THE CHANGE OF FRONT IN POLAND AND THE BATTLE OF OPATOV
Dated:
OPATOV, POLAND,
_May 31, 1915_.
For the last three days I have been with a certain army of the Russians
that occupies the strip of Poland between the Pilitza river and the
Vistula on the south. I feel intense regret that the restrictions of
the censor proscribe the identification of military units or of their
definite location. These wonderful corps, divisions and battalions
should, in my view, have all the honour that is their due, but the
writer can only abide by the wishes of the authorities by whose
kindness and courtesy he has been able to visit these positions.
Leaving Warsaw in a motor car in the evening, and running until an
early hour in the morning, we found ourselves the next day at the
head-quarters of one of the really great army commanders of Russia.
With him and the members of his staff we spent the chief part of the
morning, when every opportunity was given us to study the situation
within his jurisdiction. To go to the Front, as I have often written
before, means a two to three days’ trip, and the inspection of a
single detail of the vast operations that have been conducted. At the
suggestion of the Commander we decided to visit a certain army corps
in the south, whose success in the operations attending the change of
front had been so extraordinary, that everyone at the staff was filled
with pride and eager to have its work appreciated. Before going on to
describe the work of this particular corps it is proper to mention a
little more particularly the work of this one army as a whole since the
beginning of the war.
This army stood before Lublin during the crisis in the early days of
the war, and by uniting with that of Plevie, and the two joining with
Russky to the east of them, there resulted the first great crash to the
Austrian arms in Galicia. Later, this same army came back north and was
engaged in the terrific fighting around Ivangorod, which resulted in
the defeat of the enemy and their expulsion from Poland last autumn.
In the advance after the taking back of Radom and Kielce, the army
came under the very walls of Cracow, and in all of its divisions and
brigades there was scarcely a battalion that did not distinguish
itself in that terrific fighting. When the Germans began their second
invasion of Poland last autumn, this army regretfully fell back to its
positions on the Nida river, and when the last storm broke in Galicia
and the retirement of the army of the Dunajec rendered a change of
the Russian-Polish line a strategic necessity, the army with all its
numerous corps was again called upon to fall back in order that the
Front as a whole might be a symmetrical one.
During this change of front we heard a great deal in Warsaw, from
people who delight in circulating false stories, of Russian disasters
in Southern Poland. I have been particularly interested, therefore,
in checking up this movement on the ground and getting at the actual
facts of the case. As a fact, the Russian retirement was made amid the
lamentations and grumbling of the whole army. The private soldiers, who
do not follow strategy very closely, complained bitterly that they, who
had never met defeat, and before whom the enemy had always fallen back
when they attacked, should be called upon to retreat when they were
sure, regiment by regiment, that they could beat twice their numbers of
the enemy. The Germans and Austrians advanced with great caution for
several days. Knowing, however, the location of the new Russian line,
they imagined that their adversaries would fall back on it in a few big
marches and await them there. Besides this, both Germans and Austrians
had been carefully fed with reports of the Galician movement to the
effect that the Russians were retiring in utter defeat, that even in
Poland they were panic-stricken and would probably put up but a feeble
fight even on their line.
I could not in the brief time which I had for this trip visit all
the corps involved in this movement, and at the suggestion of the
General of the army, visited only the--corps, whose operations
may be regarded as typical of the whole spirit in which this front
was changed. Regarding the movement as a whole it is sufficient to
say that in the two weeks following the change of line in Poland,
the corps comprising this one army made the enemy suffer losses, in
killed, wounded and prisoners, which the General estimated at nearly
30,000, of whom about 9,000 were prisoners. All of this was done at
a comparatively trifling loss to the Russians themselves. From which
very brief summary of the change of front it will be realized that
this particular army has neither lost its fighting spirit nor has its
_moral_ suffered from the retirement to another line.
[Illustration: In the trenches near Opatov.]
There are so many big movements in this war that it is utterly
impossible for one observer to describe more than a trifling fraction
of the achievements that are made here. Since the General Staff have
given me what appears to be a free range in the north-eastern armies, I
have had so many interesting opportunities that it is difficult to pick
any one in preference to another. What I am writing in this story is
merely the narrative of a single corps during this change of front, and
I think it a significant story, because I believe it typifies not only
the corps of this particular army, but practically all the corps now in
the field on this Front. General Ragosa, who commands this corps, and
who has entertained me for the best part of three days, has given me
every opportunity to study his whole movement and permitted one of his
officers to prepare sketches, illustrating his movement. The General
himself, like most men who deal with big affairs, is a very modest and
simple man. To talk with him one would not guess that the movement
which has resulted so successfully for his corps and so disastrously
for the enemy, was the product of a programme worked out in the quiet
of a remote head-quarters and carried successfully through under his
direction by means of the field wire stretched through the forest for
the 30 kilometres that separate his head-quarters from the fighting
line.
When I suggested to him that his fighting around Opatov made an
extremely interesting story, he only shrugged his shoulders and
replied, “But in this war it is only a small fight. What is the
operation of a single army, much less the work of one of its units?”
Yet one feels that the success of this war will be the sum of the work
of the many units, and as this battle resulted in the entire breaking
up of the symmetry of the Austro-German following movement, and is
one of the few actions during the recent months of this war which was
fought in the open without trenches, it is extremely interesting.
Indeed, in any other war it would have been called a good-sized action;
from first to last on both sides I suppose that more than 100,000 men
and perhaps 350 to 400 guns were engaged. Let me describe it.
General Ragosa’s corps was on the Nida river, and it was with great
regret that the troops left the trenches that they had been defending
all winter. Their new line was extremely strong, and after they had
started, it was assumed by the enemy that they could leisurely follow
the Russians, and again sit down before their positions.
[Illustration: Second-line trenches, Opatov.]
But they were not counting on this particular General when they made
their advance. Instead of going back to his line, he brought his
units to the line running from Lubenia to and through Opatov to
the south, where he halted and awaited the advancing enemy who came
on in four divisions. These were the third German Landwehr division
who were moving eastward and a little to the north of Lubenia. Next,
coming from the direction of Kielce was the German division of General
Bredow supported by the 84th Austrian regiment; this unit was moving
directly against the manufacturing town of Ostzowiec. Further to the
south came the crack Austrian division, the 25th, which was composed
of the 4th Deutschmeister regiment from Vienna and the 25th, 17th and
10th Jäger units, the division itself being commanded by the Archduke
Peter Ferdinand. The 25th division was moving on the Lagow road headed
for Opatov, while the 4th Austrian division (a Landwehr formation)
supported by the 41st Honved division (regiments 20, 31, 32 and one
other) was making for the same objective. It is probable that the enemy
units, approaching the command of Ragosa, outnumbered the Russians in
that particular portion of the theatre of operations by at least forty
per cent. Certainly they never expected that any action would be given
by the supposedly demoralized Russians short of their fortified line,
to which they were supposed by the enemy to be retiring in hot haste.
General Ragosa wishing to finish up the weakest portion first, as usual
picked the Austrians for his first surprise party. But this action he
anticipated by making a feint against the German corps, driving in
their advance guards by vigorous attacks and causing the whole movement
to halt and commence deploying for an engagement. This took place
on May 15. On the same day with all his available strength he swung
furiously, with Opatov as an axis from both north and south, catching
the 25th division on the road between Lagow and Opatov with a bayonet
charge delivered from the mountain over and around which his troops had
been marching all night. Simultaneously another portion of his command
swept up on the 4th division coming from Iwaniska to Opatov. In the
meantime a heavy force of Cossacks had ridden round the Austrian line
and actually hit their line of communications at the exact time that
the infantry fell on the main column with a bayonet charge of such
impetuosity and fury that the entire Austrian formation crumpled up.
At the same time the 4th division was meeting a similar fate further
south; the two were thrown together in a helpless mass and suffered
a loss of between three and four thousand in casualties and nearly
three thousand in prisoners, besides losing a large number of machine
guns and the bulk of their baggage. The balance, supported by the
41st Honved division, which had been hurried up, managed to wriggle
themselves out of their predicament by falling back on Wokacow, and the
whole retired to Lagow, beyond which the Russians were not permitted
to pursue them lest they should break the symmetry of their own entire
line. Immediately after this action against the Austrians, a large
portion of the same troops made a forced march back over the mountain
which had separated the Austrians from their German neighbours and fell
on the right of the German formation, while the frontal attacks, which
had formerly been feints, were now delivered in dead earnest.
The result was that Bredow’s formation was taken suddenly in front
and on its right flank, and on May 18 began to fall back until it
was supported by the 4th Landwehr division, which had been hurriedly
snatched out of the line to the north to prevent Bredow from suffering
a fate similar to that which overtook the Austrians to the south. After
falling back to Bodzentin where it was joined by the supports from
the north, the Germans pulled themselves together to make a stand.
But here, as in the south, general orders prevented the Russians from
moving further against their defeated foe lest in their enthusiasm
they might advance too far and leave a hole in their own line. Thus
Ragosa’s command after four days of constant action came to a stand and
their part in the movement ended.
But the trouble of the enemy was not over. Ragosa at once discovered
that the 4th Landwehr division that had been hurried up to support
retreating Bredow, had been taken from the front of his neighbouring
corps, and this information he promptly passed on to his friend
commanding the -- corps who gladly passed the word on to his own front.
The regiments in that quarter promptly punched a hole in the German
weakened line, and with vicious bayonet attacks killed and captured
a large number of Germans, also forcing back their line. Something
similar happened in the corps to the south of Ragosa’s corps who were
in a fever of excitement because of the big fighting on the San, which
was going on just to their left while Ragosa’s guns were thundering
just to the north. The result was that out of a kind of sympathetic
contagion, they fixed bayonets and rushed on the enemy in their front
with a fury equal to that which was going on in both corps north of
them. Thus it came about that three quarters of this particular army
became engaged in general action by the sheer initiative of Ragosa,
and maintained it entirely by the enthusiasm of the troops engaged.
These corps even in retreat could not be restrained from going back and
having a turn with the enemy.
[Illustration: A second-line trench near Opatov.]
The change of front in Poland resulted in losses in killed, wounded and
prisoners to the enemy, approximating in this army alone between 20,000
and 30,000, with a loss to the Russians probably less than a third of
that number, besides resulting in an increase of _moral_ to the latter,
which has fully offset any depression caused by their retirement.
In talking with their officers, and I talked with at least a score,
I heard everywhere the same complaint, namely that it was becoming
increasingly difficult to keep their soldiers in the trenches. So eager
is the whole army to be advancing, that only constant discipline and
watching prevent individual units from becoming excited and getting up
and attacking, thus precipitating a general action which the Russians
wish to avoid while the movement in Galicia is one of fluctuation and
uncertainty.
Little definite information was available on this Front as to what was
going on further south, but certainly I found not the slightest sign
of depression among either men or officers with whom I talked. As one
remarked, “Well, what of it? You do not understand our soldiers. They
can retreat every day for a month and come back as full of fight at
the end of that time as when they started. A few Russian ‘defeats,’ as
the Germans call them, will be a disaster for the Kaiser. Don’t worry.
We will come back all right and it cannot be too soon for the taste of
this army.”
WITH THE ARMY IN SOUTHERN POLAND