from Petrograd, a notable feature of the German tactics in the battles on
the Vistula, particularly in the fighting that has been taking place
between Lowicz and the river. By day, the Germans, we are told, were
persistently aggressive, continuously launching attacks against various
points of the Russian lines, while the Russians remained on the defensive.
With the coming of darkness, however, regularly, night after night, the
Germans redoubled their efforts everywhere, taking advantage of the
obscurity to fling forward dense swarms and columns of men in massed
formation, to storm the entrenched Russian position, apparently at any
cost. They failed every time, it would appear, beaten back after literally
a massacre. The Russian tactics, it is interesting to recall, were




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THE ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, DEC. 30, 1914--[Part 21]--37


[Illustration: RUSSIAN INFANTRY SMASHING A GERMAN NIGHT-ATTACK IN MASSED
COLUMNS, IN A BATTLE ON THE VISTULA.]

exactly the same as those with which, as our own officers and men have
described in letters home, Sir John French's battalions in every case so
effectively shattered the German efforts at breaking through the British
during the retreat after Mons. The Russians, it is stated, invariably
allowed the Germans to come in to well within point-blank range, remaining
silent, holding their fire and not showing a light meanwhile. Then, as the
enemy got within point-blank range, searchlights were suddenly switched on
and a ceaseless fusillade of Maxim and rifle-fire from the Russians