ns, an offensive
against France or an offensive against Russia. It had chosen to attack
France and had lost the campaign. It had in addition failed measurably
in its defensive against Russia and the result had been the loss of
most of Galicia with the incidental Austrian disasters.

But the campaign in the west had resulted in the occupation of
advantageous positions far within French territory and in the conquest
of most of Belgium.

Now the German General Staff was again able to decide whether it would
turn its entire energies for the summer of 1915 against France or
against Russia. If it chose to attack Russia there was solid reason
for believing that neither in munitions nor in numbers would the
Allies in the west reach a point where they would become dangerous
before autumn and between May and October Germany could hope to put
Russia out of the war, particularly as Germany knew what the rest of
the world did not, that Russia was at the end of her munitions, and
her long and terrible campaigns in Galicia, together with her defeats
in East Prussia, had temporarily much reduced the fighting value of
her armies.

Accordingly Germany decided to get east and put Russia out of the war
as she had undertaken nine months before to go west and had tried and
failed to put France out of the war. But she was again faced with the
fact that failure would expose her to new perils, this time on the
west.

For her first attack Germany selected the point in the Russian line
between the Vistula and the Carpathians, about Tarnow, where the
Russian line stood behind the Dunajec River. If the Russian line
should be suddenly broken here, the German General Staff might hope to
sweep up all the Russian armies which were facing south and
endeavoring to push through the Carpathians.

Just about May 1, 1915, the blow fell and Germany, massing hitherto
unheard-of numbers of heavy guns on a narrow front, and using untold
ammunition, not merely routed, but abolished Radko Dmitrieff's army
(Vol. III, 267-276), and moved rapidly in on the rear of the Russian
Carpathian armies. With difficulty these extricated themselves and
retired behind the San. (Vol. III, 276.) But they were unable here to
withstand Mackensen who had assumed command in all this field, and
fell back first upon Lemberg and then upon the Volhynian triangle of
fortresses within the Russian frontier. Przemysl fell, Lemberg was
lost and Dubno and Lutsk, two of the three Volhynia