November there were a number of battles, nothing happened of
great importance.

During the year 1916 the Russian armies seemed to have had a new birth.
At last they were supplied with guns and munitions. They waited until
they were ready. In March a series of battles was fought in the
neighborhood of Lake Narotch, and eight successive attacks were made
against the German army, intrenched between Lake Narotch and Lake
Vischenebski. The Germans at first were driven back and badly defeated.
Later on, however, the Russian artillery was sent to another section,
and the Germans were able to recover their position. During June the
Russians attacked all along the southern part of their line. In three
weeks they had regained a whole province. Lutsk and Dubno had been
retaken; two hundred thousand men and hundreds of guns, had been
captured, and the Austrian line had been pierced and shattered. Further
south the German army had been compelled to retreat and the Russian
armies were in Bukovina and Galicia. On the 10th of August Stanislau
fell.

By this time two Austrian armies had been shattered, over three hundred
and fifty thousand prisoners taken, and nearly a million men put out of
action. Germany, however, was sending reinforcements as fast as
possible, and putting up a desperate defense. Nevertheless everything
was encouraging for Russia and she entered upon the winter in a very
different condition from her condition in the previous year. Then she
had just ended her great retreat. Now she had behind her a series of
successes. But a new difficulty had arisen in the loss of the political
harmony at home which had marked the first years of the war. Dark days
were ahead.

CHAPTER XXII

HOW THE BALKANS DECIDED

For more than half a century the Balkans have presented a problem which
disturbed the minds of the statesmen of Europe. Again and again, during
that period, it seemed that in the Balkan mountains might be kindled a
blaze which might set the world afire. Balkan politics is a labyrinth
in which one might easily be lost. The inhabitants of the Balkans
represent many races, each with its own ambition, and, for the most
part, military. There were Serbs, and Bulgarians, and Turks, and
Roumanians, and Greeks, and their territorial divisions did not
correspond to their nationalities. The land was largely mountainous,
with great gaps that make it, in a sense, the highway of the world.
From 1466 to 1878 the Ba