Sedan Day and a Month of War 143 Eastward on the Vistula Russian advance had begun unexpectedly promptly and East Prussia seemed temporarily lost, the road to Berlin was defended by second and third line troops, the first were on the Somme and the Meuse. Panic-stricken Germans fleeing from the Cossacks were as familiar at the moment in East Prussia as French refugees leaving their homes before the Uhlan advance in Picardy, Artois and Flanders. Looking seaward, the German prospect was even more unattractive. *' Our future is on the sea," the Emperor had said years before, and now, while his great battle fleet lay helpless in its war harbor, English cruisers the world over were sweeping up his commerce and merchant marine, Japan was filching his Chinese colony, England had taken Ger- man Samoa and the patches of German land in Af- rica were already doomed. At the close of a month of war the German Em- peror stood where Napoleon had stood before Austerlitz — with a splendid army, a loyal nation, a shining record of military triumph. But for the Kaiser Austerlitz had not yet come. France was not yet crushed. Sedan Day saw French defeat, but not disaster. She was losing the " first round." But not in Paris, London nor St. Petersburg was there any hint of avoiding a second. Even Servia, the occasion of the tragedy, was stepping over into Bosnia, repeating at the Jedar the victory of the Bregalinitza, while French and English cannons were