The Fall of Jaroslav 215 River, flowing north like the San to the Vistula from the Carpathians, barred the Russian road, while the Vistula protected the flank. The Vistula here, too, is much nearer to the Carpathians and the Austrians would have a far shorter line to defend. But Tar- now was not comparable with Przemysl or even Jaroslav as a fortified place. Falling back from Jaroslav the Austrians had al- ways to guard against the possibility of being en- veloped by Cossack cavalry and cut off from Tar- now. If the retreat were a rout they might be captured or destroyed along the miry roads they were following. In any event, an army so shaken as to be unable to defend the San barrier could hardly reach Tarnow in an improved state after a long, difficult, harassing retreat. In the larger way the Austrian disaster at Jaro- slav was even more impressive than at Lemberg. It proved that a month after the earlier defeat the Austrian army had not recovered, had not pulled itself together sufficiently to defend a position ten times as strong naturally as that which the German Army was able to hold six days after it had been defeated and compelled to withdraw from the Marne to the Aisne. By October i, then, there was plain prospect that the Austrian field army in its present retreat might be wholly disorganized, practically destroyed as a fighting force, before it came home at Tarnow or Cracow. Outnumbered, demoralized by succes-