The Campaign in Russian Poland 7

The Campaign in Russian Poland 7

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