Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/179

 site sides of a valley—the Austrian lines were protected by four continuous and parallel barbed-wire entanglements, ground-level entanglements and knife-rests predominating.

The contrast was striking, not only between the Austrian and Russian positions which were opposite, but also between the present lines held by the enemy and the former ones which have been successively abandoned, and which one meets, in some cases almost intact, between the present front and the Austro-Russian frontier. The new enemy front was infinitely stronger and better organized than any of their former fronts.

How can we explain the relative weakness of the Russian positions? Probably we must seek the chief motive in the industrial inferiority and poor means of transport. That is what determines at least the scarcity of concrete and barbed wire in the Russian trenches. But this explanation is not sufficient, for even with the available material—the stones on the ground and the wood of the forests that they had at hand—the Russians might have done