As the roads and railways in this region were good, he hoped to make a rapid advance, and fall on Warsaw before the Russians could bring up reinforcements along the broken railways and ruined roads farther south. Even if his centre were heavily attacked he had the means of retiring rapidly. It was a very ingenious plan which he was now about to carry out. General von Mackensen was to command the armies in the field. The Russians, you will observe, were very badly placed to meet the sudden thrust that was now about to begin. They were strung out upon a huge curve of a thousand miles in length, and their communications were bad. As the railways had been destroyed, reinforcements from the south would take a long time to come up, and before they could appear von Mackensen hoped to be in Warsaw. The Army A which he had to meet was only about 200,000 strong. Of course it might be strengthened by new forces brought up from behind Warsaw, but in this case, too, there would be much delay. Everything promised a speedy victory for the Germans. In the next chapter we will see how they fared. In this chapter we will follow the fortunes of the two armies that were advancing on Cracow. I have already told you that the cavalry of Army D under General Dmitrieff, a Bulgarian, who fought bravely in the Balkan War and afterwards offered his sword to Russia, was twenty miles north of Cracow on 12th November. At that time the main body was about sixty miles behind. For three weeks it pushed on slowly but steadily, and meanwhile Brussilov had recaptured Jaroslav, had again besieged Przemysl, and, leaving a force to mask that fortress, was pushing into the passes of the Carpathians, which, as you know, form a great natural barrier between Galicia and the Hungarian plain. As the Carpathians figure largely in this and in future fighting, I will give you a brief description of them now. * * * * * [Illustration: The Tatra Range of the Carpathians. _Photo, Exclusive News Agency._]