On 3rd October von Hindenburg began a new series of thrusts against the line of the river, but made very little progress, and when the Russian counter-attacks began the German losses were very great. Before long 50,000 of the enemy had fallen, and their goal was as far off as ever. Von Hindenburg now saw that he could not succeed against Dvinsk, and began a determined effort to capture Riga. He managed to win a marshy island in one of the arms of the river; but here he was stayed, and soon his troops were blown off the island. He was now fighting an army that was as strong as his own and could return shell for shell and shot for shot. By the end of October all his efforts against Dvinsk and Riga had come to nothing, and he was forced to dig in for the winter in a most inhospitable land. The snows were beginning to fall, bitter north winds were sweeping over the land, and no great movement was possible until the spring.
So the tragic year came to an end. The Russians had passed through their fiery ordeal, and had emerged with a new courage and a new hope. On the map the Germans looked like victors, but actually they had failed. The Russian armies were intact; the Germans could not push on in the wilderness, and at the close of the year they lay waiting the uncertain future amidst dismal swamps and meres.
[Footnote 59: In 1707, when Charles XII. of Sweden invaded Russia and bade fair to overrun the country, Peter the Great put himself at the head of his army, and on July 5, 1709, inflicted a great defeat on the Swedes and drove them out of the country.]
[Footnote 60: In 1812, when Napoleon invaded Russia and marched to Moscow (see Vol. I., p. 64), Alexander I. placed himself at the head of the army, and by wasting the country forced Napoleon to retreat.]
Three days after the Battle of Festubert[61] came to an end, another European nation flung itself into the welter of strife. Italy declared war on Austria. The story of why she did so, and how she fared during the year 1915, will be told in our next volume. We may safely postpone an account of the Italian campaign, for, like our great adventure in Gallipoli, it was a side-show. Nevertheless it employed no less than twelve Austrian army corps, and thus largely reduced the forces which the enemy could employ in France and Flanders and the Eastern theatre of war.