DVORAK 



2744 



DWARF 



ten days of very heavy fighting 

 completely defeated the Germans. 

 Towards the close of Nov. the 

 Russians recaptured part of Illukst, 

 and Dvinsk was perfectly safe. 



The second battle for Dvinsk 

 lasted throughout the first half of 

 1916. The result of the Germans' 

 campaign against the Russians in 

 1915 was an important gain of ter- 

 ritory in Poland, but their ultimate 

 object the destruction of the 

 Russian armies was as far off as 

 ever. To capture Dvinsk became a 

 pressing need if headway was to be 

 made in that direction. The 1915 

 campaign left the line on the 

 Russian front practically one, run- 

 ning due N. and S. from Dvinsk 

 to the point where the frontiers of 

 Rumania, Galicia, and Bessarabia 

 meet, on the rivers Dniester and 

 Pruth. N. of Dvinsk the line fol- 

 lowed the river Dvina N.W. to the 

 Baltic near Riga. N. of the Pripet 

 marshes, the northern Russian 

 army was commanded by Kuro- 

 patkin, the centre group of armies 

 by Evert, and the southern by 

 Brusiloff. The German north- 

 ern armies were commanded by 

 Hindenburg. 



Voii Below 's Army Order 



The Germans opened the second 

 battle for Dvinsk on Jan. 19. They 

 selected the district of Tennenfeld 

 for their opening artillery attack, 

 which was later followed by two 

 infantry attacks easily repulsed by 

 the Russians. On Feb. 13, the 

 Dvinsk sector was again the scene 

 of great activity, the enemy artillery 

 fire being most intense near Illukst. 

 They also attempted to surround 

 Garbounovka, 9 m. N.W. of Dvinsk, 

 which the Russians had just taken 

 from them, but this attack was 

 defeated by the Russians' cross- 

 fire. Soon after this Von Below 

 issued his notorious Army Order, 

 summarising the situation and fore- 

 casting his operations. 



On Feb. 28, the Russians, near 

 Garbounovka and N. of the Ponie- 

 vicz rly., succeeded in driving 

 back the Germans and making a 

 small advance. The Germans also 

 assumed the offensive, and be- 

 tween Lakes Ilsen and Medum- 

 skoi, W. of Dvinsk, and S. of the 

 latter, made massed attacks. A 

 notable tactical phase of the battle 

 was the rupture by the Russians of 

 the German line at Jacobstadt, on 

 the Dvina, between Riga and 

 Dvinsk, on March 23. As a reply 

 to this threat the Germans made 

 aggressive attempts in the Dvinsk 

 theatre, but without effecting any 

 result. Two days later the Russians 

 again attacked. Both sides were 

 now making desperate efforts, as 

 the course of events was largely 

 determined by the weather con- 



ditions and the approach of the 

 spring floods. This factor deter- 

 mined the Russian attack of March 

 25, when a slight advance was made 

 on the left bank of the Dvina at 

 Dvinsk. April was taken up with 

 fierce but indecisive fighting. 



On June 26 Hindenburg made 

 another costly and fruitless attack 

 on the Dvinsk positions. Brusil- 

 off's Galician offensive had by this 

 time proved highly successful, and 

 the energies of both sides were con- 

 fined to merely defensive opera- 

 tions. The Dvinsk battle flared 

 up at the beginning of Oct., when 

 a heavy German attack by ar- 

 tillery was repulsed. A Russian 

 gas attack on the German trenches 

 towards the end of Nov. rounded 

 off the second battle for Dvinsk. 

 The fierce fighting of 1915-16 left 

 the town in Russian possession, 

 though there were signs that the 

 break-up of the Russian armies 

 was rapidly approaching. What 

 the German armies could not 

 accomplish, German propaganda 

 readily effected. 



Dvorak, ANTONIN (1841-1904). 

 Bohemian composer. Born at 

 Miihlhausen, Sept. 8, 1841, the son 

 of an i n n- 

 keeper, he ob- 

 taine d his 

 musical train- _ 

 ing at Prague, i 

 In 1862 he 

 joined the or- m 

 chestra of the 

 National The- 

 atre, and began 

 to devote him- Antonin Dvorak, 

 self to com- Bohemian composer 

 position. Through the influence 

 of Brahms, he was invited to write 

 a set of Slavonic dances, which 

 made him famous. From 1892-95 

 he was principal of the National 

 Conservatoire of Music at New 

 York, but returned to Bohemia, 

 where he died, May 1, 1904. His 

 works include a Stabat Mater, a 

 cantata, The Spectre's Bride, 

 several brilliant symphonies and 

 overtures, and fine examples of 

 chamber music. He was essentially 

 a national composer, as his strongly 

 marked rhymes and striking har- 

 monies attest. Pron. Dvorzhak. 

 See Studies in Modern Music, W. 

 H. Hadow, series ii, 1895. 



Dvur Kralove (KONIGINHOF). 

 Town and district of Czecho-Slo- 

 vakia, in Bohemia. The town is an 

 important textile centre, and is 105 

 m. by rly. E. of Prague. The Aus- 

 trians defeated the Prussians here 

 June 29, 1866. In the neighbour- 

 hood the Elbe valley is very fertile. 

 Most of the inhabitants are Roman 

 Catholics, four-fifths are Czechs, 

 the rest Germans. Pop., town, 

 11,000 ; district, 30,000. 



Dwarf. Samson, a South American 



dwarf, standing on the table while 



his manager explains a contract 



Dwarf. Abnormally short hu- 

 man being. The Asiatic negrito 

 and African negrillo races, with a 

 maximum stature of 4 ft. 11 in., are 

 usually called pygmies. The con- 

 ventional maximum of spectacular 

 dwarfism in the white and yellow 

 races is 4 ft. Notable court dwarfs 

 were Queen Mary I's John Jervis, 

 24 ins., and Queen Henrietta 

 Maria's Jeffery Hudson, 18 ins. at 

 30, and 45 ins. at death. Examples 

 exhibited in London during the 

 1 9th century included the Polish 

 count Boruwlaski, 39 ins. ; the 

 American, Charles Stratton (Gen- 

 eral Tom Thumb), 31 ins., who mar- 

 ried Lavinia Warren, 32 ins. ; the 

 Fairy Queen, 16 ins. ; the Mexican 

 Midget, Lucia Zarate, and the 

 French princesse Topaze, each 

 20 ins. in height. 



Dwarf races are primitive peo- 

 ples whose average adult male 

 stature is below 4 ft. 11 ins. There 

 are two main groups : Asiatic negri- 

 tos, comprising Aeta, Andamanese, 

 Semang, Tapiro, and others ; Af- 

 rican negrillos, including Akka, 

 Batwa, Bambute, and allied tribes. 



Some writers hold that this 

 stock, with dwarf stature as its 

 normal characteristic in all ages, 

 was the parent stock of all man- 

 kind. This view is unsupported by 

 early skeletal remains, which show 

 diminutive size in only a few scat- 

 tered examples in palaeolithic 

 Europe, besides some neolithic sta 

 tions near Schaffhausen and else- 

 where. Others consider these infan- 

 tile peoples as dwarfed by their ad- 

 verse environment. This in its turn 

 fails to account for the constancy 

 of the pygmy type, which has not 

 varied since early dynastic Egypt. 

 Even when settled husbandry 

 introduces improved conditions, 

 stature increases only after racial 

 admixture. 



