afford, and the Grand-duke had to feed his troops during the pursuit by bringing up everything he needed from Warsaw and the Middle Vistula region. At the time the impression given by this wholesale destruction of the means of communication in Western Poland was that Von Hindenburg and the German Staff had definitely abandoned all hope of renewing the invasion. It was argued that, if they intended to make another attempt to seize Warsaw, they might indeed have done such partial damage to the railways as would delay the Russian pursuit, but they would not have thus thoroughly destroyed them at the cost of an enormous expenditure of time and labour. If they meant to invade the country again in any force the railways would be a necessity to them. The destruction of the lines seemed therefore to be a counsel of despair, and it was expected that the next phase of the campaign would be the defence by the Germans of their fortified frontier-line. So persuaded was the Russian Headquarter Staff that the German offensive had definitely come to an end, that preparations were made in the first days of November for the attack on the frontier fortresses of Germany. The programme for the next phase of the campaign was that on the left the advance in Galicia was to be pressed up to Cracow, and, once that place was invested, there was to be a march from the left and left centre into Silesia. The invasion of that province, one of the great industrial regions of Germany, would be a heavy blow to the Kaiser, and at the same time a menace to his Austrian Ally, for through Silesia lies the easiest way from Russian Poland to Vienna itself. Between the western end of the Carpathians and the mass of hills that form the mountain-lands of Northern Moravia and Bohemia there is a stretch of lower ground forming a wide hollow running south-westward from the Upper Oder region towards Vienna. This valley has often in the past seen the march of armies towards the Austrian capital. Thus, for instance, it was by this line that the Russian armies, then allied with Austria, marched south-westward in 1805. The object of the march was to occupy Vienna, then held by Napoleon, and the adventure ended unsuccessfully at Austerlitz. On the right the Russian armies were to continue the new invasion of East Prussia, and in the centre there was to be a direct menace to Berlin by an attempt to break through the frontier fortress-line. The railways were being partly repaired, and a siege-train was about to be moved up from Warsaw against Thorn, the point selected for the first attack, because the possession of it would give the Russians command of the Lower Vistula.