British advancing over the captured German trenches, after heavy artillery fire had reduced them to tangled ruins and crushed their powers of resistance. Under shell fire on the battlefield of Neuve Chepelle, where the British lines were assaulted by a merciless bombardment. CHAPTER X THE WAR IN THE EAST Serbia's Successful Defense - Russia's Invasion of East Prussia - The Disaster of the Masurian Lakes Secrets of Russia's Weakness The Conquest of Galicia Tremendous Counterstrokes by Hindenburg and Von Mackensen Przemysl and Lemberg - The German Invasion of Poland and the Baltic Provinces Riga and Petrograd Threatened - The War in the Balkans Conquest of Serbia The Dardanelles and the Gallipoli Campaign — Greece and Salonika The Struggle at the Head of the Red Sea Armenia and Mesopotamia. THE FIRST shots of the war were fired on the eastern frontier when Austrian artillery bombarded the Serbian capital, Belgrade, from across the Danube. This action was not important, and was soon followed by a far more successful counter attack by Serbians and Montenegrins upon Austria. An Austrian regiment which attempted to cross the Danube east of Belgrade was annihilated. On August 12th the Serbs and Montenegrins crossed the border into Bosnia and swept irresistibly toward Sarajevo. Heavy fighting occurred at Shabatz and on the Save River, in which the Serbs were on the whole successful. The Austrian invasion of Serbia was foiled, and the Serbian invasion of Bosnia was maintained. Meantime a far greater campaign was undertaken at the other side of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Russian army was mobilized in three grand divisions. The center was in Russian Poland. The left wing, under the Grand Duke Nicholas, one of Russia's greatest generals, began on August 11th an invasion of Galicia, or Austrian Poland; while the right wing a week later crossed the border into East Prussia. THE GALICIAN DRIVE The Russian left wing was at first highly successful. After seven days of incessant'fighting it completely over whelmed the Austrians on September 2d, and the next day occupied the important city of Lemberg. The next day Halicz was taken; on September 9th the Austrians were vanquished in a hard battle at Rawaruska; on September 22d Jaroslav was captured, and five days later Russian troops were in the Carpathian mountain passes, and crossing the Hungarian frontier. The great fortress of Przemysl, the last Austrian stronghold left in Galicia, was invested and besieged all that fall and winter, but was not captured by the Russians until March 22d. Its fall cleared the way for a Russian advance into Hungary, or would have done so had not something happened elsewhere to bring the Russian plans to naught. IN EAST PRUSSIA The Russian advance at the right was at first equally successful. East Prussia was invaded, and on August 26th Insterburg and on August 27th Tilsit were captured. An important victory was won at Gumbinnen, and the main Prussian army was apparently shut up in Königsberg. A detachment of the Russian army moved forward into the region of the Masurian Lakes, to clear the way for an advance on the lower Vistula. That gloomy and forbidding region was, however, destined to be the scene of disaster for the Russians. Germany's greatest General, Hindenburg, known as the "Old Man of the Masurian Lakes," advanced to the attack upon them, with a superior force and with infinitely superior knowledge of the "lay of the land." The Russians were trapped among the lakes and almost interminable marshes, in places where it was impossible for supplies of munitions to reach them. For three days a tremendous conflict raged at Tannenburg and Allenstein, which resulted |