We won the race to the sea, but only by a short neck. How the Germans poured across Belgium, and how the remnants of the Belgian army, aided by a small British force, kept them at bay until the situation was saved, will be told in our next volume. The transfer of the British army from the Aisne to the Franco-Belgian border marks the close of the third great chapter of the war. Thenceforward, for many months, war was to be waged along a line of trenches extending from the wind-whipped dunes of the narrow seas to within sight of Alpine snows, a distance of more than 450 miles.
[Illustration: A Meeting of the Generals.
(_Drawn by Paul Thiriat_. _By permission of The Sphere._)
The French artist who painted this picture writes:--"At night, somewhere near the front, inside an abandoned farmhouse in the midst of fields, two men are together--those on whom we set all our hopes, who give all their knowledge, their lives, for the freedom of the world. You never know where they are, and, if you do see them, still you must not know where you met them. They are nowhere and yet everywhere. Very often only a single sentry betrays their temporary shelter. The motor cars wait, panting, to carry them as quick as possible to wherever their presence is needed."]
In Chapter IX. of this volume you learned something of the first clash of arms in Eastern Europe. I told you how two Russian armies beat a German army in East Prussia, and overran the greater part of the province. This success, you will remember, was short-lived. Von Hindenburg destroyed Samsonov's army at Tannenberg, and Rennenkampf's forces barely managed to escape. In Galicia, however, the Russians carried everything before them. They smote the Austrians hard, and for a time put them out of action. There were people in this country who believed that in a few weeks the Russian right would be across the Vistula, marching triumphantly towards Berlin; while the Russians in possession of Cracow would be advancing into Silesia and Hungary. Let us see what really happened.
When I broke off my story von Hindenburg was following up Rennenkampf, who was rapidly falling back from Königsberg towards the Russian frontier. On 7th September 1914 the German general made a great advance towards the Niemen. His right moved along the railway from Gumbinnen towards Kovno, his centre pushed forward by way of Suwalki,[154] while his right, which had detached troops to besiege the fortress of Ossowietz,[155] on the Bobr, swept towards Grodno. The country through which he was now moving is one tangle of bog and lake; it is traversed by only three railway lines, but the roads are few. The troops moving east from Suwalki had to cross a causeway which threads the marshes to the east and south-east of that town. An army traversing such a country is at a great disadvantage. Men and guns and transport have to move along narrow roads, with bogs and lakes on their flanks. It is almost as difficult to cross marsh roads as to cross the passes of a great mountain chain. The Russians had already learnt this by their bitter experiences in East Prussia.