General Rennenkampf received from the Tsar telegrams congratulating him
upon his well-ordered retreat and his victorious counter-attack and
resumed invasion of East Prussia. In this message the Tsar noted that,
during the retreat, the Russian General had not left a single pound’s
weight of supplies to the enemy.
Before passing on to the story of the larger conflict in Central
Poland, we may note some interesting incidents which occurred during
this ebb and flow of the war on the East Prussian borders. One of these
incidents shows that, with all their elaborate war training, the
Germans were liable, from lack of ordinary precautions, to fall very
easily into a dangerous trap. It occurred during the fighting around
Wirballen, the little frontier town well known to all travellers from
Western Europe to Russia as the point at which the railway from Ostend
by Berlin crosses the frontier. The place was held at the time by the
Russians, and was attacked by a German column.
After about an hour and a half’s brisk fusillade, which was but weakly
replied to, the Germans advanced, fearlessly and without further
precautions, under the impression that their enemy had withdrawn. But
on crossing the frontier-line into Russian territory, their feelings
became too much for them, and, preluded by loud shouts of “Hoch!” they
sang with fervour their familiar _Die Wacht am Rhein_. At that moment
the Russians, who had remained carefully sheltered by their trenches
all the time, poured in a deadly rifle-fire, backed by the immediate
charge of a sotnia of Cossacks. Taken at a disadvantage and utterly
surprised, it was said that not a man of the German force survived to
recross the border.
The German Emperor’s beautiful hunting-box at Rominten near Insterburg,
where he had been wont to sojourn every autumn for the shooting of elk
and other big game, fell into Russian hands. The following humorous
extract is from a letter written home by one of the officers who had
the good fortune to be temporarily quartered amid such luxurious
surroundings:
“After a series of terrible battles, we are reposing on William’s
magnificent estate. Undreamt-of beauty is all round us. The place is
splendidly equipped, so that we have at our disposal everything we
could wish for, and we are riding his celebrated horses, and enjoying
delicious dinners prepared by his man cook. Especially beautiful is the
park, with its glorious shady avenues. It swarms with rare animals, and
birds are flying free everywhere. By the way, our soldiers have caught
a William parrot in the park. It speaks excellent German, but our men
are teaching it their own language, and it is learning to address its
Imperial master with compliments I should blush to repeat in company.”
Another isolated but interesting incident of this Prusso-Polish
frontier fighting was the destruction near Mlawa, on September 5, of
the Zeppelin airship Z 5,--the second Zeppelin known to have been
brought down in this region since the commencement of hostilities.
The Z 5 had been cruising in the neighbourhood for several days, and
it was not until the date mentioned that her movements were observed
to be growing very irregular and uncertain. She tried hard to shape a
course for her own frontier, but finally collapsed in some fields. It
was then found that her envelope had been literally riddled by Russian
bullets. Her crew managed, however, to blow up the airship, whose
commander, severely wounded, requested to be placed out of sight behind
a haystack, so that he “might not witness the end of his dear Zeppelin.”
A possible explanation of Von Hindenburg’s advance to the Niemen
was that the German General Staff hoped by a serious threat in this
direction to lead the Russians to diminish the pressure upon Galicia
in order to reinforce their right. At the time of the operations
Colonel Shumsky, perhaps the best-known military writer in Russia,
pointed this out, and at the same time suggested that the menace from
East Prussia could have no serious result. “Will the Germans,” he
asked, “compel us to abandon the operations in the Carpathians and
throw our forces across to the Niemen, or shall we compel the Germans
to restrict their activity on the Niemen, and fling themselves into
Cracow and Galicia to save Austro-Hungary? The advance of the Germans
from East Prussia cannot have any decisive object. A lightning-like
stroke could only be delivered if the Germans were finished with France
and could move all their forces against us.”
It appears that something was done to draw reinforcements from the
western theatre of war for the German armies on the Polish frontier.
Reserve and Landwehr troops organised since the declaration of war were
moved in the same direction, and, according to Russian estimates of a
subsequent date, by the end of September the Germans had concentrated
twelve army corps of about 400,000 men on the frontier in the centre
about Thorn and Posen. It appears, however, that at the time the
Russian Staff did not realise that this formidable concentration was
in progress, and thought that their opponents were putting forth their
chief efforts on the two flanks of the long curved line northwards--for
the struggle in East Prussia, and southwards for the defensive campaign
in Galicia.
The Germans, however, were preparing for a serious stroke in the
centre of the Polish theatre of war, and, despite his failure on the
Niemen, the chief command of this great effort was entrusted to General
Hindenburg. The fame he had acquired by his expulsion of the enemy from
East Prussia had only been slightly overclouded by the defeat on the
Niemen, and it was thought that the German generals in East Prussia
could be safely left to defend against Rennenkampf’s farther advance
through the wilderness of forest, marsh, and lake which forms the
natural barrier along the frontier of the province.
The German plan was to abandon the mere passive defence of their
frontiers, assume the offensive, and strike a blow directly against
Warsaw and the group of fortresses beyond the Vistula that form the
citadel of the Russian power in Poland. The German armies were to
advance from the borders of the provinces of Posen and Silesia in
a converging march upon Warsaw. The left column from Thorn was to
advance along the south bank of the great bend of the Vistula which
runs north-westward from Novo Gorgievsk by Plock. The central column
from the Posen frontier was to march on Lowicz and the great factory
town of Lodz--after Warsaw the largest place in Poland--the third
column, which had already occupied Czenstochowa, just inside the
Russian frontier towards Silesia, was to protect the flank of the
advance and march on the Vistula in the direction of Ivangorod. A
fourth column was to march on Kielce, forming the link with an Austrian
advance through Northern Galicia towards the river San, which was
intended to reoccupy Jaroslav and raise the siege of Przemysl.
The country through which the line of advance lay was the undulating
Polish plain, a district with many clumps and belts of forest, and
almost destitute of good roads. Once the weather broke, at the end
of autumn, much of the ground would be reduced to a marshy condition
that would make it impassable until the first frost of winter hardened
it again. The German Staff hoped to carry through the campaign while
the region was everywhere practicable, and, even if Warsaw were not
captured, to make the Vistula their line of defence, where, having
secured the railways behind them, they might hope to hold their own on
a front shorter by many hundred miles than the long curving frontier of
their own territory.
It was expected that the first movement into the Polish plain would
have the result of forcing the enemy not only to abandon the advance
already begun towards Cracow, but to evacuate a considerable part
of the ground they had overrun in Galicia, and at the same time to
withdraw some of their forces from the East Prussian border. German
reports went to show that the enemy had no large forces in the country
between the middle Vistula and the Posen-Thorn frontier. The first
stage of the German advance would, therefore, not be likely to meet
with any very serious opposition.
Why, it may be asked, had not the Russian military authorities taken
fuller precautions, in the earlier days of the war, for safeguarding
the Polish territory from invasion and spoliation? Why had not the
immensely long and valuable line of the river Vistula in particular
been occupied in heavy force at the time of the mobilisation in
August? A semi-official statement of mid-October replied definitely
to these criticisms. It was pointed out that the consideration was
a purely military one. It was a fundamental rule of warfare to
sacrifice everything of lesser importance to the main issue. Thus,
the first “impudent invasion” from the German side had demanded a
large transfer of troops. Next the Austrian concentration in Galicia,
and their attack in the Lublin district, had needed a big force in
that quarter. Thirdly, the invasion by way of Eastern Prussia had
required substantial means to deal with and crush it. “This temporary
victimisation of the Vistula district is the outcome of a praiseworthy
decision of our strategy. Now the situation is different, and strategic
and other aims coincide upon the Vistula until the enemy has been
finally beaten.”
Intense enthusiasm was aroused throughout Russia by the announcement
that the Tsar would proceed in person to the fighting area. In front
of the Winter Palace at Petrograd, thousands of students and others
paraded and demonstrated in honour of their “Little Father,” as well as
to celebrate news of the victories in Galicia and East Prussia.
The German columns met with little resistance in their advance across
the Polish plain. Lodz was occupied, and the two northern columns
gained touch east of the town and advanced on a wide front between the
northern bend of the Vistula and its tributary, the Pilitza, their
objective being Warsaw. The right moved forward through Kielce and
Radom against Ivangorod. According to German accounts, the advancing
armies were joined by large numbers of the peasants, who welcomed them
as deliverers; but the Russian story is that the people fled in terror
before the invaders.
We have to depend during the war for our news of what is happening in
Poland almost entirely upon Russian accounts official and non-official.
The German wireless reports give only the briefest outline of the
official view of the situation taken at Berlin, and these reports are
often cut down by our own censorship. The few reports from Berlin that
were allowed to be published in England contained, it is true, some
references to a victorious advance of the Austro-German armies into
Poland in the first days of October. But, at the time, these were
treated as fictitious claims of success, for it seemed strange that, in
the numerous telegrams that came from Russian sources, there was not
a word of any important events in the central theatre of war. Official
news told of fighting on the East Prussian border and in Galicia,
and non-official reports were full of detailed statements as to the
complete collapse of the Austrians, an invasion of Hungary through the
Carpathians, attacks upon Przemysl that had reduced the fortress to
desperate straits, and steady progress in the direction of Cracow.
It was, therefore, a surprise to every one when, towards the end of
the second week in October the official bulletin from St. Petersburg
admitted that Von Hindenburg had forced his way up to the left bank
of the middle Vistula and overrun all Western Poland--this, too, at
a time when all the rest of Europe believed that the Germans were
still on the frontiers of Poland and Galicia, and busy preparing the
fortresses of Thorn and Posen for a siege. It was afterwards explained
that the Russian retirement to the Vistula was a deliberate “strategic”
movement intended to lure the Germans to destruction. But it is fairly
certain that the Russians had sent such large masses of men northwards
and southwards for the operations in East Prussia and Galicia, besides
providing for an army they were concentrating on the Black Sea coast
and the Caucasus, that their forces in Central Poland had been
considerably reduced. During Von Hindenburg’s advance they were busily
engaged in reinforcing the army on the middle Vistula and in the Polish
triangle of fortresses, and for this purpose they drew in several army
corps from their left.
Weakened by this withdrawal, the Russian army in Galicia gave way
before the advance of the Austrian armies on the German right.
Jaroslav was abandoned, the siege of Przemysl was temporarily raised,
and General Brussiloff concentrated his forces to protect Lemberg from
recapture.
The right column of the German advance, pushing forward through Radom,
reached the river Vistula near Ivangorod, tried to force a passage
over it below the fortress, and attacked the outlying defences of the
place. The columns of the left and centre, under Von Hindenburg’s
personal command, penetrated to within a few miles of Warsaw, where at
last they met with serious opposition. The Grand-duke Nicholas began
to push a considerable force westward from the city to protect it from
even a temporary occupation, while his main line of defence lay along
the right bank of the Vistula above and below the city. It was early
on the morning of October 11 that the thunder of the guns told the
inhabitants of Warsaw that a great battle had begun at the very gates
of their city.
During the preceding days there had been rumours not only that the
Germans were approaching in great force, but that the Grand-duke was
about to evacuate the city.
The wealthier classes of Warsaw are largely made up of those who hold
government positions, or whose interests are, in one way or another,
closely connected with the existing Russian regime, and there was
something like a panic as the rumour spread that the place might soon
be in the hands of an invader. The alarm was increased by the sight of
German aeroplanes circling high over the houses and dropping bombs into
the streets. One of these aeroplanes had an accident to its engine
and fell on the estate of Count Briansky in the suburbs of Warsaw. The
aviators were murdered by a mob of peasants before they could be taken
prisoners by the troops.
For three days Warsaw could hear the cannon thunder close at hand.
Indeed, at first, it seemed to be coming nearer and nearer on the south
side of the city. The arrival of long trains of wounded men hour after
hour told that the fight was a costly one, and this fighting close to
Warsaw was only part of an engagement stretching out upon an enormous
front along the Vistula. The Grand-duke was, however, holding his own
and using the central position in front of Warsaw as a starting-point
from which to drive a way into the German line, while along the river
the enemy were wasting their forces in desperate attempts to effect
the crossing.
The Siberian Army Corps, now in action for the first time in Europe,
proved themselves fighting men. Their attack turned the scale in the
centre. The great wedge pushed forward from Moscow began to tell upon
the German resistance, and as it gained more and more ground new masses
of troops were brought across the river to extend the region of the
close fighting. The weather had broken, and the battle was fought out
under cloudy skies and amid driving showers of sleety rain.
On October 14 Warsaw heard the cannon thunder less loudly. The enemy’s
centre was being driven steadily back with the loss of thousands of
prisoners and many guns. Higher up the Vistula towards Ivangorod the
German attempts to gain a footing on the east bank had also failed.
According to the _Utro Rossii_, elaborate attempts to cross the Vistula
on rafts (after aeroplane reconnaissance) took place at two points,
between Ivangorod and Sandomir and between Ivangorod and Warsaw. In
the first of these attempts the Russians carefully waited until two
battalions had crossed and then fell on them with the bayonet, while
the rafts were cruelly raked with rifle-fire. In the second instance,
the enemy were similarly uninterrupted while throwing their pontoons
across. Then a burst of shrapnel fell upon the masses as they were in
the act of crossing. The river ran red with blood, hundreds of corpses
floated down the stream, and but few escaped. On the following day a
tremendous artillery duel lasted for several hours. The Russians got
the range and established their superiority, as was evidenced by the
smoke and flames beginning to rise from the miserable villages within
the enemy’s position, and by the slackening of his fire. The scene was
one of sublime horror. The sky for miles was lit up by the blaze of the
burning buildings and by the myriads of bursting projectiles. It was
the beginning of the end of the invasion of Russian Poland.
Warsaw itself “returned to the normal” on October 14. The frightened
people had been a good deal dispirited and disheartened by what had
appeared to them like a falling-back of their defending army, and many
of them had, indeed, already fled from the threatened city. They were
further discouraged by the dissemination of a German proclamation
announcing that the enemy would be in Warsaw “by the 18th”--instead
of which, by the date named the Kaiser’s army was in full retreat.
Now, however, the aspect was brighter. Numbers of ragged and dejected
prisoners (but many of them Poles) were being brought into Warsaw
daily. Institutions and shops that had been shut up were reopened. The
utmost animation prevailed where yesterday there had been pessimism and
dejection. Cheering crowds gave cigarettes, apples, milk, and bread
to the Russian troops as they marched past with faces set towards the
German frontier. The agony of Warsaw had endured for five or six days.
All that time the outside world had watched and waited without being
satisfied, so rigid was the Russian censorship of news.
If the policy of “waiting for the enemy” had so far been crowned with
substantial success, much remained to be achieved. In the densely
wooded country stretching away from the Polish capital to Petrikau,
the fighting had been particularly deadly, several villages being
taken and retaken. As far as could be ascertained, the German troops
suffering the most heavily in this quarter were the 17th and 20th
Corps. One Russian regiment alone lost three commanding officers in
rapid succession. The behaviour of the Siberian troops under fire was
especially gallant and noteworthy. With trenches full of water and
the conditions generally depressing, these fine troops held on to one
position during eight days of fighting, sometimes hand to hand, and
always decimated by shell-fire. This place was swampy ground on the
left bank of the Vistula. It was known from the prisoners that the
German army detailed for the great movement upon Warsaw contained
many of the Kaiser’s finest battalions. It was hoped to smash in the
Russian centre while simultaneously dealing heavy blows both against
Ivangorod and in Galicia. Apart from its great strategical value, due
consideration was given to the moral results of the capture of Warsaw.
We have seen in part how this plan miscarried. I propose now to
piece together a few missing links with the assistance of one of the
longest and most remarkable despatches sent during the whole war--by
Mr. Granville Fortescue to the _Daily Telegraph_. Mr. Fortescue
suggests, as a starting-point for the phase when the Germans’ offensive
“exhausted itself” and their complete defeat became inevitable, October
19-20. Close pressure upon the enemy’s left wing caused the huge
front to swing round, running westerly instead of north and south. A
comparison is made of the “luring” of the enemy towards Warsaw with the
“luring” of Napoleon’s legions towards Moscow a century before. For,
says this writer, “the Russians do not play by the German rules--they
look on Nature as their first and strongest ally. With the elements on
their side, batteries of 17-in. howitzers dwindle into insignificance.”
There were stories also of friction between the high commanders on the
Austro-German side; but as to this the correspondent could of course
say nothing very definite, particularly as his information would of
necessity be derived from prejudiced sources. Mr Fortescue continues:
“On October 20, when the battle of the Vistula was at its height, the
German Austrian line of communications stretched across 150 miles of
Russian territory. On that day the German attack exhausted itself. The
tide of battle ebbed. The Russian right swept round, discouraged the
enemy, and rolled him away from the Vistula. Warsaw no longer trembled
under the salvos of the enemy’s artillery. The Russian cheers of
victory echoed sixty miles away.
“The Germans, battling for the railroad bridges across the Vistula at
Ivangorod, paused in their fight. In that pause they could almost hear
the tread of the oncoming Russian legions. At Radom the Crown Prince
and his staff hastily ordered up reserves to meet this new menace.
“For four days victory hung in the balance. Then the German resistance
began to crumble. The force of numbers began to tell. At Radom steam
was up on the engine that pulled the Crown Prince’s private car.
Already the German army which had threatened Warsaw was in full retreat
along the south margin of the river Pilitza. Under the threat of attack
from this flank the Germans and Austrians holding the Kosenitze and
Ivangorod front fell back, after offering a most desperate resistance.
When the troops of the Kosenitze-Ivangorod line were smashed the
German-Austrian position south along the Vistula, from Nowa Alexandria
to Sandomir, could no longer hold. On November 5 the main body of the
Austrians began to fall back precipitately. A final effort made here to
dam the Russian tide was in a manner an heroic waste of force.”
This account is supplemented by the Russian official report, which
conveniently divides the two later phases of the German overthrow into
October 23-27, and October 28 to November 2. In the first of these
phases the enemy battling in the Kosenizy-Ivangorod zone retreated on
finding himself being outflanked by way of the river Pilitza. In the
second, the German resistance along a line Novaya-Alexandria similarly
broke down utterly.
This further retirement found them, a day or two later, endeavouring to
hold on to the town of Kielce along a forty-mile line of entrenchments.
The Russians reconnoitred this position by night and attacked at
dawn. A frightful conflict, often hand to hand, lasted the whole of
a day and night. At last the defenders were routed with a loss of
2,400 men and 40 officers captured, with a howitzer, 10 light guns,
and 11 machine-guns. These prisoners belonged to the 20th Corps, the
Landwehr, the Guard Reserve Corps, and the 1st and 2nd Austrian Corps.
Here Austrian and Prussian fought shoulder to shoulder.
Throughout November 2 the Austrians were fighting hard for the
retention of the important town of Sandomir on the Vistula, which they
had occupied and protected with a triple line of entrenchments and wire
entanglements “carrying alternating electrical current.” The Russians
stormed all three lines by irresistible bayonet charges. Nevertheless,
in the hope of recovering the works the defenders brought up heavy
reserves that night; but all in vain--attack and counter-attack ending
in their total discomfiture with awful losses. They left all their sick
and wounded behind them, whom the Russians found, together with much
booty of all descriptions, on their victorious entry into Sandomir. In
two days they captured from the Austrians nearly 5,000 prisoners, 18
field-guns, and 24 machine-guns.
The main German army was now in such rapid retreat that it was obvious
to all that the scene of operations would shortly be shifted to their
own territory. It was only possible to guess at the losses in the three
weeks’ Titanic struggle for the possession of the capital of Russian
Poland and the long line of the Vistula--losses which, if vast on
the Russian side, must be reckoned as simply colossal on that of the
Austro-German allies, _plus_ in their case thousands on thousands of
prisoners and the hundreds of guns taken.
The scheme of the onslaught upon the Vistula was generally condemned
by critics not only of Russian, but of European repute, it being
pointed out that if the conception of that offensive had been the
avoidance of a battle around Cracow and on the plains of Silesia, such
a conflict had merely been postponed--to take place under circumstances
far less favourable to the German plans. Rightly or wrongly, General
von Hindenburg came in for not a little of this adverse criticism, it
being pointed out that, although the report might be correct that the
Crown Prince had been nominally in command, Von Hindenburg was in all
probability the guiding spirit of the move.
On the other hand, not one but several of Russia’s military
leaders had enormously increased their reputations. These included
General Russky--who had led the masterly advance along the river
Pilitza--General Ivanoff, and, most of all, of course, the Grand-duke
Nicholas himself. As Mr. Granville Fortescue phrases it, Nicholas
Nicolavitch is a Russian of the old school. He is known to be a
strict disciplinarian, but “when one carries the responsibility of
one-sixth of the world on his shoulders one cannot listen to excuses.
In the army he is the law and the word.” While the prolonged agony
of the Warsaw battles was taking place the Tsar conferred upon the
Grand-duke that prized decoration the Order of St. George. Lesser
grades in the same decoration went to his skilful Chief-of-the-Staff,
General Yanuskevitch, and to Quartermaster-General Daniloff. The Tsar
also similarly rewarded Captain Martinoff for acts of deep devotion
and gallantry. While not yet recovered from a wound, this brave man
insisted upon taking over the command of Turret Hill in the defence
of the fortress of Ossovetz, where he remained for three days in an
exposed position of the utmost danger and under a continuous hail of
fire. When a shell dropped close to the magazine and threatened to blow
it up, Martinoff personally headed a party to the scene of the danger
and extinguished the flames.
During the time of crisis Warsaw did not entirely escape the
bomb-throwing from aeroplanes which has been such a feature of the
German aggressive in both theatres of war. One such messenger of death
(October 19), or, rather, several such, killed nine and wounded no
fewer than fifty-six of the civilian population, including several
women and children. Then was witnessed the novel spectacle of the
people mounting the roofs of their houses and taking “pot-shots” at the
deadly Taube machines, one of which had been instrumental in killing
or maiming upwards of sixty non-combatants.
It was only natural that victory for the Russian arms should have
enhanced the already high enthusiasm and patriotism of the Tsar’s
peoples. It was known that there had long existed in German minds a
profound contempt for the Muscovite military organisation, Potsdam
professors of war having clung to the belief that they were opposed
to a system which was faulty and calculated to break down, especially
after the adverse verdict of the war with Japan in 1904-5. But such
critics had not reckoned with the complete reorganisation of the
Russian military “machine” carried out in 1910, nor yet allowed for
the vastly improved personnel of the Russian rank and file. Of this
last-mentioned point, one of the war correspondents wrote:
“The Russian ‘Tommy,’ or, as he is called here, Ivan, son of Ivan, is a
most impressive-looking soldier. Nearly all over 5 ft. 6 in. in height,
and of splendid build, they recall certain Irish regiments in size
and swagger. For as soon as the peasant has donned the long, light,
terra-cotta-coloured overcoat and learned to set his cap at a jaunty
angle, he assumes the martial swagger. The Russian military overcoat is
the best bit of soldiers’ wearing apparel I have seen in any army. Not
only is it smart in cut and colour, but eminently practical. No better
protection against the winter cold could be devised. I used to think
that the English military overcoat was the best made; but the Russian
is better. It is not necessary to emphasise the importance of having a
good covering in Russia in winter.”
It was stated, apparently with authority, that some of the German
prisoners arriving at Vilna were lads of sixteen years of age. Among
stories of “atrocities” vouched for was one to the effect that an
enemy patrol, having captured a Cossack trooper, flung the poor wretch
on to a fire and literally roasted him alive! It was averred that a
Russian officer, doubting the reliability of the horrible story, caused
the charred remains of the Cossack to be disinterred. But there were
counter-charges of atrocities preferred against the Russians, and
on both sides some very wild talk on the subject. In a war of such
inveterate bitterness as this had now become one must perforce suspend
judgment.
The official _communiqué_ upon the defence of the Vistula and the
complete defeat of the invasion of Russian Poland closed with these
impressive words: “We owe thanks for our victory to the unfailing grace
which God has shown to the superhuman heroism of our warriors, of whom
Russia may be justly proud. The victory which has been achieved makes
it possible for our troops to set about the solution of fresh problems,
the grappling with which commences a new period of the war.”
At Radom--now in Russian hands again after a month’s occupation by
the enemy, and where his invasion plan is supposed to have been
perfected--the following proclamation to the Polish inhabitants was
issued by the commander of a Russian army corps: “Poles! Our wounded
officers and soldiers, and also our prisoners who had fallen into the
hands of the enemy and had passed through the town and province of
Radom, speak with deep gratitude of your cordial treatment of them.
You have tended the wounded, fed the starving, and sheltered from the
enemy those escaping from captivity. You have given them money, and
guided them to our lines. Accept from me, and from all ranks of the
army entrusted to me, warm and hearty thanks for all your kindness, for
your Slavonic sympathy and goodness.”