Russia's Part in the World War

by C. M. Shumsky-Solomonov

The German Defeat at Warsaw

The battle of Ypres, the determined operations of the Germans for the capture of Calais, is the other critical moment in the history of the World War, when Russia once more brought heavy sacrifices to the common cause of the Allies. Ludendorf, in describing these difficult days for the Germans, again makes use, we regret to say, of the same unsavory expedient he used in describing the first engagements in East Prussia.

Thus, for instance, he asserts that when he was defeated in October, 1914, at Warsaw, the Russians had 1,200,000 men,[4] while he had only one German army—the 9th—and one Austrian army—the 1st. As a matter of fact, the Russians were opposed, on the entire front, by five Austrian armies and two German armies—the 8th and the 9th—by more than 70 divisions approximating about 1,200,000 men. The Russians, having left only a small force to oppose four Austrian armies, fell with their three armies upon two enemy armies, one German and one Austrian, near Warsaw. With a numerical superiority of one and a quarter to one the Russians defeated the Germans, and threw them back across the whole of Poland to Posen. The Germans saved themselves on that occasion only by destroying the railroads back of them and by burning the bridges.

The significance of the operations at Warsaw and in Galicia in October, and beyond Warsaw in November, 1914, is to be seen from Ludendorf's own story. Referring to a conversation he had with General Falkenhayn, who at that time was the main leader of all German Army operations, he writes in his memoirs: "At the end of October, 1914, General von Falkenhayn summoned me to Berlin.... Gen. von Falkenhayn spoke hopefully of the attack near Ypres, and wanted to defer further decisions."

But already in the beginning of November, i. e., a few days after this conversation, the operations of the Russian Armies in Galicia, the Posen territory, and on the East Prussian front, greatly diminished the hopefulness of Falkenhayn and compelled him to slacken the pressure against the Allies at Ypres and to transfer large forces from France to the Russian front—to the detriment of the offensive against Ypres. Ludendorf himself figures these reinforcements which arrived from France in the middle of November, and, consequently, must have left there in the beginning of November, at 225,000 men. There were 4 corps with 2 infantry divisions, which Ludendorf figures at 225,000 men. Besides, Ludendorf mentions right here the arrival of Richthofen's Cavalry Corps, Hollen's Cavalry Corps, the 2nd and 4th Cavalry Divisions. Still earlier Ludendorf mentions that the newly formed 25th Reserve Corps and the 15th Reserve Corps were dispatched to East Prussia. And finally, in still another place, we can find in Ludendorf's account a number of other new divisions which had been sent to the Russian front instead of to Ypres.

In this manner it is easy to see, from the data furnished by Ludendorf himself, that, "hopeful" at the end of October for the success of the attack on Ypres, Falkenhayn found it necessary to dispatch from France 300,000 additional soldiers to the Russian front, aside from the reserves taken from the interior of Germany, which forces would also have been welcome to the Germans during the fateful days at Ypres. While the frontal attacks on Ypres, attended by considerable casualties, demanded the presence of large German reserves, these reserves were the very ones which were swallowed up entirely by the Russian operations in the East, at Warsaw, Galicia and East Prussia.

While the Russian troops were persecuting the defeated Austrians in Galicia, General Hindenburg began an advance towards Warsaw. The Russian General Staff transferred from Galicia three armies for the defense of Warsaw, and these armies defeated the two Austro-German armies and persecuted them through Poland up to the border of Germany (October, 1914).

If the firmness of the Allies held back the Germans at Ypres and prevented them from breaking through to Calais, the Russian Army also played an important part in this strategic situation—compelling the Germans to abandon the operation at Ypres much earlier than the Germans and Falkenhayn had figured. But not in this alone was the role of Russia apparent in the trying days of October and November, 1914. Not only did Russia force the Germans to transfer 300,000 soldiers to the East, and to abandon early the operations in France, but she also compelled the Germans, by her operations in 1914, to abandon for more than a year all large offensives in the West. This is attested not only by the facts (as is well known, from the end of 1914 up to February, 1916, the Germans did not start any offensive in France), but by Ludendorf himself, notwithstanding all his endeavors to discredit the Russian Army.

Speaking of the weakness of the German front in the West in the month of November, Ludendorf says that it was perfectly natural "that in this situation our eyes should again turn to the East."... Further on he adds that he had asked himself whether it were not better "once and for all to restrict operations on the Western front to a defensive and to carry out the contemplated operations against Russia with all our available forces.... This point of view seemed to me to be the right one, and I asked our High Command for reinforcements from the West...." Thus, such facts as the abandonment by the Germans of all operations in the West for more than a year, as well as Ludendorf's own words, prove with absolute clearness and conclusiveness that the Germans, partly through the firmness of the Allies, but mainly on account of the hard blows from the Russian Army, found themselves compelled for a long time to refrain from an offensive in France. There is no doubt but that the Germans never abandoned entirely the attempt to crush France, for we have seen how such a serious attempt was made by them subsequently at Verdun. But if they were compelled at the end of 1914 to defer this attempt at crushing France for more than a year, it is obvious that the decisive part in this decision of the Germans was played by Russia, in the increasing offensive of her Armies all along the front from the Baltic to the Carpathians.

This diagram shows that the Germans had calculated, at first, to stop the Russian Army with the aid of the Austrian troops and only 14 of their own divisions—13 infantry and one cavalry divisions. Soon, in September, 1914, they were compelled to forward 6 more divisions to the East,—during the Marne period. Later, when the Austrians were defeated, the number of German relief columns increased and numbered, at the end of 1914, 43 divisions, instead of the former 14 divisions,—three times as many. Early in 1915 the number of German divisions grew to 53. During 1916 and 1917 the number of the German troops on the Russian front was also increasing incessantly, at the expense of German strength on the French front.

Thus, if the taking of the field by unprepared Russia in the beginning of the War contributed to the defeat of the most dangerous and main plan of the Germans, in August and September, the new sacrifices brought by Russia in October and November on the plains of Galicia, Poland and East Prussia compelled the Germans to desist for more than a year from all attempts to win the War in France. August and September, 1914, were the months in which the German forces were brought to a standstill, and October and November saw them already much impaired. At both important, critical moments Russia played her decisive part.

At this same period, towards the close of 1914, the Germans were compelled by the operations of the Russian Army to increase the number of their troops on the Russian front up to 43 divisions. If the Germans were unable in the beginning of the War to win out in France where they had all their forces, allotting to the Russian front only 14 divisions and the Austrian Army, so much the less could they have won at the end of 1914, when the Russians had compelled them to have 43 divisions in the field, that is, to treble their forces on the Russian front, to the detriment of their French front.