"Night fighting," says a correspondent, "is one of the splendid spectacles of war. Flashing batteries, wavering lines of musketry and machine-gun fire, make a picture painted in silver and gold on a background of black. The moon shines behind the gray clouds, shedding a soft radiance just strong enough to shape the shadows. On the western horizon flash after flash springs out of the darkness; these are the distant German guns. Nearer to us the Russian batteries are firing, each piece cutting a red flash of flame into the darkness before its muzzle. Suddenly a blazing rocket shoots up into the heavens and bursts into a shower of silver stars. As they fall slowly, the country beneath is lighted in high relief. A long arm of searchlight shoots across the heavens. A line of sparks reveals a battalion of the advancing enemy."] Such was the Grand Duke's plan. He knew full well all that it involved. Przemysl and Lemberg, at whose capture joy bells had rung throughout all Russia, would have to be left behind. The great city of Warsaw, which had thrice defied von Hindenburg, must be abandoned. The line of the Vistula must be allowed to fall into German hands, and probably the German flag would wave above the great Polish fortresses; but if the armies could be saved, all might yet be well. In our first volume (page 64) I told you how Napoleon, the greatest war lord that Europe has ever known, marched a great army into Russia in the year 1812, and by so doing rang his death knell. The Russians were now about to repeat the tactics of 1812, and observers in the West prophesied that the Kaiser would be led into the same trap and suffer the same fate. But we must remember that the conditions had changed in many respects since Napoleon's day. He failed chiefly because he could not obtain sufficient supplies. The country through which he advanced had been swept clear of everything but wood and water, and all the food and munitions that his armies needed had to be sent forward by horse-drawn wagons along tracks which frequently ended in morasses. When these wagons failed to reach the troops, the men starved. Nowadays every army is accompanied by engineers who can build roads and light railways very quickly, and so keep the advancing army in touch with its bases. For example, during the campaign which I am about to describe, a German general boasted that his men, who then lay within a hundred miles of Riga, were eating bread baked in Berlin the day before. He also said that his engineers could construct fifty miles of asphalted road in two days. Motor transport has largely superseded the horse, and long distances, given fair roads, can be covered very quickly. Thus you see that in our time Napoleon's great difficulty need not be fatal.