THE SECOND RUSSIAN ADVANCE ON CRACOW.
At the close of Chapter XXV. we left the Germans, who had been beaten north of the Pilitza, retreating rapidly towards the Warta, and those who had suffered defeat south of that river hurrying towards Cracow. As you know, they wrecked the roads, railways, and bridges on their line of retreat, and the work was done with such thoroughness that a whole army must have been detailed for the purpose. So rapidly, however, did the main bodies of the Germans move that they did not even pause to bury their dead properly. Consequently, they left behind them but few prisoners and guns. In some places they had prepared strong positions, but these they abandoned almost without striking a blow.
You know that the Germans had set their hearts on Warsaw, because it would enable them to control the sheaf of railways by means of which the Russians were able to maintain their armies in Poland. The Russians, on the other hand, had set their hearts on Cracow, because it would give them a road along the river Oder to Berlin, and another across the Carpathians to Vienna. Now that the Germans and Austrians were in retreat, the Grand Duke was able to advance again towards Cracow. When the Germans attacked him along the line of the Vistula he had four armies, which we will call A, B, C, D, holding that river. The army A extended from the fortress of Novo Georgievsk to the south of Warsaw; the army B continued the line to the south of Ivangorod; and the armies C and D lay still farther south up to the junction of the San with the Vistula. Along the San was Brussilov's army, which had retreated from Galicia.
The Grand Duke knew that while Brussilov advanced again through Galicia he must protect Brussilov's flank, so that the Germans could not interfere with his movements. In order to do this he must hold the Germans who had retreated towards the Warta by means of armies A, B, and C. If fortune favoured him he might, by means of the army A, roll up the left flank of the Germans, and hem them in between C and his fourth army, D, which was now marching south-east towards Cracow. He therefore hastened the advance of his troops all along the line. Army A advanced along the Vistula towards Thorn, and the cavalry screen of Cossacks, riding hard, was not twenty miles from that fortress on 9th November. Army B struck at the Warta in the neighbourhood of Kolo, and on 10th November its vanguard was actually across the German frontier, and had cut the railway from Posen to Cracow. Meanwhile Army C was striking at the Upper Warta, while Army D was pushing south-east. By 12th November the cavalry of this fourth army had got within twenty miles north of Cracow. While these movements were going on Brussilov was pushing westward once more, and had already reached and reoccupied the main passes of the Western Carpathians.
Everything was going well, and many people in this country fully believed that the Russians would be in Cracow before long. But wiser folks wondered what new move von Hindenburg was about to make. It was not likely that the Germans would sit still under the terribly rough handling which they had recently received. They had lost very heavily, and they had been beaten back to their frontier, but they were still full of fight. On 13th November it was evident that they were going to make a very powerful counter-attack.
Let me remind you of two facts which it is important that you should remember. The first is, that along the Polish frontier the Germans possess a network of railways which enable them to move troops from north to south very rapidly; the second is, that though the Germans had devastated much of Poland they had kept the roads and railways intact in the northern quarter of the country. As soon as von Hindenburg had withdrawn his left and centre behind his own frontier, he put his troops into trains, and hurried them northward to the neighbourhood of Thorn, where he had large reserves. Some of these reserves came from Germany, and some were brought from the Western front. Altogether he gathered in an astonishingly brief time a striking force of about 800,000 men, and behind them he had many thousands more. He now began to push eastward on a forty-mile front between the Warta and the Lower Vistula towards Warsaw once more.
As the roads and railways in this region were good, he hoped to make a rapid advance, and fall on Warsaw before the Russians could bring up reinforcements along the broken railways and ruined roads farther south. Even if his centre were heavily attacked he had the means of retiring rapidly. It was a very ingenious plan which he was now about to carry out. General von Mackensen was to command the armies in the field.
The Russians, you will observe, were very badly placed to meet the sudden thrust that was now about to begin. They were strung out upon a huge curve of a thousand miles in length, and their communications were bad. As the railways had been destroyed, reinforcements from the south would take a long time to come up, and before they could appear von Mackensen hoped to be in Warsaw. The Army A which he had to meet was only about 200,000 strong. Of course it might be strengthened by new forces brought up from behind Warsaw, but in this case, too, there would be much delay. Everything promised a speedy victory for the Germans.
In the next chapter we will see how they fared. In this chapter we will follow the fortunes of the two armies that were advancing on Cracow. I have already told you that the cavalry of Army D under General Dmitrieff, a Bulgarian, who fought bravely in the Balkan War and afterwards offered his sword to Russia, was twenty miles north of Cracow on 12th November. At that time the main body was about sixty miles behind. For three weeks it pushed on slowly but steadily, and meanwhile Brussilov had recaptured Jaroslav, had again besieged Przemysl, and, leaving a force to mask that fortress, was pushing into the passes of the Carpathians, which, as you know, form a great natural barrier between Galicia and the Hungarian plain. As the Carpathians figure largely in this and in future fighting, I will give you a brief description of them now.
The Tatra Range of the Carpathians. Photo, Exclusive News Agency.
The Carpathians curve for 1,000 miles like a huge sickle round the Hungarian plain from the deep trench of the Danube, known as the Iron Gates, to what is called the Moravian Gate, beyond which lie the Bohemian mountains. The southern portion of this range, which barricades Hungary against Rumania, consists of high and bold ridges and lofty rocky tablelands; it forms a stronghold so well fortified by nature that it has been called the "Eastern citadel of Central Europe." That portion of the range which overlooks Galicia may be called the "waist" of the Carpathians, for here it is at its lowest, and is crossed by a number of passes, over which roads and railways have been made. Still farther west, fronting Silesia on the north is the loftiest and boldest part of the range—the High Tatra. Here we find a great mountain wall of granite, with steep, rocky ramparts and jagged crests, varied by beautiful lakes, which lie in the cup-shaped hollows. The High Tatra is as grand in its way as the Alps of Switzerland. Nowhere, however, do the Carpathians reach the snow-line, so the range contains no glaciers such as you find in the Alps. The lower slopes are generally covered with forests of beech, oak, and fir; but higher up, amidst the rocks, even the hardy pine can find no foothold. In the forests of the High Tatra the bear, wolf, and lynx are still to be found.
The part of the Carpathians which chiefly concerns us now is neither the high, bold ridges which look towards Rumania, nor the great rocky wilderness of the High Tatra, but the "waist" which lies between Galicia and the Hungarian plain. No great range of mountains is so easily crossed as this section of the Carpathians. It consists mainly of sandstone, which, for the most part, affords easy slopes, rounded tops, and wide valleys. Here we find the five principal passes by which traffic across the range is maintained. All of these passes are low and easy. They rise from flats in the foothills, which are themselves one thousand to twelve hundred feet above the sea-level, and the highest of them does not rise two thousand feet higher. The summits of one of them, the Dukla Pass, are less than six hundred feet above the last flats of the foothills.
As these passes will occur again and again in the course of our story, it is necessary that we should know their position and something about each of them. The first of them to the east is the Delatyn Pass, the highest of all; then, going west, we reach the Beskid Pass, across which the railway from Lemberg runs down to the Hungarian plain. Still farther west is the Uzsok Pass, which is less than three thousand feet above the sea-level, and carries a good road and a railway. It is probably the most difficult of all the passes to force. The next gateway in order is the Lupkow Pass, which is not two thousand feet above the sea, and is also crossed by road and railway. About twenty miles to the west is the Dukla Pass, which is the lowest and easiest of all. Though it does not carry a railway, it is nevertheless the key to the Western Carpathians. Its saddle is only 1,500 feet above the sea; it is ten miles wide, and can be crossed even in winter by a large army. Whoever holds the Dukla Pass can turn all the passes to the east against an invader coming from either north or south.
Now let us return to the Russian armies invading Galicia. While Brussilov was seizing and holding the Uzsok, Lupkow, and Dukla Passes, Dmitrieff, commanding what I have called Army D, was pushing his way towards Cracow. As he moved westwards he had some heavy fighting to do. He carried a strongly fortified town by assault, and his men waded up to the neck in ice-cold water through the river Raba in the face of a heavy fire. One bitter day they carried trenches and wire entanglements at the point of the bayonet. They were seasoned by forty-five days of almost continuous struggle, and were in the highest spirits. By the end of the first week in December his Cossacks were in the suburbs of Cracow, and his main force was about twelve miles east of the fortress. His right was preparing to wheel round so as to close in on the city from the north, where it was hardest to defend. On 4th December it was only three and a half miles from the outer fortifications.
A month previously, when the Russians were within a hundred miles of the fortress, it was ill prepared to stand a siege. While they were retiring to the San and advancing again, the Austrians had been busy strengthening its defences by making a wide circle of trenches around the city, and putting big movable guns into them, as the French had done at Verdun.[166] No field army, however, had been placed in these trenches, because it was hoped that Mackensen's new move on Warsaw would be sufficient to cause the Russians to retire again. By the end of the first week in December it was clear that Brussilov and Dmitrieff were not going to be drawn off by any threat in Poland, but were going to leave the defence of Warsaw to the other Russian forces. The Austrians now saw that they must attack the Russians in Galicia, unless they were prepared to see Cracow fall into the hands of the enemy.
Two armies were, therefore, launched against the Russians. The first army, which consisted largely of Hungarians, pushed up from the plain to the south through the Carpathian passes in order to sweep Brussilov out of them and then threaten the Russian rear and its lines of communication. Meanwhile a second Austrian army moved from the south-west amongst the foothills of the Carpathians, and struck at the left of the Russians in front of Cracow. The two armies attacked at the same time. On 8th December, while Brussilov was heavily engaged in the mountains, Dmitrieff fought a battle on the outskirts of the city. He held his own well, but he found that the Austrian right was working its way through the higher glens so as to reach the valley of the river Donajetz[167] and threaten his rear, and that at the same time a third force from the direction of the Warta was strongly attacking his right. He was, therefore, obliged to fall back.
Position of the Russians in Galicia at Christmas.
Four days later the Austrians succeeded in seizing the broad and easy pass of the Dukla, and were in a position to pour their forces down upon Galicia, and hold up the rear of Dmitrieff's army while the other army strongly attacked it from the west. The position of the Russians was now very dangerous, and another retirement was necessary. Dmitrieff fell back behind the line of the river Donajetz and its tributary the Biala, so as to cover the mouth of the Dukla Pass. His front now curved from the Vistula to the east of its confluence with the Donajetz, Tarnow on the Biala, past Krosno, and almost to the head-waters of the river San. Brussilov continued the line south-eastwards, and covered the northern exits of the Lupkow Pass and the Uzsok Pass.
There was great disappointment in France and Great Britain when the news arrived that the Russians were again retreating. So far, however, there was no disaster. As long as the enemy could be held in the passes all might yet be well. If, however, the Uzsok Pass, which carries a railway from the Hungarian plain to Przemysl and Lemberg, could be captured by the Austrians, Brussilov would have to retire northwards, in which case the enemy would be able to regain the besieged city of Przemysl. While the struggle was raging in the mountains, the Russians heavily bombarded the city, in the hope of capturing it and setting free the troops that were around it. Unhappily, the bombardment had no effect.
Russian Artillery in the Carpathians. Photo, Record Press.
A few days later the Austrians seized the crest of the Lupkow Pass, and began fighting hard for the Uzsok Pass. Before, however, they could become really dangerous, Russian reinforcements arrived, and a counter-attack began. About 20th December, when the snow lay thick on the mountains and icy blizzards were sweeping across the passes, the Russians once more advanced. The left, swinging south-west from Krosno, seized the mouth of the Dukla Pass, and cut off and captured more than 10,000 Austrians. Meanwhile the centre and right moved forward to the position shown on the map (p. [249]), and by Christmas Day Brussilov was holding the mouths of the Lupkow and Uzsok once more. He did not fear fresh attacks by way of the passes, for the wild wintry weather forbade the passage of troops even across the lowest gaps in the chain. At the end of the year the Russians were still besieging Przemysl, and their right was within forty miles of Cracow.
The city had been saved by the valour of the Hungarians. But for their stubborn fighting in the passes, Dmitrieff would have eaten his Christmas dinner on the banks of the Oder, and his joyful toast to his soldiers would have been, "Onward to Berlin."