About 24th July the forces in front of Warsaw began to fall back into the suburbs of the city. Meanwhile along the Narev a fierce holding battle was being fought to enable the troops in the northern part of the salient to get away. Five days later Mackensen cut the southern line between Lublin and Cholm, and the sides of the triangle were fast closing in. By this time all the stores and guns were safe, and the troops in the centre were moving through the city. Every day German aeroplanes dropped bombs in the streets, and soon, as the German shells burst among the houses, great fires began to flame up in the western suburbs. At three o'clock on the morning of Thursday, 5th August, three loud explosions shook the city. The Vistula bridges had been blown up. Three hours later German cavalry galloped in, and that evening Prince Leopold of Bavaria with his suite rode through the streets on the way to the palace. On the eastern horizon he saw the red glow which Napoleon had seen--the flames rising from crops and villages which the Russians had fired as they fell back before the invader. The Kaiser made no state entry into Warsaw. His exultation, however, appeared in the following telegram which he sent to his sister, the Queen of Greece: "My destructive sword has crushed the Russians. They will need six months to recover. In a short time I will announce new victories won by my brave soldiers, who have shown themselves invincible in battle against nearly the whole world. The war drama is now coming to a close." [Footnote 53: _Pan-dō´ra._ In ancient Greek story, a goddess who possessed a box containing every kind of ill; this was opened, and the ills escaped and spread all over the earth, Hope alone being left at the bottom of the box.] [Footnote 54: For these railway lines, and other places mentioned in this chapter, see map, p. 311.] [Footnote 55: Or Kurland, Baltic province of Russia between the Gulf of Riga on the north and the province of Kovno on the south. It has many small, scattered lakes, and almost one-third of the surface is covered with forest.] CHAPTER XXXIX. STORIES OF THE GREAT RETREAT. A correspondent with the Russian armies tells us that no mind can picture the awful effect of the German bombardment which drove the Russians out of their positions on the Donajetz. Von Mackensen, as you know, had 1,500 guns, and many of them were monster howitzers. It is said that a thousand wagon-loads of shell were used in a single day--that is, twice as many as would have sufficed, under ordinary conditions, for the six months' siege of a great and well-provisioned fortress. Ten shells, each weighing 800 lbs., were hurled on every yard of the Russian front. An officer calculated that the part of the line which he was holding received no less than 10,000 shells in the course of a few hours. The wreckage was awful, and those who survived were dazed and stupefied, and unable to resist.