Russia Grapples with Germany and Austria on 1000-Mile Front - The Longest Battle Line in History

Russian Forces, 500,000
Grand Duke Nicholas, Generalissimo
Army of the Niemen, Gen. SamsonoíT
Army of the Narew, Gen. Rennenkampf
Cavalry Corps, Gen. Basil Gurko

German Forces, 500,000
Gen. von Hindenberg, Commander
Gen. von Francois
Gen. von Morgen
Gen. von der Goltz

Let us now scan the flaming arena of war in the East, where Russia has been grappling single-handed with her most puissant foes, Prussia and Austria, along a battle line 1000 miles in extent, reaching from the Baltic Sea southward to the farthest passes of the Carpathians.

When the war-clouds broke over Europe in July, civil discontent was rife in Russia, and anxious observers believed that the country was on the verge of another internal upheaval. There were many strikes in progress in Petrograd and in other Russian cities when the hour of conflict came and the masses of the people were stirred with a vast unrest.

These surface symptoms were disregarded by the Russian social leaders, as they poured out of the cities for the holidays, all unmindful of the gathering war-clouds. They did not, however, go unnoticed in Berlin. There it was believed the war already determined upon would find Russia rent asunder by civil strife.

The Germans, nevertheless, had failed to understand the psychology of the Russian people, just as they had failed to interpret the moods of other nations around them.

When the fateful day arrived, the strikes at Petrograd vanished in a night, and the once-hated Cossacks, who had been brought into the city to preserve order in the Nevsky Prospekt, found themselves acclaimed by the people.

From the farthest confines of the empire, day by day, came interminable trainloads of men eager to give their lives for the Czar. Immense crowds knelt in front of the Winter Palace, chanting the majestic and solemn strains of the Russian National Anthem.

The war had brought a solidarity to the Russian nation such as it never had known before. For the fi...