"Jack Frost" also definitely stopped regular fighting. With its arrival war at the eastern front deteriorated into more or less of a guerrilla war. Instead of attempts to break through the line by miles, both sides settled down to a bitter contest for choice pieces of ground here and there. An exchange of a bit of high ground for a nasty, damp trench in a bog was considered quite a victory. The capture of a small supply train by a small detachment that had managed to sneak through the line at some point unobserved or unoccupied, because it apparently was impossible for occupation on account of the nature of the ground, was as much talked about as only a victory in a real engagement would have been two or three months ago. In a way, both the Russian and German and Austro-Hungarian armies had a much more severe time of it on the east front than the German and Franco-English forces had at the west front. First of all, the latter was located in much more civilized regions, cleaner, therefore, and healthier. Then, too, the nature of the ground in the west was less hard on the fighters, higher in most places, and, therefore, drier. Furthermore, the western line was practically an unbroken line from the English Channel down to the Swiss border. In the east, however, marshes, lakes, and rivers made an unbroken line impossible. All along the front there were innumerable gaps. Of course many of these were gaps because no human being could find a foothold on them, and, therefore, needed no watching. Others, however, while impossible for occupation, were not equally impossible for passage, provided those that attempted to pass were willing to take great risks. And there was no lack of such on either side. So Russians, Germans, and Austro-Hungarians had to be continuously on the jump to prevent such raids of their lines which, though they might have been very small in the beginning, might have had very serious consequences. These conditions, therefore, made war on the east front for everybody concerned truly a war of attrition, equally racking for nerves and bodies.

Only one other event of importance occurred on the east front during the winter of 1915-16. General Russky, commanding the Russian forces fighting before Riga and Dvinsk and in the Dvina-Vilia sector, was forced by illness to retire from his command. He was succeeded by General Everth, who up to then had commanded the next adjoining army group, from the Vilia down to the Pripet Marshes, and who now assumed command over all the Russian forces from the Gulf of Riga to the Pripet Marshes. Farther down the line General Ivanoff continued the leadership that he had assumed after the German advance had come to a standstill at the end of October.

Thus the winter passed. As we have learned in some of the preceding chapters, operations were resumed in a small way at certain points along the line from time to time. With the approach of the spring of 1916 these activities slightly increased in extent and severity. But both sides, as long as frost continued, were satisfied with this state of conditions and with never-ceasing preparations for new offensive operations to begin as soon as nature would permit.[Back to Contents]

PART VI—THE BALKANS

CHAPTER XXX

BATTLE CLOUDS GATHER AGAIN

Though Serbia had been the first to be attacked by the Central Powers when the world war began, the end of the first year's fighting was to find her still unconquered, though she had passed through ordeals quite as severe as those suffered by Belgium.

Let us review, briefly, the events of the first year:

Hardly had hostilities been declared by Austria-Hungary, on July 28, 1914, when the armies of the Dual Empire began gathering along the Serbian frontiers; then, within a few days, they hurled themselves into Serbia, hoping to overwhelm her by the sheer weight of their numbers. Not only did the soldiers of the little Balkan nation withstand the onslaught of the imperial troops, but within the week they had swept them back, driving them across the frontiers.

So astounded was the Austrian General Staff, so dumfounded was it by this unexpected disaster, that it required some weeks to realize what had happened, and to prepare for a second and mightier attempt to overcome the resistance of the Serbians.