reat
to the frontier. But his intervention had disorganized the Russian
campaign in Galicia and Russian armies there had been compelled to
retreat and send reenforcements north.

Hindenburg's retreat was a signal for a fresh Russian advance, this
time the czar's forces reached the gates of Cracow and began to
crowd through the Carpathian passes and sweep down into the
Hungarian Plain. Przemysl was again invested, Russian troops for the
first time entering German territory west of the Vistula. It was
necessary for Germany to intervene again.

This time Hindenburg was more successful. He had retreated upon
Cracow and Breslau; gathering up his armies he transported them
rapidly to the north by strategic railways, brought them back into
Poland south of the Vistula, interposed between the Russians and
Warsaw and very nearly repeated at Lodz his great success of
Tannenberg. But this time the Russians after desperate fighting won
clear, and fell back to the lines in front of Warsaw, which they
were to hold for so many months. At the same time they retreated in
Galicia from before Cracow to Tarnow and stood behind the Dunajec
River. Austria was saved again, but having, in her extreme peril
recalled some of her corps from an army engaged in a new invasion of
Serbia, that army was routed and well-nigh destroyed.

GERMANY'S SECOND OFFENSIVE

From December to April the eastern campaign lacked decisive
circumstances. In the north Hindenburg won a new and splendid
victory at the Mazurian Lakes, expelling a Russian army which had
renewed the invasion of East Prussia. In the south the Russians
steadily pushed the Austrians back into the Carpathians, took
Przemysl with more than 125,000 prisoners, and as spring came seemed
on the point of crowning the Carpathians and descending into the
Hungarian Plain.

But the Germans were already organizing their second great
offensive. They were raising new armies, collecting fresh stores of
ammunition and preparing for a thrust against Russia as gigantic as
that against France, with the deliberate purpose of eliminating
Russia from the war. There was no longer any chance of a Napoleonic
success in Europe. But if Russia were eliminated, they could still
hope to win a peace that might leave them Belgium. Some portion of
their plans was spoiled almost as the spring campaign opened, by the
entrance of Italy on the Allies' side, but Italy came too late to
save Russia from the disasters that ha