The Campaign in Russian Poland 5

The Campaign in Russian Poland 5

Local incidents along this Russian-Polish frontier included the

dropping of German bombs and proclamations into the town of Suwalki. By

these bombs the railway-station and schoolhouse were damaged and one

child was killed. The frontier town of Filipovo also suffered a partial

bombardment. While Rennenkampf’s headquarters were at Insterburg,

certain of the inhabitants of that place were caught red-handed in the

act of signalling movements of troops to their “friend the enemy,”

while in a few cases Russian troops were fired on from houses of the

townspeople. Several of these irregular belligerents were put to death

by sentence of a court-martial. Next morning a German aeroplane dropped

in the Russian lines this audacious message addressed to Rennenkampf:

“Your troops are shooting peaceful citizens. If this is done without

your knowledge, stop it at once! If the troops are carrying out your

orders, then know, General, that the blood of these innocent people

falls on your head, and on yours alone.”

 

It was not until September 17 that the Russian general’s clever

manœuvring was rewarded by his being able to resume the offensive after

the enemy had not penetrated more than twenty-five miles into Russian

Poland. On the evening of that day the Germans realised that their

attempted outflanking of Rennenkampf’s right was being checkmated by a

vigorous counter-offensive. Very severe fighting took place at or near

the junction of the railways between Kovno and Vilna, and at Stednicki,

where the Niemen is joined by the Dubissa. The Russians held the banks

of the latter tributary in force. By the 18th the enemy were falling

back from Suwalki and four other townships which appear to have been

the high-water mark of their advance. They lost four guns and many

prisoners.

 

Having regard to the fact that a large proportion of the men of the

German army corps employed here were troops that had been withdrawn

from the western theatre of war, it is interesting to note that they

are accused of having behaved with much lack of discipline along the

line of route. Such accusations are common enough to all warfare,

and the only point of interest here is that they certainly were for

the most part troops drawn from the area of operations where so many

allegations of “atrocities” have been preferred against them.

 

Roughly speaking, one continuous battle raged along the East Prussian

borderland from September 25 to October 3. This has been styled the

“Battle of Augustoff,” otherwise Suwalki, from the name of the province

or “government” covering the battle-ground. The battle began in the

vast forest that covers miles of country on the Russian side of the

frontier. Through these woodlands Rennenkampf retired, fighting a

series of rearguard actions on a broad front. An episode of the battle

was the attack of the German right on the fortress of Ossovetz, a place

of some importance, as it guards a crossing of the river Bobr in the

midst of a region of marshy forest.

 

The garrison met the attack by a night sortie against the German

advance, which had got into difficult ground among the swamps and

woods. A correspondent who was with the Russian force gives this

account of the fighting:

 

“The Germans had not proceeded more than nine miles when they found

that they could not move their guns a yard farther owing to the marshy

nature of the ground. In this predicament they opened fire with

their artillery, and then sent forward their infantry with numerous

machine-guns. The latter got within four miles of the fortress, but

they made no further progress.

 

“During the night the Russians made a sortie, and, marching by roads

and paths of which the enemy were completely ignorant, they completely

enveloped both the German wings. Imagining that they held all the

practicable roads, the Germans had concentrated their attention on

the fortress and neglected their flanks. When the enveloping movement

became apparent, a fierce engagement ensued, the enemy being completely

at a disadvantage. The fortress guns mowed them down on the open road,

while the Russian infantry poured a devastating fire into their wings.

The battle lasted thirty-six hours, and ended in the complete rout of

the Germans, who fled in disorder along the Graevo road. All the German

guns which had stuck in the marshy ground were captured.”

 

Retiring through the frontier woods Rennenkampf fell back upon and

recrossed the Niemen. It would have been well for Von Hindenburg if

he had contented himself with having driven the invaders out of East

Prussia. But, flushed with victory, and underrating the fighting power

of his opponent, he endeavoured to force a way across the Niemen. By

this time, however, the Russian mobilisation had long been completed,

and Rennenkampf was reinforced by several army corps when he reached

the right bank of the river. The German attempt to cross it in the face

of superior numbers ended in a disaster. The attack was pushed with

reckless daring, and simultaneously at many points attempts were made

to construct pontoon bridges under the fire of the Russian artillery.

Every attempt ended in failure. Hundreds of dead bodies floated down

the stream, and the efforts of the German gunners to crush out the

fire of the enemy’s batteries were unavailing. At last, after incurring

much useless loss, Von Hindenburg abandoned the attempt under the

pressure of a Russian attack on his flank from the southward.

 

Once more there was fighting day after day in the forests of Augustovo,

as Von Hindenburg’s army fell back through the woods towards the

borders of East Prussia, pursued by the victorious Russians.

 

Rennenkampf claimed that during these operations the losses of the

Germans amounted to 60,000 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners. The

scenes of desolation around Suwalki and Augustoff after this sanguinary

fighting were pitiful in the extreme. Practically everything had been

destroyed, so that they resembled towns of the dead. All bridges had

been blown up, and but for embankments and broken telegraph-wires it

was hardly recognisable that there had been a railway at all. Wrote a

_Daily Telegraph_ war correspondent of the unholy scene:

 

“On the fields one sees the ravages of artillery projectiles--deep,

conical holes five or six feet in diameter. Here, too, one finds

shrapnel cases, splinters of shells, skeletons of horses, fragments of

blood-stained clothing, cartridge-pouches, blue-grey coats of German

soldiers, empty schnapps and beer-bottles. In one trench there was a

particularly large number of empty bottles. It is evident that the

German soldiers invigorate themselves with alcohol before battle. Near

one of these batteries of bottles was a soldiers’ common grave. Along

the road are many burnt houses and plundered farms.

 

“Of entire villages, in some cases only blackened ruins remain. Inside

the houses that have not suffered in this way nothing remains whole.

Pillows and quilts have been ripped open and the down scattered about.

Samovars, dented by heels of heavy boots, are lying about on the floor.

Cupboards and drawers have been rummaged with bayonets.

 

“What the Prussians could not carry away they have spoilt. Whole

forests have been hewed down or burnt. Wide areas have been cleared for

fields of fire. Peasants’ gardens have been stripped of their produce.

Potatoes, carrots, and other vegetables have been dug up wholesale and

carried off. Local inhabitants, mostly Lithuanians and White Russians,

have been so terrified by the Germans that they hardly realise what has

happened to them.”

 

The enemy next endeavoured to entrench and maintain himself upon a

line running from Wirballen to Lyck; but on October 8 his flanks were

enveloped after a fierce struggle, and the Russians marched into Lyck.

They were now for the second time establishing themselves upon the soil

of East Prussia--and this time with little likelihood of a somewhat

demoralised foe being able to expel them in a hurry. For the German

offensive along the Niemen had utterly failed.

 

At the time (October 8) when Rennenkampf followed up this triumph by

driving the enemy out of Lyck, his troops had already been fighting

for seven days and nights without a rest. But they were flushed with

victory. This engagement of the 8th is likely to be known as the battle

of Ratchka, from the name of the village on which the German right

rested. It was ascertained that they had been reinforced with men and

guns (several batteries being captured) from Königsberg. The rapidity

of the advance seems to have had a staggering effect, and the enemy

lost hundreds of his horses in the marshy boglands of the Suwalki

province, leaving his heavy artillery, or much of it, to its fate.

 

A wounded Russian officer, in a description of the battle of Augustoff

contributed to a Petrograd journal, pays a deserved tribute to the

coolness, intelligence, and enthusiasm of the Slav soldier under fire.

The troops, he says, were simply “chuckling with delight” on receiving

an order to turn the enemy out of a position which could only be

carried by great expenditure of life. With the utmost _sang-froid_ they

put the Germans to rout, then leaving them to the tender mercies of

a particularly vigorous and merciless pursuit by the Cossack cavalry.

Fresh enthusiasm was aroused by the appearance of General Rennenkampf,

who rode on to the position to thank his gallant soldiers for the

extraordinary exertions that had given them the well-worn field. The

music of several bands then joined in the celebration, playing the

beautiful Russian National Hymn to a perfect tornado of cheers from the

weary but satisfied troops.

 

What a change had come over the scene within one month! A proud

and unbroken enemy no longer retained a foothold upon Russian

territory. Whether regarded as a serious invasion, or as a movement

of co-ordination with the vaster invasion of Russian Poland now about

to be described, the attempt had been signally beaten back in blood.

“Whether,” wrote an English critic of the situation, “the Russians

intend to aim at Berlin or Vienna, is of minor consequence. The great

point is that they seem able to do what they like and to choose their

particular objective as they please. Nothing has been more exhilarating

than the brilliant strategy of Petrograd. The Russian soldiers have

proved not only their steady persistence--a quality which we always

knew to be one of their principal assets--but also a rapidity of

movement and a dashing spirit of attack with which the world was hardly

prepared to credit them.”

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER V THE DEFENCE OF THE VISTULA

 

 

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.