In his memoirs Ludendorf plainly states: "The German General Staff now resolved to try to obtain a decision against Russia." This, translated from military parlance into plain English, simply means that it was the object to settle, to "finish" with Russia, in other words, to crush her Army, for otherwise there would have been no sense in starting operations against Russia, and in wasting against her the reserves so much needed on the main front, against France. Neither does Ludendorf conceal this object further on in his memoirs, _but he admits that it was not accomplished_. For this failure he blames General Falkenhayn, the Chief of the General Staff, who, it was supposed, prevented Ludendorf from crushing the Russian Army. We shall not enter into the personal disputes between Ludendorf and Falkenhayn, whom Ludendorf throughout criticises sharply. We shall only note that Ludendorf attempted four times during the summer of 1915 to surround or break through the several retreats of the Russian Army, but the latter in every instance retreated in perfect order, carrying their arms with them. In which one of these four instances, then, did Falkenhayn interfere? How preposterous this shifting of the blame to Falkenhayn is, may be seen even from Ludendorf's own statement: "Throughout the whole War we never succeeded, either on the Eastern or Western front, in exploiting a big break-through to the full!" In this way he himself admits that the Germans did not even once succeed, at the proper time, in utilizing a big success to the full, i. e., Falkenhayn's role was immaterial. It is but natural that the resistance of the Russians in 1915 prevented the Germans from exploiting that success which they regarded as a big one, but which, as a matter of fact, consisted only in the systematic retreat of the Russian Army which was without arms and munitions. However, the most inopportune statement made by Ludendorf is contained in the following remark of his concerning the operations against the Russians in 1915: "We had brought the final overthrow of Russia a step nearer." The offensive of Brusilov in the following year, which netted him more than 200,000 prisoners and made Ludendorf, as he himself says, frequently worry about the fate of the entire Austro-German front in Russia, demonstrates how the offensive of Ludendorf in 1915 hastened "the final overthrow of Russia." On the contrary, this offensive which cost Ludendorf a great many of his reserves, and afforded a year of quiet preparation to the Allies, did, as we saw, hasten "the final overthrow of Germany."