United States or Philippines ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The museums were all closed and some of their treasures were buried in the ground. Already the Russians, during their raid on the Carpathian Mountains, had possessed themselves of rare art works, some of the best canvases cut from the frames and carried off by the officials.
The level Burzenland looked almost like a green lake; beyond it the chain of the Carpathian takes a bend, forming the frontier of Roumania. The highest point seen from thence is the Schülerberg, upwards of 8000 feet, and a little farther off the Königstein, and the Butschrtsch, the latter reaching 9526 feet. Hardly less picturesque is the view from the Castle Hill.
If these two Russian drives to Lemberg and to Czernowitz would prove successful the whole southeastern Austro-Hungarian army would find itself squeezed between two Russian armies, and its only escape would be into the difficult Carpathian Mountain passes, where the Russians, this time well equipped and greatly superior in numbers, could be expected to be more successful than in their first Carpathian campaign.
O Goddess, who presidest over beautiful Antium; thou, that art ready to exalt mortal man from the most abject state, or to convert superb triumphs into funerals! Thee the poor countryman solicits with his anxious vows; whosoever plows the Carpathian Sea with the Bithynian vessel, importunes thee as mistress of the ocean.
Just as on the other parts of the eastern front the Carpathian sector showed comparatively little activity during the month of November, 1916. Only at one point, in the region south of Dorna Vatra, did there occur an action of somewhat greater importance. The Russians there had gradually gained some ground by a series of small engagements.
Near Delatyn, in the Carpathian Mountains, there was increased activity. Russian advance guards entered Delatyn, but were driven back to the southern outskirts. Another Russian attack to the southwest of the town broke down under the Austrian fire. There also was a renewal of the fighting in the region southwest of Lutsk, west of Torchin.
Galicia was in Russian hands, and Russian man-power was thought to be inexhaustible. The menace on both the Carpathian and the Prussian flanks could only be properly met by destroying the central position in Poland, and persistence in the attacks on Warsaw was essential to German strategy in the East.
His brother, Dengisich, with an army of Huns, still formidable in their flight and ruin, maintained his ground above fifteen years on the banks of the Danube. The palace of Attila, with the old country of Dacia, from the Carpathian hills to the Euxine, became the seat of a new power, which was erected by Ardaric, king of the Gepidæ.
Most serious of all, Dmitrieff had neglected to construct second and third lines to which he could retire in an emergency. Of the rivers that lay behind him the Wisloka, the Wistok, and the San the first would be useful to cover Brussilov's position at the western passes, but beyond that he could not retreat without imperiling the whole Carpathian right flank.
Shut out from the warm southern winds by the Carpathian mountains, and exposed to the northern blasts that sweep down from the broad steppes of Russia, the long and narrow stretch of Galician territory is probably the most inhospitable region in the western world Flat and featureless; with swampy and ague-stricken plains, unbroken by trees and hedges; with roads like canals, dissecting dreary wastes, black in the south, where the loam lies, light in the north where salt is found; with rivers without banks fraying into pools and ponds and marshes; with soppy fields in formal stripes like the patches of a patchwork quilt; with villages of log-houses, each having its cemetery a little apart, and its wooden crucifix like a gibbet at a space beyond such is a great part of Galicia, the Polish province of Austria.
Word Of The Day