South of Riga, Kovno, a strong fortress, dictated the position of the line in the north, and southeast of Kovno the Niemen River stretched to the fortress of Grodno. From Kovno the line stretched to BrestLitovsk, a heavily-fortified city; and south of Brest-Litovsk, Rovno, Lutsk and Dubno were fortresses which could conceivably be held.

But on August 17, Kovno unexpectedly surrendered. Its fall allowed the Germans to threaten an approach on Brest-Litovsk from the north as well as from the south, and on August 25, Brest-Litovsk was abandoned. On August 22, Ossowiecz also fell. The Germans were driving ahead along the entire line. Riga held out, but early in September Grodno, Lutsk and Dubno fell before the fire of the heavy German guns, and the Germans were well across the Niemen and the Bug rivers.

Once more the Russian situation was dangerous, and once more extreme skill was necessary to avoid a second Sedan. The Tsar himself took supreme command of the Russian armies and entrusted them directly to General Alexieff; and once more the Russians extricated themselves from their positions without surrendering any considerable portion of their army in mass. Sharp and brilliant counter-attacks held up the Germans for a few hours at the points of greatest danger, and Russia still possessed something which might be called an army to take up a new line of defence. Back of Pinsk was a vast, desolate region of swamps known as the Pripet Marshes, and if the Russian army could be driven into them, it would indeed cease to become an army. But the Russians made good their third position, although Vilna fell on September 18 and although the Germans advanced throughout September. The Germans were now getting farther and farther from their base of supplies; it was not advisable to keep the eastern front so far from the western that reinforcements could not be rushed to France quickly in case of a disaster on the western front; a new Allied offensive in France was at hand; winter was approaching; the Russian line had finally been straightened; the Russians had lost more than a million in killed and wounded, almost a million in prisoners, and some 65,000 square miles of territory; and the Germans had accomplished their chief objectives-the occupation of all of Russian Poland; the disappearance for many months

of any military threat from Russia; the safeguarding of Galicia, Hungary and East Prussia; the straightening of the battle-line in the east from the Gulf of Riga clear down to the Austro-Roumanian frontier; and the crippling of the Russian military forces.

By October 1, accordingly, the fighting died down on the east. The new line stretched from Riga due east along the Dvina River to Dvinsk; then straight south through Pinsk and Dubno through the extreme eastern edge of Galicia to the Carpathians.

THE ENTRANCE OF ITALY AND BULGARIA INTO THE WAR

ITALY DECIDES

There has already been traced, in Volume I, the conflict between Austria and Italy which was made inevitable by the rise of a feeling for unified nationality in the Italian peninsula. There was traced also the problem of "Italia Irredenta," and we saw that the final redemption of all the Italian nationality from Austrian rule had not yet been achieved by the time of the outbreak of the Great War. We saw, finally, that Italy declared that the terms of the Triple Alliance did not enjoin participation by her on the side of Germany and Austria in case the war waged by the latter was an offensive war; and that for this reason Italy had prociaimed her neutrality when the Great War burst forth.

With Trieste, the sea-coast of the Istrian peninsula and a few islands in the Adriatic off Dalmatia, and also the Trentino, inhabited chiefly by Italians, but under the Austro-Hungarian flag, it was natural that there should arise in Italy as the war proceeded an accelerated antiAustrian feeling coupled with the demand that Italy seize this opportune occasion for bringing all the "unredeemed Italians" under the Italian flag. Along with this feeling ran a longing to see Italy grow in influence and strength. Italian aspirations were concerned largely with a desire for complete control of the Adriatic, and a movement became strong to seize the entire upper east coast of the Adriatic from Austrian rule and from South Slav aspirations and to convert it into "an Italian lake." Finally, in Italy as in other neutral lands, the vicious influence upon international relations which would result from a German victory was appreciated; and Italy would be rendering no small service to civilization if she should assist in the defeat of the Central Powers.

But obviously the decision of Italy would depend largely upon the course which the war would take. Italy's participation in the conflict,

after all, would be chiefly for the purpose of realizing Italian nationalistic aims; and Italy would be injured instead of helped if she joined the losing combination. However, it was becoming more and more difficult for Italy to remain neutral. A neutral Italy could hope for nothing from the victors, whether the victors should be the Central Powers or the Entente Allies. If Italy remained neutral and the Central Powers won the war, "Italia Irredenta" would obviously remain Austrian; and if Italy remained neutral and the Entente Allies won the war, Servia or a new Jugoslavia would gain along the Adriatic at the expense of Italian longings in that quarter. Nay, more, as in the case of America later, if Italy remained neutral, she might have no international friendships, only international enmities, and might have to pay penalties to the victors as part of the spoils of war.

After the German plan of campaign, a plan naturally understood by the Italian government, met with disaster at the Marne and after the Russians showed unexpected strength by their crushing defeat of the Austrians at Lemberg, it seemed as though final victory for the Central Powers was extremely improbable. So that both from private and semi-official sources there was launched in Italy toward the end of 1914 and the beginning of 1915 a campaign of propaganda demanding that Italy throw in her lot with the Entente. This campaign helped to arouse the Italian people to demand war, and by the time that the government was ready to make a final decision, it could rely upon popular support for its course, outside of the ranks of the powerful Socialist and syndicalist groups.

In the early months of 1915, both the Entente Allies and the Central Powers laid before the Italian government tempting promises in order to gain Italy over to their side. The German government dispatched as ambassador to Italy one of its ablest diplomats, Prince von Bülow; but Prince von Bülow's influence upon both the Rome and the Vienna courts, although it delayed Italy's entrance into the war, was insufficient to prevent Italy from formulating in April a series of demands to which the Austro-Hungarian government would not entirely agree. The powerful and popular ex-premier, Giolitti, had no better success in persuading his fellow-countrymen to remain neutral. AustriaHungary was willing to cede a large part of the Italian demands, but the Entente Allies were willing, even anxious to cede all of them;

and on May 4, Italy formally renounced her treaty with Germany and Austria-Hungary and on May 24 formally declared war on Austria-Hungary. It was significant that war was not declared at the same time on the allies of Austria-Hungary. Italy did not declare war on Turkey until August 21, 1915, nor on Bulgaria until October 19, 1915; and not until more than a year after Italy's declaration of war on Austria-Hungary, not until August 28, 1916, did Italy formally declare war on Germany.

Italy's bargain with the Entente Allies was embodied in a secret treaty, first made public by the Bolshevist leaders when they achieved control in Russia in November, 1917. This treaty, known as the Pact of London, in certain respects went counter to the principles embodied later by President Wilson in his "Fourteen Points." Roughly, the Pact of London promised to Italy not only "Italy Irredenta" proper, but also sections of the Istrian peninsula and the Dalmatian coast, together with Adriatic islands, in which the Slavic and not the Italian nationality was in the ascendancy, and in addition certain nonItalian sections of the Austrian Tyrol. However, the port of Fiume was not awarded Italy by the Pact of London.

With Italy thus entering the war primarily to wrest additions to the Italian kingdom from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy proceeded to send her army to occupy the land desired. We have already seen that Austria had realized that even while the two countries were at peace she would have to maintain a large force on the AustroItalian frontier, and a large Austrian force had long been maintained there; so that the declaration of war by Italy did not weaken Austria to so great an extent as it otherwise would have done. Nevertheless, Italy's active participation in the war was a sharp blow to the cause of the Central Powers. Italy's assistance to the Entente was a military assistance not only; it also cut off the Central Powers from a source of supplies and furthermore increased both the morale and the prestige of the Entente.

THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN

Some twenty miles from the Adriatic along the Austro-Italian frontier the mountains end, and the frontier runs through a plain. A