Russian reinforcements came up, and a counter-attack was begun.  The German aim had evidently been to reach Grodno and cut the main line from Warsaw to Petrograd, which passes through that city.  They had now reached Suwalki, a little north of Grodno, but were unable to advance further, though the Warsaw-Petrograd railway was barely ten miles away.  The southern portion of von Hindenburg’s army was moving against the railway further west, in the direction of Ossowietz.  But Ossowietz put up a determined resistance, and the attack was unsuccessful.  By the beginning of March, von Hindenburg ordered a gradual retreat to the East Prussian frontier.

While this movement to drive the Russians from East Prussia was under way, von Hindenburg had also launched an attack against the Russian army on the Narev.  If he could force the lower Narev from that point, too, he could cut the railroad running east from the Polish capital.  He had hoped that the attacks just described further east would distract the Russian attention so that he would find the Narev ill guarded.  The advance began on February 22d, and after numerous battles captured Przasnysz, and found itself with only one division to oppose its progress to the railroad.  On the 23d this force was attacked by the German right, but resisted with the utmost courage.  It held out for more than thirty-six hours, until, on the evening of the 24th, Russian reinforcements began to come up, and drove the invaders north through Przasnysz in retreat.

It was an extraordinary fight.  The Russians were unable to supply all their troops with munitions and arms.  At Przasnysz men fought without rifles, armed only with a bayonet.  All they could do was to charge with cold steel, and they did it so desperately that, though they were outnumbered, they drove the Germans before them.  By all the laws of war the Russians should have been defeated with ease.  As it was, the German attempt to capture Warsaw by a flank movement was defeated.  While the struggle was going on in the north, the Austrian armies in Galicia were also moving, Russia was still holding the three great passes in the Carpathian Mountains, but had not been able to begin an offensive in Hungary.

The Austrians had been largely reinforced by German troops, and were moving forward to the relief of Przemysl, and also to drive Brussilov from the Galician mountains.  Brussilov’s movements had been partly military and partly political.  From the passes, in those mountains Hungary could be attacked, and unless he could be driven away there was no security for the Hungarian cornfields, to which Germany was looking for food supplies.  Moreover, from the beginning of the Russian movement in Galicia, northern Bukovina had been in Russian hands.  Bukovina was not only a great supply ground for petrol and grain, but she adjoined Roumania which, while still neutral, had a strong sympathy with the Allies, especially Italy.  The presence of a Russian army on her border might