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power and receiving adequate munitions. The captures of Erzerum and Trebizond were a warning that deserved, but did not earn, attention in Berlin and the British failure and surrender at Kut-el-Amara served to obscure the Eastern situation. (Vol. V, 318-326.)

But about June 1, 1916, Russia suddenly stepped out and assailed the whole Austro-German line with fire and steel. The weight of the blow fell between the Pripet Marshes and the Rumanian frontier. From this front Germany had drawn many troops to aid in her Verdun operation, Austria had made similar drafts to swell her forces attacking Italy. Too late Berlin and Vienna realized that they had weakened their line beyond the danger point and had hopelessly underestimated the recuperative power of the Slav.

By July 1, 1916, the magnitude of the Russian success was no longer hidden from German or Austrian. An advance of over forty miles in the north threatened Kovel and Lemberg, twice as extensive an advance in the south had reconquered Bukowina (Vol. V, 162-182), brought Cossacks to the Carpathians, and threatened Lemberg from the south. (Vol. V, 192-198.) Lutsk (Vol. V, 159), Dubno (Vol. V, 163), and Czernowitz (Vol. V, 162) had been taken, Kolomea and Stanislau were threatened and were soon to fall. Upward of 400,000 prisoners were claimed by the Russians, whose estimates of prisoners had hitherto proved reliable; guns, supplies, munitions had been captured in incredible amounts, and an Austrian collapse like to that of Lemberg seemed at hand.

In this situation Germany, seemingly on the point of taking Verdun, had to turn her attention toward the east and direct new troops and new reserves of munitions and guns to Volhynia and Galicia to save Lemberg. (Vol. V, 198.) This effort was temporarily successful, and July saw the Russian sweep slowing down, although by no means halted. (Vol. V, 207-212.) Since the German victory at the Dunajec there had been no such single success, and save for the Russian victory at Lemberg, the Allies had won no such offensive victory.

THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME

But on July 1, 1916, just as the Russian drive was slowing down and while Germany was straining every nerve to meet the eastern crisis, the French and British along the Somme suddenly broke out in a terrific attack over twenty miles of front. The French rapidly approached Péronne, the British more slowly by steadily moving toward Bapaume. Here was the answer to the German assertion that Verdun had exhausted France and made an allied offensive in the west impossible. It was as complete a refutation of reckonings for the west as the Russian victory had been of the German calculations for the east.

And after six weeks the Somme drive is continuing, slowly, but steadily, actually recalling in every detail the slow but steady advance of the Germans before Verdun. Meantime about Verdun itself a new operation has begun, the Germans have been forced to recall troops to use at the Somme and the French, passing to the offensive, have temporarily, at least, retaken much ground and abolished the grave danger that existed on July 1, 1915, when they stood in their last ditch, with the river at their backs.

GORIZIA

The Russian blow had fallen in the first days of June, 1916; the Anglo-French attack had opened in the early days of July, 1916; now, in the first week of August, 1916, Italy suddenly launched against the Gorizia bridgehead, the gateway into Austria between the sea and the Julian Alps, which recalls in a grandiose fashion the Spartan position at Thermopylæ, the most considerable and the most successful military effort in modern Italian history.

On a front of thirty miles from the Alps to the Adriatic, their flanks secured by the mountains and the sea, the Austrians had erected a formidable system of trenches which closed the Italian road to Austria and to Trieste, twenty miles to the south. (Vol. V, 288-290.) Monte Sabotino on the north, Podgora Hill in the

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AUSTRO-ITALIAN CAMPAIGNS, MAY TO SEPTEMBER, 1916

Lined section shows ground gained by the Austrians in May and June, 1916 Dotted section shows ground gained by Italians in August, 1916

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center, Monte San Michele on the south at the edge of the Carso Plateau were the main features of this position, and Gorizia lay in the cuplike valley of the Wippach behind Podgora.

After some days of bombardment, first directed at the whole front and then concentrated upon Sabotino and San Michele, the Italians swept forward, took both hills, turned the Austrians out of Podgora and Gorizia, took 15,000 prisoners and a vast booty of guns and munitions. They had completed the first phase of their task by August 7, 1916. It remained to be seen-and it remains to be seen now on August 15, 1916, when these lines are written-whether they will get Trieste and force the Austrians back from the whole position between the Adriatic and the Alps. If they do, then an invasion of Austria on a wide front will be inevitable; if they fail, they will have won a great local victory and made a new draft upon Austrian man power.

Finally, in the Balkans a great Anglo-French-Serb army is standing before Saloniki (Vol. V, 212-215), only waiting until Germany shall have recalled her troops from the Peninsula and Austria summoned back her contingents to strike the Bulgarians and strive to reopen the road from the Ægean to Belgrade, thus cutting the railroad that binds Berlin to Byzantium and the Osmanli to the Teuton. Similarly the victorious Russians have passed Erzingan in Asia Minor (Vol. V, 337), completed the conquest of Armenia, and are pushing on toward Sivas and the Bagdad railroad. (Vol. V, 335-339.)

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For the first time since the war broke out Germany and her allies are everywhere on the defensive, and everywhere they have been and are ceding ground. Their enemies, imperfectly prepared two years ago, are now the rivals of Germany in preparation; England has millions of men where she had hundreds of thousands in August, 1914; France and Britain both have heavy artillery, and Russia is demonstrating her wealth of munitions and her resources in men. Such is the great transition that has come as the third year of the Great War begins.

Conceivably, Germany may still be able to forge a new thunderbolt, to pass to the offensive again, and win the war; conceivably she can hold her present lines until the fury of the Allies abates and losses and economic strain impose a drawn battle and a peace without victory for any contestant. But all these considerations are for the future. What it is now important to recognize is that the three great efforts of Germany to win the war in the Napoleonic fashion have failed. She has had neither an Austerlitz, a Jena, nor a Friedland. She has instead the Marne, Verdun, and the Russian failure. She has failed to eliminate any one of her great foes as Napoleon eliminated, first Austria, then Prussia, and then Russia. She has failed to win the war while she had superior numbers, incomparably greater resources in equipment, and unrivaled supremacy in artillery. She is outnumbered, outgunned, and her foes control the sea and possess vastly greater resources in money than she can boast.

The parallel of Napoleon before Leipzig, of the Confederacy after Gettysburg, is in many men's minds to-day. But it is for the future to disclose whether the parallel be true or false. What is clear as the third year of the war opens is that all three of Germany's major conceptions have gone wrong; all three of her great campaigns have failed to accomplish their main purpose, and that, as a consequence, Germany is now on the defensive on all fronts for the first time in the war.

A moment ago I mentioned Bernhardi's words. Perhaps they will serve as the best comment with which to close this review. The quotation is from his book, "On War of To-day":

"If at some future time Germany is involved in the slowly threatening war, she need not recoil before the numerical superiority of her enemies. But so far as human nature is able to tell, she can only rely on being successful if she is resolutely determined to break the superiority of her enemies by a victory over one or the other of them before their total strength can come into action, and if she prepares for war to that effect, and acts at the decisive moment in that spirit which made the great Prussian king once seize the sword against a world in arms."

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