Forty-eight hours decided the issue.  It was, perhaps, Russky’s continual extended threat to envelop the left of the Austrian position and to come upon Auffenberg’s communications which was the chief factor in the result; but that result was, after the junction of the two Russian armies, no longer really in doubt.  The first heavy assault upon the trenches had taken place upon the Wednesday morning at dawn; before nightfall of Thursday the two extremes of the Austrian line were bent back into such a horseshoe that any further delay would have involved complete disaster.  It is true that the central trenches in front—­that is, to the east of the great town—­still held secure, and had not, indeed, been severely tried.  But it remains true that von Auffenberg had committed the serious error of risking defeat in front of such a city.  And here some digression upon the nature of this operation may be of service to the reader, because it is one which reoccurs more than once in the first phases of the war, and must, in the nature of things, occur over and over again before the end of it.

Examples of it already appeared in the first six months of the war, in the case of Lille and in the case of Lodz; and it is a necessarily recurrent case in all modern warfare.

A great modern town, particularly if it has valuable industries, is a lure as powerful over the modern commander as was a capital or the seat of any government or even a fortress for those of earlier times.  To abandon such a centre is to let fall into the enemy’s hands opportunities for provisionment and machinery for his further supply; it is to allow great numbers of one’s nationals to pass as hostages into his power; it is nearly always to give up to him the junction of several great railways; it is to permit him to levy heavy indemnities, and even, if he is in such a temper, to destroy in great quantities the accumulated wealth of the past.

On account of all this, it requires a single eye to the larger issues of war, and a sort of fanaticism for pure strategy in a commander before he will consent to fall behind a position of such political and material value, and to let it fall to his opponent.

But, on the other hand, such a position is as bad in strategical value as it is good in material and political value.

If you suffer defeat in front of a great modern town, and have to retreat through it under the blows of the victorious enemy, you are in the worst possible position for conducting that retreat.  The streets of the town (but few of which will run parallel to your course and can, therefore, serve as avenues of escape for your army) are so many defiles in which your columns will get hopelessly congested.  The operation may be compared to the pouring of too much liquid into a funnel which has too small an orifice.  Masses of your transport will remain clogged outside the place; you run the risk of a partial and perhaps of a complete disaster as the enemy presses on.