d begun.

The German plan of campaign was simple. Hindenburg was to strike east
and south from East Prussia at the Russian lines along the
Niemen-Bobr-Narew. Mackensen, having pushed the Russians out of
Galicia, was to strike north through Lublin and toward Brest-Litovsk.
A new army was to invade Courland and aim at Riga. It was the German
hope that the main Russian masses would be caught and enveloped by
Hindenburg and Mackensen, that Poland would be taken and all its
garrisons, and the bulk of the Russian military power be destroyed.

The first blow fell at Gorlice in Galicia in the last days of April.
Mackensen, furnished with the greatest train of artillery war had
ever seen, burst through the Russian lines along the Dunajec,
destroyed Dmitrieff's army, which faced him, almost captured the
Russian Carpathian forces and drove the Russians rapidly beyond the
San, retook first Przemysl and then Lemberg, thus clearing all but a
corner of Galicia.

The main German and Austrian armies were then sent north toward
Brest-Litovsk, while Hindenburg began his thrust by attacking
Ossowetz and the Niemen-Bobr-Narew barrier of forts. By this time
the world knew that Russian ammunition had failed and for many weeks
the possibility of a tremendous Russian disaster existed. Step by
step the Russians were pushed back. The fall of Warsaw was assured
in July and it was not until August that the escape of the Russian
garrison was certain. The same problem was raised about Kovno and
Brest-Litovsk, but again the Russians won clear. Late in August the
final net of the Germans about Vilna was drawn, but for the last
time the Russians eluded it.

And with the battle of Vilna the German eastern campaign practically
ends. In the north the Russians held Riga and the Dwina line, in the
center they were behind the great marshes of Pinsk, to the south
they were behind the Styr and Stripa, still holding Rowno, still
clinging to a corner of Galicia. They had lost hundreds of thousands
of prisoners and many guns. All of Russian Poland, most of Courland,
and much other territory had been surrendered. But they had kept
their armies intact and were once more in line.

In so far as the German campaign had been designed to free Austrian
soil and relieve the pressure upon Austrian and German fronts in the
east, it had been a shining success. It had served, too, to restore
German prestige in the Balkans. But it had come too late to keep
Italy out, and