overed heights and crept along the flank of e German position.

When they had reached the desired position, e infantry charged along the road and the hasseurs Alpins simultaneously whizzed down ne slope on their skis. The swift flank attack id the business, and the Germans were driven or some miles down the valley of the Weiss oward Colmar.

of Mt.

One of the greatest single mountain suc- Austrians esses of the war was the Austrian capture capture f Mount Lövchen, the huge black mass of Lovchen. ock, nearly six thousand feet high, which ominates the Austrian port of Cattaro and entinels the little kingdom of Montenegro on he west.

Ever since the war began the Austrians have rom time to time made attempts to reach the ummit of this mighty rock. It is only a matter of an hour or two by winding road in peace times, but the Austrians were something ike eighteen months on the job; and in all his time it is doubtful if the defenders ever umbered much more than five thousand. vas not captured until the Montenegrins had ›ractically run out of ammunition and of reasons for holding the position. The rest of heir kingdom was overrun, and they were to all intents and purposes out of the war.

It

in the

The Russian campaign in the Carpathians, hussians before the great German drive of a year ago Carpapushed the Czar's armies back into their own thians. country, also illustrates how the mountain warfare of to-day grew by natural tendencies from the tactics of Bourcet into the trench warfare of northern France.

In the first weeks of the war, when the great offensive movement of the Austrian army toward Lublin was crushed by the Grand Duke Nicholas, and the broken hosts of the Dual Monarchy were sent flying through Galicia and

The Carpathian passes.

Plains more often battlegrounds.

the Carpathians, a cloud of Cossack cavalry followed them and penetrated into the plaits of Hungary. This last operation was mere a raid, however, and the Cossacks were s00: galloping back through the mountain passes

Then the Russians laid siege to Przemysł and occupied the whole of Galicia up to the line of the San. Later they pushed on west ward to the Dunajec, threatening Cracow This was their high tide. On their left flank was the mass of the Carpathians, pierced by a number of passes. The more important of these, from west to east, are the Tarnow. Dukla, Lupkow, and Uzsok.

The Austrians were rallied after some weeks and put up something of a fight for these "cor i tracted places." The Russians, following the precepts of Bourcet, threatened the passage which seemed most desirable, because of the railroad facilities, and delivered a heavy blow at the Dukla Pass, the least important of the four. Here they pushed through to Bartfeld on the Hungarian plain. Then, however. Mackensen's fearful blow smashed the Russian line on the Dunajec and poured the Germa legions across Galicia in the rear of the Carpe thian armies, forcing the Muscovites to aban don the passes and scurry home.

Mountain warfare has always had a certain romantic glamour, and it has filled many pages in the literature of fighting. As a matter of historical fact, however, it has played a com paratively small part in the world's annals Almost all the great campaigns have beer fought out in the lowlands. It is Belgium. for instance, and not Switzerland, that has been proverbially the battle-ground of Europe. Napoleon and Suwaroff marched armies through the Alps, but only as a means of strik ing unexpectedly at the enemy who occupie the plains beyond.

Up to the time of the present war, mountain campaigns have usually been no more than picturesque foot-notes to history, illuminated by the valor of raiding clansmen like Roderick Dhu of the Scottish Highlands, or guerrilla hiefs like Andreas Hofer, the Tyrolese patriot. Hofer's struggle against Napoleon was indeed a gallant and notable one, but it scarcely entered into the main current of history.

Gari

cam

If, however, we include Garibaldi among the baldi's mountain fighters-and such was the charac- mountain teristic bent of his remarkable military genius paigns. -we must accord him a place among the molders of modern Europe, for without his flashing sword Italy could not have been liberated and united. His two Alpine campaigns against the Austrians were successful and effective, but his most brilliant powers were shown in his memorable invasion of Sicily in 1860. Chased ashore at Marsala by the Neapolitan war-ships, and narrowly escaping capture, he led his followers-one thousand red-shirted volunteers armed with obsolete muskets-into the Sicilian mountains, where he played such a game that within two months he compelled the surrender of a well-equipped army of nearly thirty thousand regulars. The history of warfare can show but few exploits so daring and so dramatic.

The most important military movement on the western front in the early autumn of 1915 was the great French offensive in Champagne. During the preceding months of the spring and summer, there had been hard fighting all along the 400-mile line from the North Sea to Switzerland. The military results had been small on either side and now the French resolved on a mighty offensive which should be decisive in its accomplishments. What these results actually were is told in the following narrative. B.W.-11 Vol. I

THE GREAT CHAMPAGNE

OFFENSIVE OF 1915

OFFICIAL ACCOUNT OF THE FRENCH
HEADQUARTERS STAFF

A

FTER the battles of May and June, 1915, in Artois, activity on the Western front became concentrated in the Vosges, where, by a series of successful engagements, we managed to secure possession of more favorable positions and to retain them in spite of incessant counter-attacks. The superiority estab lished over the adversary, the wearing down of the latter through vain and costly counteroffensives, which absorbed in that sector his local resources; the state of uncertainty in which the Germans found themselves in view of the menace of a French division in AlsaceFrench in such were the immediate results of these engagements. From the number of the effectives engaged, and the limited front along which the attacks took place, those attacks nevertheless were no more than local.

Menace

of the

Alsace.

Preparing

great

While those operations were developing, the for a higher command was carefully preparing for a offensive. great offensive. The situation of the Russian armies imposed on us, as their Allies, obligations the accomplishment of which had been made possible by the results of a long course of preparation no less than by the aid of cir cumstances.

The inaction of the adversary, engaged on the Eastern front in a series of operations of which he had not foreseen the difficulties, and

Copyright, National Review, January, 1916.

defensive

thus reduced to the defensive on our front, left the initiative of the operations in our hands. The landing in France of fresh British troops enabled Marshal French to take upon himself the defence of a portion of the lines hitherto held by French troops. The improvement of Improved our defensive organizations, which made pos- organizasible certain economies in the effectives, the tions. regrouping of units and the creation of new units, also had the effect of placing a larger number of men at the disposal of the Generalissimo. The increased output of war matériel ensured him the necessary means for a complete artillery preparation.

Among all the elements of success which were thus united at the end of the summer of 1915, not the least was the incomparable individual worth of the French soldier. It was to the traditional warlike qualities of the race that the Generalissimo appealed when, on September 23, 1915, he addressed to the troops the Joffre's following general order, which was read to the appeal to regiments by their officers:

"SOLDIERS OF THE REPUBLIC

"After months of waiting, which have enabled us to increase our forces and our resources, while the adversary has been using up his own, the hour has come to attack and conquer and to add fresh glorious pages to those of the Marne and Flanders, the Vosges and Arras.

"Behind the whirlwind of iron and fire let loose, thanks to the factories of France, where your brothers have, night and day, worked for us, you will proceed to the attack, all together, on the whole front, in close union with the armies of our Allies.

the troops.

"Your élan will be irresistible. It will carry The you at a bound up to the batteries of the ad- Spirit versary, beyond the fortified lines which he has soldier. placed before you.