been made nervous by reports of a Russian invasion of East Prussia,
and was connected with the Russian raid on Memel.

Until June there was practically no change in this great line, except
that on its northern end it was swung outward into Russian territory
to include a large part of Courland, the River Dubissa roughly forming
the dividing line until the front swung eastward toward Libau, in the
line of the Libau-Dunaburg Railway.

The tasks of both German and Russian troops were similar.
Comparatively weak German forces held the front in the region of the
Niemen, the Bobr, and the Narew, safeguarding such Russian territory
as had been seized by the Germans, and protecting East Prussia against
invasion. Opposed to them lay considerable Russian forces whose task
it was, supported by the fortresses of the Narew and the Niemen,
especially Grodno, to protect the flank and rear of the Russians
standing in Warsaw and southward in the bend of the Vistula, with the
Warsaw-Vilna Railway behind them, while great decisions were fought
for in the Carpathians and Galicia.

In Poland, between the lower and the upper courses of the Vistula, the
Germans about the middle of February, 1915, having occupied the
Rawka-Sucha ridge of upland, had developed fortified positions along
the rivers Bzura, Rawka, Pilica, and Nida. The bad weather of the
winter and early spring, which had turned the roads of Poland into
pathless morasses, made against extensive operations, and the
momentous undertakings carried out on the wings of the eastern front
led the German General Staff to refrain from important movements in
this section, where the Russians had strongly fortified themselves for
the protection of Warsaw. It was not until the Teutonic allies had
gone over to the offensive in the Carpathians and in western Galicia,
and the Russians had withdrawn to the Polish hills of Lysa-Gora early
in May, that, favored by improved weather conditions, operations in
this part of Poland again took on larger scope. Especially along the
Bzura the German attacks again became violent in an effort to hold the
Russian forces in the district to the west of Warsaw while thrusting
at their wings from the south and north. However, fighting was not of
great consequence in this middle sector until the middle of June,
1915.

CHAPTER LVI

CAMPAIGN IN SOUTHERN POLAND--MOVEMENT UPON WARSAW

By the 1st of July, 1915, the stupendous enveloping campaign of the
Teut