But I must not omit to record a curious incident which happened as the Emperor was riding past the statue of Copernicus, whose birthplace was Thorn. Just when abreast the monument of that immortal astronomer, His Majesty remarked to his suite: ‘Ja, meine Herren, there you see the man who first opened the eyes of the world to the true nature of the solar system; and I think that with God’s help we shall equally be able to assign Russia her proper place in the system of nations.’
THE AUSTRIAN PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.
DETAILS OF PREPARATION.
(By Telegraph from our Special Correspondent, Mr. Charles Lowe.)
Thorn, April 29.
To-night the Emperor (who continues to display wonderfully good spirits and energy) gave a banquet in the hastily furbished-up rooms of the gloomy old Schloss, in honour of Feldzeugmeister Baron Beck, the Chief of the Austrian Staff, who, pending the progress of his well-thought-out mobilisation and massing scheme, which he had set a-going by a simple order from Vienna, had hastily run up here by rail to concert united action with his German colleague, Count von Schlieffen, the present occupier of Moltke’s high and responsible office. From a trustworthy source I gather that this was the substance of Baron von Beck’s communication:—
It had been discovered, beyond all doubt, that the main objective of the Russian invasion was Lemberg, in the direction of which Dragomiroff was concentrating immense masses of troops, drawn from the 4th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th Army Corps, in the rear of whom other forces, furnished by the remoter 13th, 16th, 17th and other Corps, were pushing up as fast as the defective railway system of the country would allow them. Austria, on her part, had resolved to combine her defensive forces into three armies—one of about 300,000 strong, in East Galicia, on the Dniester; another, about as half as strong (150,000), on the San, with its back on Przemysl, that tremendous bulwark of Middle Galicia; and a third, of about 120,000, near Cracow, that almost equally formidable place d’armes, and key of Western Galicia on the Upper Vistula.
But these numbers do not include a force of eight independent Cavalry Divisions, each of four Brigades, or four regiments, which are to be ranked along the Galician frontier at the likeliest points of danger from the mass-raidings of Russian horsemen.
THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA AT AMBULANCE WORK.