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

102 HISTORY OF THE WAR.

To appreciate the situation at the end of October we must remember that Russia was holding enemy forces scarcely less than those in the field a month before. Divisions had indeed been sent to France and Serbia, but the loss had been made good by Landsturm formations. If the centre had been weakened, the wings had been strengthened. Von Linsingen, for example, who had temporarily suc- * ceeded von Mackensen in command of the southern | group, had at least five more divisions under him, | though he had lost Puhallo’s army. His own army had been more than doubled, and those of BoehmErmolli, von Bothmer, and von Pflanzer had been substantially increased. In the same way the northern group operating against the Dvina had grown to the extent of some nine divisions. The Germans, though they had not won the lateral railway they sought, had yet far better communications behind their line than Alexeiev, and could reinforce a section for resistance or attack at least twice as quickly as their opponents. But their mobility was of no avail against so stubborn an army, and in a country where the approach of winter gave the odds to the defence. Von Below might boast that his men were eating bread baked the day before in Berlin, and that fifty miles of asphalted road could be laid in two days. The claim was true for the early stages of the invasion, but it broke down in the later. No engineering talent, no industry, could lay railways and construct roads in a sponge, and the first rains and snows blocked the elaborate transport system. The Russian command had judged rightly. Science might bring the invader far inside their borders, but in the end science must fail, as Napoleon had