a military standpoint in that it has caused the enemy to throw strong forces into this quarter and thereby to weaken his line at other points.

The encounters on the Dubissa line have been marked by many bloody fights. In their course our troops have gradually gone from the defensive, which was carried on with powerful counterthrusts, to the offensive.

From the first period an engagement may be selected here which is typical of the battles of that time on the Dubissa and which affords a model picture of the co-operation of the three principal arms. The Russians put great value on the possession of the Dubissa line, and especially of Rossieny, which dominates it as the point of junction of the highways. On the 22d of May they brought up a fresh body of élite troops, the First Caucasian Rifle Brigade, consisting of four infantry regiments and the artillery belonging thereto. This, supported by the Fifteenth Cavalry Division, began to move toward Rossieny, but was held for a whole day by the outposts of our cavalry on the other side of the Dubissa. The time was sufficient to permit of the bringing up of enough German reinforcements and to prepare a counterattack. On the 23d of May we let the enemy come over the river and approach Rossieny from the north. During the night, however, the greater part of our troops was led around the western wing of the enemy and placed in readiness to attack.

When it grew light their fate was let loose upon the Russians. Strong artillery fire from our position to the north of Rossieny was poured upon the Russian trenches. At the same time our infantry therw itself upon the flank of the Russian position and rolled it up. Without offering any serious resistance, the Russians fled across the Dubissa to escape the effect of our artillery. Not until they had reached the forest on the west bank of the river did they again settle down to make a stand. But now the pressure of our troops approaching from the south made itself felt. At the same time portions of our cavalry entered into the fight from the north, taking the

Russians in the rear. Under these circumstances the Russians did not further continue the battle. Neither were they able to hold their position, strongly constructed as a bridgehead on the west bank. With a bold dash our troops rushed the wire entanglements, and now the Russian masses flooded backward through the valley of the Dubissa under a most effective fire, suffering most serious losses. But even on the heights opposite they found no shelter. Here they had to continue their retreat under the flanking fire of our cavalry, which in the meantime had crossed the river and was advancing against the road of the retreat. Again the losses piled up.

It will be readily comprehended that under these circumstances only fragments of the Caucasian infantry were able to save themselves. Twenty-five hundred prisoners and fifteen machine guns remained in our hands. Counting their sanguinary sacrifices, the Caucasians lost fully one-half of their strength. The brigade for a long time was incapable of giving battle, and even later, when filled up with new complements of men, no longer showed any real fighting spirit. Our troops, on the other hand, which had suffered comparatively small losses, marched gayly singing into their positions.

Similar successful thrusts were made by our troops repeatedly on the Wenta against the enemy, who ever again kept pressing forward. Then, on the 5th of June, a general offensive, ordered by the superior command of the army along the whole line, set in, which brought our lines a considerable distance forward. We crossed beyond the Dubissa, in obstinate, hard-fought battles won the crossing of the Windawski Canal; occupied Height 145, near Bubie, which had been drenched with the blood of many conflicts; pushed so close to Szawle that our heavy guns could reach the city, and took Kane, twelve kilometers northwest of Szawle. On the 14th of June this operation came to a temporary stop.

The Russians in all these battles suffered enormous losses in dead, wounded, and prisoners. On the other hand, they had become very careful in the use of

their heavy artillery and very short of officers. It is significant that among 1,400 prisoners there were only a few officers and that no guns were taken

C

with these. There seemed to be signs of the disintegration of the Russian Army in this region also. They are to be observed and utilized.

|OMING from Petrograd, you arrive at your terminus in the Praga suburb, which covers the low plain on the right bank of the Vistula. There you take a carriage, or, in these more modern days, a motor, and wend your way through streets indescribably dirty, as dirty and strong smelling as the streets of Naples, and as picturesque; yet with a totally different cast of countenance, for here the color is of the Jews, with its intensity, its poignancy, its tremendous possibilities of suffering and romance. For Warsaw, with its suburb, is one of the great Jewish cities of the world, having within its boundaries not less than five times as many Jews as inhabit Jerusalem.

From Praga, through these dingy, tortuous streets, unrelieved by any conspicuous monument or building, save one Russian church, you drive, or, as before, you motor, to the eastern end of the great Vistula bridge of Alexander II., which takes off from a very dainty little park, the only beautiful thing in the whole suburb. As soon as you are on the bridge, you are certain to be struck, first, by the width of the silver-white, swift-flowing river, and then by the exceedingly picturesque sky-line of the city on its western bank, very conspicuous, because it rises on a terrace some 120 feet high above the river. And, on your right hand, as you reach the western bank, rises the building that is the very heart of old Warsaw's history, the ancient royal palace, founded by the old Dukes of Mazovia, before the wild Hapsburgs had descended from their Hawk's Rock in Switzerland, for that is the meaning of the name, which is, in full, Habichtsburg, "the fort of the hawk."

If your eyes have been distorted by the

skyscrapers of New York, you will find the old royal palace of Poland rather low, stunted, unimposing; and you will quickly realize that nothing at all of the twelfth century building remains, unless it be the big vaults; yet there is dignity and charm and pathos in the not very lofty walls with their columns and oblong windows, with the spire-topped tower in the centre of the front. Within, though there are fine halls, rich in many-colored marbles, yet they have been long stripped and desolate, and one's footsteps ring mournfully on the uncovered flags. The palace opens on the Square of King Sigismund, and from it one gets a good general view of the city, with its fourscore church towers, where, so recently, the bells rang melodiously for matins and vespers.

The practical thing to do, then, if you I wish to see the city, is to follow one after another of the big avenues that radiate southward, westward, northward from Sigismund Square, beginning, let us say, with the south, which will take you along the direction of the old road to Cracow. This is the elegant quarter of the city, and there is a genuine Parisian charm in the finely built streets, with their very tastefully adorned shops, their gardens, their palaces. When you come to the Saxon Garden, named for one of the Kings of the Saxon dynasty who once ruled over Poland, stop, look, and listen; try to catch something of the spirit of the Polish people, who here show themselves to the very best advantage; for the Saxon Garden is to Warsaw what the Garden of the Tuileries is to Paris. And, as you watch, as you notice the distinction of the men, so many of whom are admirably dressed, as you become conscious of the personal note, the charm of the women,

for whom, perhaps, distinguished is a more fitting word than beautiful, though they are that also, and, if you are a lover of children, as the fineness and grace of the children impresses itself on your grateful soul, you will become profoundly convinced that, for all their tremendous errors, the Polish people have a genius, a message, so distinctive, so individual, that, for the sake of mankind as well as for themselves, their national spirit should have free and unimpeded scope. Without question, Poland should be once more a nation; if not the enormously extended empire it was in its greatest days, much larger than either France or Germany today, yet a nation large enough and strong enough to establish and hold its own type, its own genius, its own civilization absolutely unimpaired. Such a restored Poland will be doubly valuable; not only will it bear sound and excellent fruit of itself, but it will mediate and interpret between the vast Slav empire on the east and the diverse nations on the west; just as, in greater degree, semiOriental Russia will interpret and mediate between Europe and revived and vigorous Asia. Without doubt, it seems,

such national restoration lies before Poland. And one is confident that, once it is achieved, the national note of Poland will declare itself to be, not pathetic and melancholy, but gay, blithe, joyous, full of rejoicing.

Then, if you think a little, brooding over the names, the Saxon Garden, the Saxon Palace overlooking it, you will ask yourself. Why these foreign Kings, these foreign dynasties, even while Poland was still a nation, unpartitioned? And the answer is, the fatal folly of the Polish nobles, who, more arrogant than the old noblesse of France, tore the kingdom to pieces in their haughty efforts to crush and outdo each other; who enrolled armies larger than the national armies, to make war upon each other, and who lost sight altogether of national aims, of national existence even, in their own insensate and vaulting ambitions. This perpetual discord, with the elective kingship which was the expression of it, was the ruin of a nation that deserves a better fate. Without that fatal weakening,

Poland would never have been "divided and given to the Medes and Persians." Along the Ujazdowska Avenue, one comes to the most charming building in all Warsaw, the Lazienki Palace, in its altogether delicious gardens, mirrored in a lovely little lake, as essential to its beauty as are the marble reservoirs of the Taj Mahal, in which the loveliest of all buildings mirrors itself. But even here you do not get a single note of national Polish architecture. As a basis of comparison, think of Moscow with its Kremlin, its Scarlet Square, its startlingly vivid Church of Basil the Blessed. Moscow is the most individual city in the world. Warsaw, in its architecture, and especially in the forms of its many palaces, is not national, not Polish at all, but Italian, of the Renaissance, with just the same pillars and pilasters that one sees in every recent building in Western Europe, or, even more out of place, among the icicles of Petrograd, whose cathedrals and palaces, St. Isaac's, the Hermitage, the Winter Palace, even the very national Kazan Cathedral, are every one in the Italian style.

The Lazienki Palace was built at the end of the eighteenth century by King Stanislas Poniatowski, one of Poland's fatal rulers, and, in later years, it was the scene of one of the many tragic passages of Polish history, but this time not a tragedy of the Poles. For it was in the lovely little park of the Lazienki Palace that the Grand Duke Constantine bade a heavy-hearted farewell to Poland, and, after trying, in all sincerity, year after year, to win the affections, the trust, the confidence of the Poles, and trying altogether in vain. He was a son of the Emperor Nicholas I., and therefore a brother of Alexander II., liberator of the serfs and of the Balkan nations; a brother also of the Grand Duke Nicholas the elder, father of the present Commander in Chief, and himself Chief Commander of the Russian armies in the Turkish wars of 1877-78, which gave an assured national existence to Serbia, Bulgaria, and Rumania. Grand Duke Constantine, whose son, the royal poet, died only a few weeks ago, made the sincerest, the most loyal effort to make friends

with Poland; but all to no purpose. So this historic picture, too, comes to memory, as we turn back from the southern limit of the city, and return to our starting point, in the Sigismund Square.

Drive now to the north, along the narrowing avenue that takes you ultimately to the fort called the Citadel, on the outer fringe of the town. Nowhere will you get a more complete, more drastic contrast, for a few minutes takes you into the very heart of the old Jewish settlement, with its dark, gloomy, forbidding yet romantic, and romantically dirty streets. Here, in every face, keen, sallow, tragical, you will see the intensity, the fiery energy, that made St. Paul -and that, in so many cities, stoned St. Paul, on the accusation of treachery to the ancient ideals of the nation. The long, dark, seedy overcoat, which one imagines to be the Jewish gabardine of Shylock, the black, peaked cap, the high, rusty boots are universal, even on boys of 3 or 4, who are, but for the lack of straggling beards, adults in miniature; the keen, dark eyes of the younger girls, as intent as the eyes of Rebekah or Rachel; the shrewd, often shrewish faces of the elder women, all make a memorable, striking, poignant picture. It was a Jew, and one of the greatest of them, that said, "the glory of a woman is her hair "; yet, in obedience to some Talmudic injunction, these keen-eyed Jewish girls, as soon as they are married, have their heads shaved, and thereafter wear a wig, made of hair, or a mere skullcap of black silk; and this, too, adds its note, not an attractive one, to the vivid picture. Curiously enough, in the very heart of this northern part of the city is the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. John, in which is kept a banner taken by John Sobieski in 1683, when he save Vienna from the all-conquering Turks. But even when one comes to study the Warsaw churches, and there are four score of them, of the Western rite, one finds them as little national as the palaces of the old nobles and Kings.

Coming back once more to the centre of the city, and going to the northwest, one finds two more beautiful buildings:

the charming Krasniwski Palace, built, of course by an Italian architect, at the end of the seventeenth century, and restored after the great fire of 1783; and the Russian Cathedral, rebuilt in 1857in the style, not of the genuinely Russian Kremlin and its churches, but of the Italian Renaissance.

Finally, to the southwest, a wide avenue, called, first, Senatorial Street and then Electoral Street, leads to the Wola Gate, beyond which is the fatal field on which were held the internecine elections of the Polish Kings-the cause, above all things, of the national downfall. On the way thither, one passes the Town Hall, a quite modern building, the Bank of Poland, the Zamoyski Palace, and the Church of St. Charles Borromeo.

And now Warsaw has once more fallen into the hands of an invader; once again, after many like calamities. In spite of its fortifications, built in 1339, it was captured, in 1596, from the Mazovians by the Poles, who had hitherto reigned at Cracow a city that has all the Polish nationalism that Warsaw lacks; in 1655 was conquered by Charles Gustavus, to be won back again within the year by John Casimir, who once more lost it a month later. Throughout the second part of the seventeenth century, Saxon Kings reigned there; from 1735 to 1738 it was the scene of fierce fighting between Augustus II. and Stanislas Leszczynski; and 1764 to 1774, and again in 1793, it was occupied by the Russians, who never forgot the griefs that Moscow had suffered from the Poles, in the days when Poland was the stronger nation. In 1809 Warsaw was occupied by the armies of Austria, it being then, through Napoleon's ruling, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw; in 1813, it was once again occupied by Russia, which has dominated it now for over a century.

Let us hope that now, amid the clash of armies, Destiny may have in store for Poland a renewal of national life, in which the ancient dangers and evils will be conquered, the ancient genius once more shine out resplendent. The novels, the music, the singers, the actors of Poland are but a pledge of far greater riches in the days to come.

W

HY berate the Britons? They are but doing what they must do. Why tell them, day in and day out, that we are the better, the superior ones, the only perfectly unselfish human beings on earth? It makes them only smile.

Nor should we ever have talked idiotically about blood relationship and Christian duty that commands pious brotherhood. We should have always borne in mind what Palmerston said in the House of Commons after the February revolution in Paris: "Only dreamers can labor under the romantic delusion that relations between nations, between Governments, are essentially, or even permanently, governed by friendship or similar emotions."

Germany had no reason to be thankful to Britain, but she had a hundred reasons to fear her-fear that is based upon respect. Great Britain is wonderfully strong, the biggest world empire that history has known; in three-fourths of the inhabited earth today the English language is spoken.

Germans who on the Rigi have once sat beside a Liverpool tailor disguised as a lord, Germans who gather their wisdom from the comic sheets, think they know Britain and the British. And this is their idea of Englishmen: Sneaking and cowardly; stiff, grouchy or spleenish; without a longing for Kultur; only a craze for sports and greed in their heads-that, roughly, is the popular picture.

That the most convincing new theories which taught us to learn nature and the mind; that Shakespeare's country had, even in the nineteenth century, the most

productive literature (not poetry)—these things are overlooked. Because the Briton loves sport and spends almost as much time playing golf or football as . the German does in drinking beer, he is ridiculed. Is the Englishman silly because he is anxious that his county should win in the cricket match? Does not his play, which steels the body, serve his fatherland?

Did you ever go into Hyde Park and there see the hundreds of sturdy, whitehaired old men riding briskly on horseback? And the young girls and old ladies in the West End; the workmen with their children on the playgrounds? Look at them and compare them with the thin-blooded, prematurely withered, overfattened and wabbling figures you meet at every step in the Continental cities!

The Briton, cheerful, healthy, and brave, was quick to realize that only the strong can conquer the world, and he procured for himself the hygiene which is necessary to a nation confined most of the time to factories and offices, lest it die away. The Briton's mode of living and his actions are sensible; he can obey without humiliation and force and give obedience without arbitrary tyranny.

In India a Commissioner with only a handful of whites at his disposal commands millions of the brown race who do not dare wrinkle their brows before his glance. In London, if an uprising is feared, Dukes join hands with cellar tenants to do constable duty. Everybody, whether he possess fortune or have only a few pounds to lose, takes the oath, joins the ranks, and marches against the foes of society. And it is because this real