The Campaign in Russian Poland 3

The Campaign in Russian Poland 3

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.”

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER III RUSSIA’S SUCCESS AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE

 

 

The armies of the Tsar had by the middle of September established so

firm a foothold upon Austrian territory, and so remote were the chances

of their being dislodged from it, that little surprise was felt at

the issue of a manifesto addressed by the Grand-duke Nicholas to the

inhabitants of the invaded country. It was circulated in all the nine

languages of that wonderfully polyglot population, and the text of it

was as follows:

 

“PEOPLES OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY,--The Government of Vienna declared

war on Russia because the great Empire, faithful to its historic

traditions, could not abandon inoffensive Servia or permit her

enslavement.

 

“Peoples of Austria-Hungary,--In making my entry into the territory

of Austria-Hungary I declare to you, in the name of the great Tsar,

that Russia, who has often shed her blood for the emancipation of

nations from a foreign yoke, seeks only the restoration of right and

justice. To you peoples of Austria-Hungary Russia also brings liberty

and the realisation of your national hopes.