The Austrian Army in these Polish campaigns suffered under the serious disadvantage that, amongst the various nationalities serving in it, there were many men whose sympathies were with the enemy, or whose hearts were not on the Austrian side. The Slav soldiers felt they were fighting against their brother Slavs of Russia, and there were also in the Austrian army in Galicia Italian regiments from the Venetian border about Trieste and Fiume. It was a sagacious move on the part of the Tsar’s Government to make an offer in the first stage of the campaign to Italy “as an evidence of his friendship and sympathy,” to liberate and send to Italy all prisoners of Italian nationality taken in Galicia, on condition that the Italian Government would engage not to send them back to Austria. To this the Italian Prime Minister, Signor Salandra, formally replied that the rules of international law prohibited his acceptance of the offer. Commenting upon this, the Rome semi-official _Messaggero_ remarked that, “Whatever Signor Salandra’s answer may be, the Italian people are grateful to the Tsar, whose generous humanitarian proposal contains also the official, solemn, and precise affirmation that Russia recognises the right of Italy to the Italian provinces that are still under Austrian rule.” General Rennenkampf took with him into East Prussia, as a kind of mascot or symbol that should be prophetic of the signal success ultimately destined to crown the Muscovite arms, the identical flag carried by the celebrated Skobelev on his momentous campaign of 1877. A small thing in itself, this was well calculated to make a direct appeal to the impressionable Slav temperament, to the young men who had heard from their fathers of the wonderful “White General” who in the great days of Plevna and the Balkans was perhaps more responsible than any other single factor for the triumph of the Cross over the Crescent.