; from here it runs
eastward past Sztropko, Krasnilbrod, Virava, and Nagy Polena to the
Uzsok Pass, a distance of about 120 miles. Ewarts commanded the army
on the Nida; the Dunajec-Biala line was still held by Dmitrieff,
Commander in Chief of the Eighth Russian Army; Brussilov still
commanded the main army of the Carpathians, and Lechitsky in the
Bukowina in the place of Alexeieff, who had succeeded General Russky
in the northern group. The whole southern group, from the Nida to the
Sereth inclusive, was under the supreme command of General Iv