is made his first stand at
Gumbinnen, where, on the 16th of August, the first important battle of
this campaign took place. The result was the defeat and retirement of
the Germans, and von Francois was forced to fall back on Koenigsberg.

Meantime, the Army of the Narev, under General Samsonov, was advancing
through the country west of the Masurian Lakes. On the 20th his vanguard
came upon a German army corps, strongly entrenched at the northwest end
of the lakes. The Germans were defeated, and fled in great disorder
toward Koenigsberg, abandoning their guns and wagons. Many prisoners
were taken, and the Russians found themselves masters of all of East
Prussia except that inside the Koenigsberg line. They then marched on
Koenigsberg, and East Prussia was for a moment at the mercy of the
conqueror.

Troops were left to invest Koenigsberg, and East Prussia was overrun
with the enemy. The report as to the behavior of these troops met with
great indignation in Germany; but better information insists that they
behaved with decorum and discretion. The peasantry of East Prussia,
remembering wild tales of the Cossacks of a hundred years before, fled
in confusion with stories of burning and slaughter and outrage.

Germany became aroused. To thoroughly understand the effect of the
Russian invasion of East Prussia, one must know something of the
relations of that district with the German Empire. Historically, this
was the cradle of the Prussian aristocracy, whose dangerous policies had
alarmed Europe for so many decades. The Prussian aristocracy originated
in a mixture of certain west German and Christian knights, with a pagan
population of the eastern Baltic plain. The district was separate from
Poland and never fell under the Polish influence. It was held by the
Teutonic knights who conquered it in a sort of savage independence. The
Christian faith, which the Teutonic knights professed to inculcate, took
little root, but such civilization as Germany itself had absorbed did
filter in. The chief noble of Borussia, the governing Duke, acquired in
time the title of King, and it was here, not in Berlin, nor in
Brandenburg, that the Hohenzollern power originated.

[Illustration: Painting]
THE FURY OF A COSSACK CHARGE
Some of the most bitter fighting of the war took place on the
snow-covered heights of the Carpathians when Russia's armies struggled
with the foe. Here is illustrated a charge by Cossacks on an Austrian
b