We shall now proceed to follow the fortunes of the Russo-Austrian
campaign immediately after the capture of Lemberg in the early days of
September. Such a substantial success naturally put the Russians in
good heart. Rewards were judiciously distributed on the recommendation
of the Grand-duke Nicholas, Generals Russky and Brussiloff each
receiving that most coveted of decorations, the Cross of St. George.
It was likewise officially notified that between August 17 and
September 3, a period of rather more than a fortnight, the Tsar’s
forces operating against the Austrian host of General von Auffenburg
had advanced no less a distance than 220 versts, or roughly 150 miles.
During the same period there had been practically no lull in the
fighting, which for sheer sustained fury would appear to have been
little less sanguinary than that between the German and Franco-British
armies in the West.
It was about this time that the _Daily Telegraph_, in an editorial
setting forth the general situation of affairs after some five weeks
of war, called attention to the influence being slowly but none the
less surely exercised by the Russian field-armies. After pointing out
that the crisis of a great war had worked wonders in the way of a more
perfect understanding between the Russian and British peoples, the
writer went on to say:
“The extraordinary prowess of the Russian Army has already begun
to draw the ordinary Briton out of his absorption in the military
situation in France, and to keep him in mind of the fact that the arena
of this war is not any one country, but the Continent of Europe. He
realises more fully than before that every blow struck at the Central
European Powers on their eastern frontier is, in the long run, as
telling as any reverse inflicted upon them in the western theatre of
war. But he ought to realise it more fully yet. The position is that
the long series of Russian successes, culminating in the Austrian
overthrow at Lemberg and Halicz, has cast the whole Austro-German
war-plan into confusion, which may at this moment be affecting the
German operations in France in the most serious degree. The main
Austrian Army in Southern Poland is now being attacked with unsparing
energy. Its situation is rendered desperate by the destruction of the
Second Army at Lemberg, which lays open its right wing to assault by
the victorious troops of General Russky. Should the great battle now
raging end in another such defeat as has already been inflicted there
will be nothing remaining in the field that can stay the Russian march
to Berlin. The rapidity of the Russian mobilisation and of the movement
of the Russian forces to the attack is one of the several absolutely
vital things with which Germany did not reckon. The brilliancy of
their performance in the field has surprised the enemy no less. Deeply
involved as Germany is in the French campaign, dares she provide the
heavy and immediate reinforcements for which her Ally is clamouring?
Dares she, on the other hand, refuse them? That is, put simply, the
fatal dilemma on the horns of which the monstrous ambition of German
militarism is like to perish.”
If this last pertinent question was not destined to be immediately
answered, the military situation now began to be one of increasing
menace for the Austro-German Allies. In war one is bound to get a
vast amount of “claim and counterclaim” on the part of the contending
nations. On September 6 the Tsar’s Government took the step of publicly
characterising as “wilful falsehoods” certain Austrian and German
official reports of recent successes. It was claimed, in disproof of
these statements, that in the region between the rivers Vistula and
Bug the Russians had, up to and including September 4, captured many
Austrian guns, 150 officers, and 12,000 men. It was added that, “having
broken the Austrian resistance,” the Tsar’s army was already continuing
its victorious advance southwards from Lemberg.
The Grand-duke and General Russky had determined that no rest must
be given to the enemy’s army already so badly beaten in front of the
capital of Galicia. Scouting far to the flank, the Cossack cavalry
already found themselves in the passes of the Carpathians. A German
division intended to stiffen the Austrian resistance along this
extended line was understood to have been badly cut up on the left
bank of the Vistula; but details of the affair were vague. To the west
of Krasnostaw, however, a whole Austrian battalion--the 45th of the
line--was cut off and surrounded, being compelled to surrender to the
number of 1,500 men and nearly 50 officers.
The next Russian objective would obviously be the important and
strongly fortified town of Przemysl, fifty-five miles west of Lemberg.
But, before attacking this strong place of arms, it was essential to
get possession of Mikolaiev. This point owes its strategical importance
to the circumstance that it is situated at the junction of the railways
to Lemberg, Jimacheff, and (via Stry) to the Carpathians. Entrenchments
had been thrown up on both banks of the Dniester for the protection
of the bridges crossing that river. With a mixed population of Poles
and Jews of a little over 4,000, it had a garrison of some 10,000 men.
Moreover, it was common knowledge that the Austrian authorities did
not believe in the practicability of Mikolaiev being reduced either by
investment or direct assault, owing to the deep marshes that surround
the place for many miles. But, alas! a similar impregnability has been
claimed for only too many of the fortresses involved in this war, which
have held out for no longer than a few days. Mikolaiev was to prove no
exception to the rule, although we are told that the fortress’s guns
were mounted in “armoured cupolas.”
Apparently the place surrendered at discretion after a very moderate
resistance. The garrison, forty heavy guns, and a great quantity of
ammunition became the prizes of the victors; but the details of what
must have been a brilliant feat of arms are conspicuously meagre. It
is stated, however, that the defences included triple lines of barbed
wire “and other obstacles.”
We have now the spectacle of two separate Austrian armies, that of
Galicia and that which was operating in Southern Poland, striving
desperately to stem the tide that appeared to be setting dead against
them.
By the second week of September public interest in Russia had become
deeply centred in the plight of the latter army. It was by this time
fighting a series of rearguard actions with its wary and well-handled
opponents. Although the majority of well-informed military critics
assumed the ultimate destruction of this army as a fighting force,
the extent of the assistance it might receive from the German side
could not be gauged with accuracy. Thus a special correspondent of the
_Daily Telegraph_ wrote from Petrograd on September 11:
“The theory is put forward that at any rate the greater part of the
300,000 men whom the Germans are known to have withdrawn from their
western front, and who are supposed to have been replaced by the
Landwehr and the Landsturm corps, have been directed to the assistance
of the Austrians, and not to East Prussia. An army paper issued
officially at the front for the information of the troops says that
on September 5 and 6 the battle continued on the Austrian front. The
Russian troops operating between Lublin and the Vistula had occupied
the river Chodel. They had to deal with a well-entrenched enemy, and
therefore the attack developed rather slowly. Moving from Krasnostaw,
the Austrian force attempted to reach the railway line between Lublin
and Cholm, to cut the communications between those two places; but the
plan was frustrated by the battle of September 2 and 3 at Suchodol
and other Russian counter-moves. The position of the Russians was, on
September 6, much stronger, and Krasnostaw was in their hands. There
were then also pretty plain signs of a general Austrian retreat.”
These German reinforcements amounted, at all events, to one or two
army corps, and with their co-operation hard fighting took place on
September 8-9 along the entire front. It is significant that 10 per
cent. of the prisoners taken on those days are said to have been
Germans. The Austrian commander appears to have strengthened his left
wing, now resting on the Vistula, at the expense of his right in
order to attempt to hold the relentless flanking movement of General
Russky. A large Austrian force was thrown for this purpose along a
front running roughly from Lubisch to Komarno, which had formed a
rallying-point for considerable numbers of the army broken up near
Lemberg. Along this line they managed to entrench with some skill
and elaboration, and Russky encountered a stubborn resistance in the
task of turning them out, though it has been claimed on the Russian
side that the enemy as a rule has been generally loth to wait for the
bayonets to cross.
This Austrian conception of a counterstroke of their heavily reinforced
right wing, with the intention of driving Russky back upon Lemberg, was
in the main a good one. It commenced on September 9, when, according
to one who was in the firing-line, the Austrians essayed “repeated
and stubborn attacks with the object of crushing the Russian left wing
and getting round their right. These movements were met by vigorous
counter-attacks, and in order to ease the pressure the army on the
Vistula, and particularly that portion to the south of Lublin, was
ordered to push forward and, if possible, strike at the enemy’s rear.
Accordingly the Russian forces in South Poland pressed on from the line
Solez-Opole-Vichowe-Samostie-Komarow, and, after desperate fighting,
drove the Austrians from their entrenched positions. On September 9 the
enemy’s resistance was overcome, and he retired all along the line,
with the Russians in pursuit. In the battles of that and the preceding
day the Russians took 150 cannon, several machine-guns, and 3,000
prisoners.
“On the 10th, while the chase of the retreating Austrians was
proceeding in this quarter, the Russians in the direction of Lemberg
were called upon to sustain repeated assaults. These were, however,
all repulsed with heavy loss, eight guns and more than four thousand
prisoners being captured. Apparently the Austrians withdrawing from
the Lublin province fought a rearguard action on the 12th, as mention
is made of an obstinate battle on that day which ended with the rout
of the enemy, who was compelled to abandon his wounded. Evidently in
concert with this stand the Austrians to the west of Lemberg delivered
three furious night attacks between the 11th and 12th. From the
impetuosity with which the assaults were pressed home it was evident
that they were a last despairing attempt to sweep back the onflowing
wave of Russians.”
In a word, this series of desperate attacks and counter-attacks
resulted in the total failure of the Austrian army, though stiffened
by its German supports, to “hold” their terrible opponents. But it was
no easy victory. Both sides fought with devoted courage and stubborn
tenacity. Much of the ground was cut up with marshy streams and belts
of treacherous swamp land, and one of the harrowing features of this
battle was that numbers of dead lay unburied among the morasses or half
sunk in the shallow streams and hundreds of wounded wretches died among
these abandoned dead, undiscovered by the peasants of the district
until it was too late.
In the close fighting the Russian losses were necessarily heavy,
but the Petrograd official estimates of the Austro-German casualties
from the capture of Lemberg up to and including this hard-won triumph
on the Vistula simply stagger the imagination, and suggest that the
computation was somewhat loosely made. These were the figures:
Killed and wounded, 250,000 men.
Prisoners, 100,000 men.
Guns captured, 400.
The last of these figures is probably nearest the truth. It would
include the numerous guns secured by the surrender of Mikolaiev, as
well as those taken on the battle-field. In the great battle the
Russian artillery is said to have outnumbered that of the enemy in
the proportion of two to one, and the Austrians had to abandon many
batteries among the marshes when the retreat began. Amongst these were
some of their formidable field-howitzers.
Amongst the Russian corps commanders specially distinguished during
these days of battle, and decorated by the Tsar with the Cross of St.
George for his part in the victory, was the Bilarian Radko Dimitrieff.
He has had a remarkable career. Born in 1859, passed out of the
Military School of Sofia as a lieutenant at the age of twenty, and then
studied for a while in the Staff College at St. Petersburg. He had
rejoined the Bulgarian army as a captain when there came the withdrawal
of the Russian officers who held the higher commands, and the sudden
attack by Servia. Dimitrieff, though only a captain, acted as a general
at the victory of Slivnitza, and there laid the foundation of his
career. The Bulgars called him “little Napoleon,” partly on account
of a certain personal resemblance to the “little Corporal,” partly as
a tribute to his genius for command. He served for ten years in the
Russian army, and on his return to Bulgaria was appointed first chief
of the General Staff, and then to the command of a district. In the war
of the Balkan League he commanded the 3rd Bulgarian Army, won the first
victory at Kirk-Kilisse and shared the after-triumphs of the campaign
in Thrace. On the outbreak of the present war he at once offered his
services once more to Russia.
In the official record of these operations special mention is made of
the uniformly good work of the Cossack and other cavalry, who appear
to have established as thorough a personal ascendancy over the enemy’s
mounted troops as did that of the Franco-British army in the western
theatre of war.
A similar remark may be applied to the achievements of the Russian
air-craft in this region. The Grand-duke seeks out for special
commendation in this connection the work of Air-Scout Tkarchoff. While
returning from a reconnaissance his machine was shot at and a bullet
penetrated the oil-tank. With wonderful nerve and resource, the brave
Tkarchoff managed to plug the bullet-hole with his foot, in that way
stopping the flow of the oil and preventing a collapse. At last he was
able to descend, though under heavy fire from the enemy, and eventually
he saved his aeroplane with the help of two soldiers.
The Russian forward movement was very naturally speeded up by the
quickened retirement of the foe. Having crossed the Lower San River
without encountering any resistance, Russky’s army entered the town
of Gorodek and Mosciske, which brought them within one day’s march of
Jaroslav. When the Austrian Government reorganised the defences of
Galicia more than twenty years ago it was at first intended to make
Jaroslav instead of Przemysl the eastern stronghold of the province.
The fortifications were begun and then left in an unfinished state,
but on the outbreak of the war these incomplete works were taken in
hand and made the basis of a strong system of entrenchments. It is an
important place, some twenty miles north of Przemysl, and covering
the junction of the eastern railways of Galicia with the main line to
Cracow. Strong redoubts, to the number of more than twenty in all, had
been erected on both banks of the San. The reduction of the place
would greatly minimise the value of Przemysl to the Austrians and
enable two railways to be used both in connection with the siege of
that fortress and the operations against Cracow. The progress of the
Russian advance had by this time--the third week of September--given
them possession of other eastern lines of railway with large quantities
of rolling-stock, tanks of naphtha, benzine, and large stores of wood
and other material. On every side, as the advance converged upon
Jaroslav, were seen evidences of the disorder of the recent Austrian
retreat in the amount of arms and material of war abandoned in the
swamps or by the roadside.
Anything like full details of the garrison of Jaroslav and its actual
preparedness at the time of the onslaught are not available. This is
partly owing to the Russian habit of lumping together the numbers of
prisoners and guns captured at various points, and partly because a
portion of the garrison succeeded in escaping. But it seems clear that
a vigorous night-attack took two of the most important works, and that
this rendered inevitable the early fall of the place.
In point of fact, the actual investment lasted only three days. Its
reduction was semi-officially described as “a pleasant surprise,”
for it left open the Cracow road, while the undoubted strength and
importance of a town of 20,000 inhabitants and protected by a score of
well-equipped forts, could not be over-estimated. Moreover, the only
railway to Przemysl now left open to the enemy was a small single line.
The officers deemed to have been most distinguished in the success
of the operation were Generals Ivanoff, Alexieff, and Dragomiroff,
who were all decorated. Between September 11-14 the vast captures
included a general, 535 officers, 83,531 men, 637 guns (38 German), 44
machine-guns, seven flags, and 823 ammunition-wagons.
With Jaroslav in its hands, the Tsar’s army could now close up the ring
of steel with which the greater prize of Przemysl was being encircled.
In summing up the satisfactory results so far achieved, an eminent
Russian critic, Colonel Shumsky, pointed out how utterly the enemy’s
plans had come to grief. “It was supposed,” he said, “that the Austrian
army approaching Ivangorod would have joined up with the Germans
advancing from Posen and Thorn. By this means Western Poland would
have been cut off, and there would have been a final development of the
Austro-German forces on the line from Ivangorod and East Prussia to the
sea, which is nearly a straight line. By moving out from the meridian
of the East Prussian line, the enemy would have had the advantage of
shortening the road of attack. This was very important for reasons of
time. As the Austrian troops were completely beaten, that plan has
broken down. The Austrians are retreating most probably to Cracow, and
are attempting to arrange a new strategic front with the Germans for an
attack in three echelons--the first from Eastern Prussia, the second
from the line Tschensto-chau-Wjelun-Slessin, and the third from the
district of Cracow.”