Radom I found was outside the army group which I had a special permit to visit, and it was therefore necessary to call on the General commanding the army before I could with propriety pay a visit to any of the corps commanders in this theatre of war. It was necessary, therefore, to motor to a certain point east of the Vistula to pay our respects to this gentleman. Well on in the afternoon we motored into the beautiful grounds of a Polish villa and spent several hours with one of the men who, with a number of corps, was able to contribute an important part to the defeat of the Austrians on the Grodek line in the fall of last year. Here we were cordially received both by the General and by his staff, two of whom at once ordered refreshments for us and remained with us until we started back for Warsaw late in the day. From this point we were in touch with the sources of information flowing in from both Southern Poland and the great battlefield in Galicia. All the Russian corps in Poland, with the exception of one that lay next the Vistula, had been inactive during the past weeks, and after shifting their position to the new line, made necessary by the retirement of the Galician army, had been ordered to remain strictly on the defensive. The corps lying next the Vistula, however, was only across the river from the great action going on south of them, and after days of listening to the roar of their brothers’ cannon to the south, they were in anything but a placid or quiet mood. The whole line, in fact, was figuratively being held on the leash, but this last corps had been so infected by the contagion of the action to the south that it proved very difficult to keep the units in their trenches. At the first feeler of the German advance, which came up on their side of the Vistula, they at once jumped at the conclusion that the best defensive was a strong attack, and with this idea in mind they considered, no doubt, that they were strictly in accord with their defensive orders when they attacked the Germans. [Illustration: The Vistula (winter). Soldiers are seen in the picture destroying the broken ice. This is a great danger to the bridges when carried away by the current.]