But the task in the Carpathians is a stupendous one, and it comes when the Russian army has been tried to the full by the tremendous work which it has already gone through. We had in England no adequate army when the war began; we had not reckoned on the shameless violation of Belgian territory or on the obligations of a joint struggle with allies for the independence of Europe. Every one in Russia understands the miracle that we have done in creating so rapidly a really competent continental army on the basis of volunteer service, and every one sees that we were right to defer our blow till the great new instrument was whole and perfected. But it is Russia who has given us time for preparing our action on land; and the sacrifices which this has cost her are heavy indeed. The tremendous impact at Rava Ruska was followed by another prolonged and exterminating effort on the San, and this takes no account of the work which was done in holding the furious attacks of the main enemy in Russian Poland. These efforts put a terrible drain on the Russian resources. While we stood firm on the west, whole Russian regiments were almost annihilated in the victorious storming of one Austrian position after another. In my earlier visits to regiments I have often asked how many men of the first call still remain; sometimes only six of a company were still left, sometimes it was hardly more out of a whole regiment. It was an army already replaced at almost every point which had to attempt the conquest of the Carpathians. The Carpathians are not the Alps. It might be easier if they were, for there would be fewer positions capable of being defended. They are a belt of high and higher hills some sixty miles or more in breadth, where whole armies can hold line after line. They are full of trees, water and mud. Only one double line of railway runs through them. As they have the shape of a fan spread northwards, the defence can concentrate backward along the various converging passes and can, in a relatively small space, almost block the narrow entrance to the Hungarian plain. But once that final barrier is passed, Hungary is lost. Any counter advance can be blocked without great expenditure of forces, and the conqueror will be free to advance southwards or westwards. _April 12._ At the Staff of the Army I fell in with a number of casual acquaintances who all saluted me as "Mister." There was a keen young flying-man who was now going back to his cavalry regiment, and a colonel sent to take temporary command of an infantry regiment. The talk was in fragments and all of incidents of camp life or engagements. We knew that another advance had been made and that big things were going forward.