A brief description of the battle ground will enable the reader to follow more easily the course of the struggle. Imagine that length of the Carpathian chain which forms the boundary between Galicia and Hungary as a huge, elongated arch of, roughly, 300 miles. (The whole of the range stretches as a continuous rampart for a distance of 900 miles, completely shutting in Hungary from the northwest to the east and south, separating it from Moravia [Maehren], Galicia, the Bukowina, and Rumania.) Through the curve of this arch run a number of passes. Beginning as far west as is here necessary, the names of the chief passes eastward leading from Hungary are: into Galicia--Beskid, Tarnow, Tilicz, Dukla, Lupkow, Rostoki, Uzsok, Vereczke (or Tucholka), Beskid[*] (or Volocz), Wyszkow, Jablonitza (or Delatyn); into the Bukowina--Strol, Kirlibaba, Rodna; into Rumania--Borgo. In parts the range is 100 miles in width, and from under 2,000 to 8,000 feet high. The western and central Carpathians are much more accessible than the eastern, and therefore comprise the main and easiest routes across. The Hun and Tartar invasions flooded Europe centuries ago by this way, and the Delatyn is still called the "Magyar route." The passes vary in height from under a thousand to over four thousand feet. The Dukla and Uzsok passes were to be the main objective, as through them lay the straightest roads to Lemberg and Przemysl. The former is crossed by railway from Tokay to Przemysl, and the latter by rail and road from Ungvar to Sambor. A railroad also runs through the Vereczke from Munkacs to Lemberg, and another through Delatyn from Debreczen to Kolomea. So far as concerned means of communication, matters were nearly equal, but geographical advantage lay with the Russians, as the way from Galicia to Hungary is by far an easier one than vice versa. [Footnote *: There are two passes named Beskid.] * * * * * CHAPTER XXIV BATTLE OF THE PASSES Before proceeding with the opening of the second winter campaign in the Carpathians, the reader should remember that, as stated in the beginning of this narrative, a Russian army under General Radko Dmitrieff (a Bulgarian), held an advanced position on the Dunajec-Biala line, extending from the Vistula to Zmigrod, northwest of Dukla. This force was consequently beyond the zone of the Austro-German offensive, but, as events proved, it had not been overlooked, for it was here that the heaviest blow was finally to fall. It is also important to bear in mind that the Russian armies occupying Galicia and the northern slopes of the Carpathians were not conducting an isolated campaign on their own account; they formed an integral part of the far-flung battle line that reached from the shores of the Baltic down to the Rumanian frontier, a distance of nearly 800 miles. Dmitrieff's force represented a medial link of the chain--and the weakest.