A Night Scene before the City of Warsaw. An Engagement in Front of the doomed Capital.
(From the picture by Frédéric de Haenen. By permission of The Illustrated London News.)
"Night fighting," says a correspondent, "is one of the splendid spectacles of war. Flashing batteries, wavering lines of musketry and machine-gun fire, make a picture painted in silver and gold on a background of black. The moon shines behind the gray clouds, shedding a soft radiance just strong enough to shape the shadows. On the western horizon flash after flash springs out of the darkness; these are the distant German guns. Nearer to us the Russian batteries are firing, each piece cutting a red flash of flame into the darkness before its muzzle. Suddenly a blazing rocket shoots up into the heavens and bursts into a shower of silver stars. As they fall slowly, the country beneath is lighted in high relief. A long arm of searchlight shoots across the heavens. A line of sparks reveals a battalion of the advancing enemy."
Such was the Grand Duke's plan. He knew full well all that it involved. Przemysl and Lemberg, at whose capture joy bells had rung throughout all Russia, would have to be left behind. The great city of Warsaw, which had thrice defied von Hindenburg, must be abandoned. The line of the Vistula must be allowed to fall into German hands, and probably the German flag would wave above the great Polish fortresses; but if the armies could be saved, all might yet be well.
In our first volume (page 64) I told you how Napoleon, the greatest war lord that Europe has ever known, marched a great army into Russia in the year 1812, and by so doing rang his death knell. The Russians were now about to repeat the tactics of 1812, and observers in the West prophesied that the Kaiser would be led into the same trap and suffer the same fate. But we must remember that the conditions had changed in many respects since Napoleon's day. He failed chiefly because he could not obtain sufficient supplies. The country through which he advanced had been swept clear of everything but wood and water, and all the food and munitions that his armies needed had to be sent forward by horse-drawn wagons along tracks which frequently ended in morasses. When these wagons failed to reach the troops, the men starved. Nowadays every army is accompanied by engineers who can build roads and light railways very quickly, and so keep the advancing army in touch with its bases. For example, during the campaign which I am about to describe, a German general boasted that his men, who then lay within a hundred miles of Riga, were eating bread baked in Berlin the day before. He also said that his engineers could construct fifty miles of asphalted road in two days. Motor transport has largely superseded the horse, and long distances, given fair roads, can be covered very quickly. Thus you see that in our time Napoleon's great difficulty need not be fatal.
There was, however, much danger in pushing far "into the bowels of the land." As the German lines of communication grew longer and longer, supplies would take more and more time to reach the armies, and there would be more and more chances that the line might be impeded or cut. Thousands of men would have to be taken from the firing-line to hold the railways and roads along which the convoys travelled, and thus the attack would gradually lose force, and at last be unable to resist a vigorous onset by the enemy.
Now we must return to the San, where the Russian armies were lying ready to retreat when the word was given. From the map on page [293] you notice that the Russian lines bulged out in front of Przemysl. Ivanov was prepared to give up this fortress, but not until he had cleared it of everything that might be useful to the enemy. In order to gain time he fought a holding battle in the centre and struck hard on the flanks. On the morning of 15th May his right began a three days' battle, in which the Austrians were well beaten, and after losing 30,000 men had to fall back. The enemy was caught in the open and the Russians plied the bayonet with deadly effect. On the borders of Bukovina the Russian left also had a success, and the enemy was driven back as much as thirty miles. But in the centre, where Mackensen was advancing, a very different state of things prevailed. The salient round Przemysl was fiercely attacked in three places, and its sides were driven in until the neck was less than ten miles across. Attacks were also made at two places farther north. When the Russian line was pierced at these points, the Austro-Germans were able to swing southwards towards the main railway, and the days of Przemysl were numbered.
On 31st May the fortress fell, and at 3.30 on the morning of 2nd June von Mackensen entered the city. The Russians had held it a little over two months. The capture of Przemysl was a great feather in von Mackensen's cap, but it was no great prize. He found it little more than an empty shell. Guns, rolling stock, and supplies had been moved eastwards, and only a little booty fell into his hands.
Why, you ask, did not von Mackensen push on more quickly and keep the Russians on the run? You must remember that his great weapon consisted of an enormous number of heavy guns which could only be moved slowly. As soon as the great machine lumbered up, the Russians were bound to retreat, but while it was slowly advancing to a new position, they were able to hold back the enemy on the wings and send away eastward all the valuable contents of the city. The great danger was always in the centre, where von Mackensen was making his terrible thrust; on the wings the Russians were able to delay the enemy.
The fall of Przemysl compelled the Russians to give ground once more, and on 14th June their line ran as shown in the map on page [293]. While the retreat was proceeding, Brussilov scored a victory. When the German right wing had pushed through the forests from Stryj, had crossed the Dniester, and was travelling by bad country roads, Brussilov caught it at a disadvantage. A three days' battle followed, in which the enemy was flung back across the Dniester with heavy loss. Some 17 guns, 49 machine guns, and more than 15,000 prisoners were captured, including a whole company of the Prussian Guard. Successes on the wings, however, could avail nothing while von Mackensen was blasting his way through the centre.
A glance at the map shows you what a very strong position the Russians held from Grodek southward. In front of the city for fifteen miles there is a series of shallow, swampy lakes, with but few roads crossing the dry ground between them. Farther south lies a great district of marshes. The Russian lines behind the lakes and the marshes could not be forced, but they would be turned if the Germans could break through to the north of Grodek and force the line of the Dniester to the south of the city.
Von Mackensen now moved on a broad front towards Rava Russka, and as soon as his great guns began their terrific onslaught on the Russian lines, the fate of Lemberg was no longer in doubt. On 19th June he broke through, and on the same day the German right wing crossed the Dniester. Next day a fierce battle was fought for Rava Russka. Von Mackensen won it, and then swung his forces southwards in the direction of Lemberg. The Grodek position had been turned, and once more the Russians were forced to retreat. The way to Lemberg was open, and on 22nd June the Austrians entered the city. After nine months the capital of Galicia passed once more into their hands. Vienna, Buda Pest, and scores of other places in Austria-Hungary broke into loud rejoicing. Towns and villages were bedecked with flags, and joyous peals rang out from every belfry.
There was good reason why the Austrians should rejoice at the recovery of Lemberg. They had not only regained the capital of Galicia, but they were once more masters of a city that afforded them a splendid jumping-off place for carrying the war into Russia. As you see by the map, Lemberg is almost on the Russian frontier, and six lines of railway meet in it. So long as the Austrians could hold on to Lemberg, Galicia was safe. Its recapture was, therefore, a triumph for von Mackensen; but though he had reconquered a province and its capital, he had not brought the war any nearer to its end. He had neither shattered the Russian armies nor split them in twain.
It is said that one day in June, just before the fall of Lemberg, the Kaiser met von Hindenburg and his Chief of Staff, von Falkenhayn, in the castle at Posen. The Kaiser was in high spirits, and he declared that the moment had now arrived for the capture of Warsaw. He already saw himself riding into the city at the head of his troops as the conqueror and deliverer of Poland. The two generals gladly agreed with his proposal. They believed that the Western front could be held without much effort, and that with the mighty engine of artillery which they now possessed they could batter through the Russian lines, and seize the great city which had so long defied them.
After the fall of Lemberg, Warsaw formed the apex of a great salient. It could only hold out so long as the two great railway lines which meet in the city were in the hands of the Russians. The first of these routes runs north-east through Grodno, Vilna, and Dvinsk to Petrograd. The other line runs south-east through Ivangorod, Lublin, Cholm, and Rovno to Kiev.[54] Von Mackensen was already pushing northwards towards this southern line of railway, and the Russians were falling back before him. It was now the business of von Hindenburg to advance from East Prussia and capture the northern line. Once the railways were cut, Warsaw would fall. Von Falkenhayn, however, hoped to do more than merely capture the city and a few more thousand square miles of Polish ground. He hoped to make an end of the Russian armies in the salient, and this he proposed to do by carrying out a great enveloping movement. While von Mackensen was pushing on towards the southern railway, he would make a fierce thrust at the northern part of the same salient, in order to cut the Petrograd line between Warsaw and Bialystok. But this was not the whole of the plan. A German army under von Buelow had already overrun Courland,[55] and was not far from Riga. While the two thrusts were being made at the salient, this force was to hack its way south, seize Kovno and Vilna, and cut the Petrograd line far to the eastward. The Russians in the salient would thus be taken in flank and in rear; they would be squeezed between the enemy on the north and the south, and probably would be surrounded and forced to surrender. Russia would thus be crippled for many a month to come, and then the might of Germany could be flung against the Western front.
We will now follow the fortunes of the three great thrusts that were about to be made—the thrust against the southern railway, the thrust against the Petrograd railway between Warsaw and Grodno, and the thrust against the same railway still farther east. Before the end of June five German armies, with von Mackensen in the centre, were moving steadily northwards to cut the southern railway line between Lublin and Kovel. They had now left the railways of Galicia behind them, and were crossing a country of forests, marshy plains, and bad roads. The great guns moved slowly, but the armies met with little opposition, and by 2nd July they were less than thirty miles from the railway.
Round about Krasnik they came into touch with the Russians, who held a strong position, with marshes and streams on their flanks. The army of the Archduke Joseph, to the left of von Mackensen, was heavily assailed, and during four days of attack and counter-attack was driven back with the loss of 15,000 prisoners, a very large number of machine guns, and heavy casualties in dead and wounded. For a week the German advance was checked. It began again on 16th July, when von Mackensen, who had bridged the marshy streams, was able to get his big guns working. Once more he blasted his way through, and on the 18th was within ten miles of the railway.
Now let us see what was going on in the north. On 14th July von Buelow's army in Courland began to push forward, and at the same time another army attacked the Niemen front. The great thrust against the Warsaw salient was entrusted to von Gallwitz, who now advanced against the line of the Narev. He made good progress, and the Russians fell back, fighting stubbornly. They retired across the Narev on the 20th, and three days later von Gallwitz won several crossings of the river. By means of one of these crossings he pushed forward until by 25th July, though the river line had not yet been won on a broad front, he lay within twenty miles of the Warsaw-Petrograd railway. Meanwhile the German heavy guns were battering down the outworks of the river fortresses, and the army of the Niemen was within sixty miles of Vilna.
The Warsaw salient was now in great peril. Spears had been planted against its breast in three different directions. At the apex a spearhead was but fifteen miles away; another was only ten miles from the southern railway, and a third was but twenty miles from the northern railway. The fortified line of the Narev had been broken through, and the salient was doomed. Once more the Grand Duke had to make a decision upon which hung the fate of the Russian armies. Should he try by means of the great Polish triangle of fortresses—Novo Georgievsk, Ivangorod, Brest Litovski—to hold the salient, or should he sacrifice Poland and fall back to the east? The second course was by far the more difficult. To withdraw his armies along the three railways left to him, while the spearheads were closing in hour by hour, and any day two of the three roads of escape might be lost, was a most perilous task. His wornout troops would have to hold the sides of the salient for some weeks while the main body retired. If the sides were forced in, it was more than likely that his armies would be utterly overwhelmed. It seemed easier to hold on to the fortresses, and hope that in some way or other the enemy might be checked.
The Grand Duke refused to take any risks; he chose the more difficult task. He determined to withdraw his armies from Poland altogether, and fall back eastward and ever eastward, until his forces could be properly fed with munitions and were ready to make a stand. It was a great resolve, and few commanders would have dared to make it. Probably no other army could have made such a retirement without losing heart altogether, and hopelessly breaking down.
The last days of July saw strange scenes in Warsaw. The whole city was stripped of everything that might be useful to the enemy. The great factories were dismantled, and their plant sent eastward. Gold from the banks, books and papers from the Government offices, relics and sacred pictures from the churches, bells from the towers, copper from the roofs, wire from the telegraph poles—all were piled on great wagons which followed each other in a long procession across the Vistula bridges. Half a million of the city's inhabitants streamed eastwards in carts and in hackney carriages. Only the Poles and the poorest of the Jews remained.
About 24th July the forces in front of Warsaw began to fall back into the suburbs of the city. Meanwhile along the Narev a fierce holding battle was being fought to enable the troops in the northern part of the salient to get away. Five days later Mackensen cut the southern line between Lublin and Cholm, and the sides of the triangle were fast closing in. By this time all the stores and guns were safe, and the troops in the centre were moving through the city. Every day German aeroplanes dropped bombs in the streets, and soon, as the German shells burst among the houses, great fires began to flame up in the western suburbs. At three o'clock on the morning of Thursday, 5th August, three loud explosions shook the city. The Vistula bridges had been blown up.
Three hours later German cavalry galloped in, and that evening Prince Leopold of Bavaria with his suite rode through the streets on the way to the palace. On the eastern horizon he saw the red glow which Napoleon had seen—the flames rising from crops and villages which the Russians had fired as they fell back before the invader.
The Kaiser made no state entry into Warsaw. His exultation, however, appeared in the following telegram which he sent to his sister, the Queen of Greece: "My destructive sword has crushed the Russians. They will need six months to recover. In a short time I will announce new victories won by my brave soldiers, who have shown themselves invincible in battle against nearly the whole world. The war drama is now coming to a close."