In every place
they were beaten back with heavy losses. The estimates from various
sources, some official, state that their losses for the single night's
abortive fighting, giving them nowhere an advance of a single yard of
territory, were assuredly not fewer than 30,000 dead on the ground and
three times as many wounded or dead within their own lines.
I am cured of prophecy, but through the fog of imminent events certain
happenings are dimly indicated. Roughly speaking, the next fortnight is
Germany's final opportunity. During that time they may pour out lives
with the same hope as hitherto of making an impression on the steadfast
line of the Bzura and Rawka. Then that last glamour of hope of success
in Poland vanishes.
In the highest opinions the Austrian Army is finished, and it remains
only to clear up the mess they have made and then again the great
advance on poor, dim, beautiful Cracow will proceed. Przemysl is at its
last gasp, and then the Russian armies will be in Silesia, the source
and headquarters of Prussia's industrial wealth, the one province she
cannot afford to see invaded. Within a time, which I hear estimated
between three and six weeks, these wind-swept, icy plains of Poland must
see a stage in the war completed.
Germans have been captured lately in whose possession was found the last
proclamation of the Kaiser that "if compelled to retire from Poland,
leave standing neither house nor town; leave only the bare earth
underfoot.
Pages:
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268