Nelson's history of the war. Vol. XI., The struggle for the Dvina, and the great invasion of Serbia

STRUGGLE FOR DVINSK AND RIGA. 8&9

wings and a very weak centre. Ivanov must be held in the south, and against him were seven German corps and the bulk of the Austrian army. The centre had been depleted by the dispatch of von Mackensen to the Balkans and by the sending of the Guards Reserve Corps some weeks earlier to the West—a reinforcement speedily followed by the dispatch of other divisions as the Allied offensive developed. On the left wing, under von Hindenburg’s own eye, were thirteen corps, besides von Lauenstein’s cavalry. To these large reserves were brought from Germany, mainly from the latest class of the Landsturm, so that the total force arrayed against the Dvina was nearly double that with which von Below had operated in August and September. To understand what followed we must grasp the nature of the Russian plan of defence. Riga and Dvinsk as fortresses did not rank high. At the best their strength was far below that of Grodno, or Kovno, or Novo Georgievsk, or Ivangorod, which had crumbled before the German siege trains. The defences of the Dvina line lay in nature, not in art. The first of the Russian advantages was that their right flank rested on the sea. This point demands some notice, for it was too little appreciated at the time by Western observers. The Russian Baltic Fleet, assisted by British submarines, was powerful and brilliantly handled. The German attempt to land in the Gulf of Riga in August had failed disastrously, the German transports coming to Libau and Windau had been constantly threatened by submarines and occasionally destroyed, and it is fair to say that in October the sea between Windau