CHAPTER LXXVII
FIRST GERMAN DRIVE AGAINST WARSAW
We have already spoken of the strategic position of Russian Poland, of its vulnerability, exposed as it is to attack from the Central Powers on three sides, and finally what Russia had done to strengthen Poland's natural line of defense, the Vistula River, by building fortresses on its most important points. It may be well to recall here that the lower part of this river flows through West Prussia, from Thorn to the Gulf of Danzig. For almost a hundred miles, from Thorn to Novo Georgievsk, it cannot actually be considered of defensive value to Russia; flowing slightly northwest from the latter fortress to the border it is open to German use on either side. But at that point, about twenty miles northwest of Warsaw, any army coming along its valley would have to take first this important fortress before it could continue farther into central Poland. Should it fail in this it would have to withdraw its forces from the right bank and then force a crossing at some point between Novo Georgievsk and the point where the Vistula enters Russian Poland from Austrian Poland, a few miles east of Cracow. It is at this point also that the Vistula is swelled by its most important contributary, the Bug River, which, roughly speaking, flows parallel to the Vistula at a distance of about seventy miles from the Galician border to a point on the Vilna-Warsaw railroad, about fifty miles east of Warsaw, where it bends toward the west to join the Vistula. The Bug River thus forms a strong secondary natural line of defense. In the north the Narew—a tributary of the Bug—forms an equally strong barrier against an army advancing from East Prussia.
There cannot be much doubt that the plan of the Central Powers originally was to take Poland without having to overcome these very formidable obstacles. If Von Hindenburg had succeeded after the battle of Tannenberg in crossing the Niemen, and if, at about the same time the Austro-Hungarians had also succeeded in defeating their Russian adversaries in Galicia, described in another chapter, this object could have been accomplished very easily by a concerted advance of both along the east bank of the Bug, with Brest-Litovsk as the most likely point of junction. The result would have been twofold: in the first place all of Poland would have been in the hands of the Central Powers; for Russia either would have had to withdraw its forces from there before their three main lines of retreat—the railroads from Warsaw to Petrograd, Moscow, Kiev—had been cut by the invaders, or else the latter would have been in a position to destroy them leisurely, having surrounded them completely. In the second place it would have meant the shortening of the eastern front by hundreds of miles, making it practically a straight line from the Baltic Sea to some point on the Russo-Galician frontier.
In the preceding chapters, however, we have seen that up to the beginning of October, 1914, neither the Germans nor the Austrians had accomplished this object. The former had to satisfy themselves with having cleared their own soil in East Prussia of the Russian invaders and with keeping it free from further invasions, while the latter were being pressed harder and harder every day and had to figure with a possible invasion of Hungary. It was then that the Central Powers decided to invade Poland from the west, and thus gradually drove out the Russians. Why they persisted in their efforts to gain possession of Russian Poland is clear enough. For in addition to the above-mentioned advantage of shortening and straightening their front, they would also deprive Russia of one of its most important and populous centers of industry, in which the czar's domain was not overrich, and it would remove forever this dangerous indentation in the back of the German Empire.
Before we consider in detail the first German drive for Warsaw, it is also necessary to consider briefly political conditions in Russian Poland.
Ever since the partition of the old Kingdom of Poland among Germany, Austria, and Russia, the Polish provinces created thereby for these three empires had been a continuous source of trouble and worry to each. The Poles are well known for their intense patriotism, which perhaps is only a particular manifestation of one of their general racial characteristics—temperament. At any rate the true Pole has never forgotten the splendid past of his race, nor has he ever given up hope for a reestablishment of its unity and independence. It is a rather difficult question to answer whether Russia, Germany, or Austria have sinned most against their Polish subjects. The fact remains, however, that all three most ruthlessly suppressed all Polish attempts to realize their national ideals. It is equally true that Russia went further along that line than either Germany or Austria, and on the other hand did less for its Polish subjects than the other two countries. Both in Germany and Austria there existed therefore a more or less well-defined idea that the Russian Poles would welcome German and Austrian troops with open arms as their saviors from the Russian yoke. In Russia a certain amount of anxiety existed about what the Poles would do. The latter, in a way, at the beginning of the war found themselves facing a most difficult alternative. That their country would at some time or other become a battling ground of the contending armies was quite evident. Whether Russia or the Central Powers would emerge as the final victor was at least open to dispute. Whatever side the Poles chose, might be the wrong side and bring to them the most horrible consequences. It was undoubtedly with this danger in view that the "Gazeta Warzawska" printed on August 15, 1914, an editorial which in part read as follows:
"Remain passive, watchful, insensible to temptation.
"During the coming struggle the Kingdom of Poland will be the marching ground of various armies; we shall see temporary victors assuming lordship for a while; but change of authority will follow, and inevitable retaliation; this several times, perhaps, in the course of the campaign. Therefore every improvident step will meet with terrible revenge. By holding firm through the present conflict you best can serve the Polish cause. In the name of the love you bear your country, of your solicitude for the nation's future, we entreat you, fellow countrymen, to remain deaf to evil inspirations, unshakable in your determination not to expose our land to yet greater calamities, and Poland's whole future to incalculable perils."
This, of course, was far from being a rousing appeal to support Russia's cause, but it was even further from being a suggestion to support that of the Central Powers and revolt against Russia. Polish newspapers of the next day printed a proclamation signed by the Commander in Chief Grand Duke Nicholas prophesying the fulfillment of the Polish dream of unity, at least, even if under the Russian scepter, and promising a rebirth of Poland "free in faith, in language, in self-government."
On August 17, 1914, four of the Polish political parties published a manifesto in which they welcomed this proclamation and expressed their belief in the ultimate fulfillment of the promises made. The net result of the sudden three-cornered bid for Polish friendship and support, then, seems to have been that the leaders of Polish nationalism had decided to abstain from embarrassing Russia, even though their resistance against Germany and Austria with both of which other Poles were fighting was not always very deep-seated.
During the first month of the war practically nothing of importance happened in the Polish territory. German detachments occupied some of the towns right across the border, in many instances for a short time only. Mlawa, Kalish, and Czestochowa were the most important places involved.
On August 31, 1914, however, the occupation of Radom, about 130 miles from the German frontier, was reported, and a few days later that of Lodz, next to Warsaw the biggest city of Russian Poland and an important manufacturing center. At about the same time all of the places along two of the railroads running from Germany to Warsaw, Thorn to Warsaw, and Kalish to Warsaw, as far as Lowitz, where they meet, were occupied. In this territory the Germans immediately proceeded to repair the railroad bridges destroyed by the retreating Russians, who, apparently, had decided to fall back to their defenses on the Vistula. The Germans must have felt themselves fairly secure in their possession of this territory, for on September 15, 1914, Count Meerveldt, then governor of the Prussian Province of Münster, was appointed its civil governor. A day later the commanding general (Von Morgen) published a proclamation, addressed to the inhabitants of the two provinces of Lomza and Warsaw. In it he announced the defeat of the Russian Narew Army and Rennenkampf's retreat and stated that larger forces were following his own army corps, which latter considered them as its friends and had been ordered to treat them accordingly. He called upon them to rise against their Russian oppressors and to assist him in driving them out of beautiful Poland which afterward was to receive at the hands of the German Emperor political and religious liberty.
About ten days later the "additional stronger forces," which General von Morgen had prophesied, put in an appearance. They consisted of four separate armies, one advancing along the Thorn-Warsaw railroad, another along the Kalish-Warsaw line, a third along the Breslau-Czestochowa-Kielce-Radom-Ivangorod railroad, and the fourth from Cracow in the same direction. Just how large these four armies were is not absolutely known. Estimates range all the way from 500,000 to 1,500,000 which makes it most likely that the real strength was about 1,000,000. Of these all but the Fourth Army were made up of German soldiers, whereas the Cracow Army consisted of Austrians, forming the left wing of their main forces which about that time had been rearranged in western Galicia.
By the time all of these armies were ready to advance, the victor of Tannenberg, Von Hindenburg—who meanwhile had been raised to the rank of field marshal—had been put in supreme command of the combined German and Austro-Hungarian armies in Poland. Though he was fighting now on territory concerning which he had at least no superior knowledge than his adversaries, his energy made itself felt immediately. He pushed the advance of his four armies at an overpowering rate of speed and forced the Russians, who apparently were not any too sure, either about the strength of the opposing forces or their ultimate plans, to fall back everywhere. By October 5 the Russians, attempting to make a desperate stand near Radom, had been forced back almost as far as Ivangorod, and within the week following the Austro-German army, still further south, had reached the Vistula between the Galician border and Ivangorod. The advance of the Germans as well as the retreat of the Russians took place under terrific difficulties, caused by torrential rains which poured down incessantly. Some interesting details may be learned from a letter written about that time by a German officer in charge of a heavy munition train: "From Czestochowa we advanced in forced marches. During the first two days roads were passable, but after that they became terrible, as it rained every day. In some places there were no roads left, nothing but mud and swamps. Once it took us a full hour to move one wagon, loaded with munitions and drawn by fifteen horses, a distance of only fifteen yards.... Horses sank into the mud up to their bodies and wagons up to their axles.... One night we reached a spot which was absolutely impassable. The only way to get around it was through a dense forest, but before we could get through there it was necessary to cut an opening through the trees. For the next few hours we felled trees for a distance of over five hundred yards.... For the past eight days we have been on the go almost every night, and once I stayed in my saddle for thirty consecutive hours. During all that time we had no real rest. Either we did not reach our quarters until early in the morning or late at night. What a bed feels like we've forgotten long ago. We consider ourselves lucky if we have one room and straw on the floor for the seven of us. For ten days I have not been out of my clothes. And when we do get a little sleep it is almost invariably necessary to start off again at once.... Even our food supplies have become more scarce day by day. Long ago we saw the last of butter, sausage, or similar delicacies. We are glad if we have bread and some lard. Only once in a great while are we fortunate enough to buy some cattle. But then a great feast is prepared.... Tea is practically all that we have to drink.... The hardships, as you can see, are somewhat plentiful; but in spite of this fact I am in tiptop condition and feeling wonderfully well. Sometimes I am astonished myself what one can stand."
Early in October, 1914, the Germans came closer and closer to Warsaw. At the end of it they were in the south, within twenty miles of the old Polish capital—at Grojec. At that time only a comparatively small force, not more than three army corps, was available, under General Scheidemann's command, for its defense. These, however—all of them made up of tried Siberian troops—fought heroically for forty-four hours, especially around the strongly fortified little town of Blonie, about ten miles west of Warsaw. The commander in chief of all the Russian armies, Grand Duke Nicholas, had retired with his staff to Grodno, and Warsaw expected as confidently a German occupation as the Germans themselves. But suddenly the Russians, who up to that time seem to have underestimated the strength of the Germans, awoke to the desperate needs of the situation. By a supreme effort they contrived to concentrate vast reenforcements to the east of Warsaw within a few days and to change the proportion of numbers before Warsaw from five to three in favor of the Germans to about three to one in their own favor.
On October 10, 1914, panic reigned supreme in Warsaw. Although the Government tried to dispel the fears of the populace by encouraging proclamations, the thunder of the cannons, which could be heard incessantly, and the very evident lack of strong Russian forces, spoke more loudly. Whoever could afford to flee and was fortunate enough to get official sanction to leave, did so. The panic was still more intensified when German aeroplanes and dirigibles began to appear in the sky. For fully ten days the fighting lasted around the immediate neighborhood of the city. Day and night, bombs thrown by the German air fleet exploded in all parts of the city, doing great damage to property and killing and wounding hundreds of innocent noncombatants. Day and night could be heard the roar of the artillery fire, and nightfall brought the additional terror of the fiery reflection from bursting shrapnel. The peasants from the villages to the west and south streamed into the city in vast numbers. Thousands of wounded coming from all directions added still more to the horror and excitement.
The hardest fighting around Blonie occurred from October 13 to 17, 1914. On the 13th the Germans were forced to evacuate Blonie, and on October 14 Pruszkow, a little farther south and still nearer to Warsaw. On October 15 the Russians made a wonderful and successful bayonet attack on another near-by village, Nadarzyn. The next day, the 16th, saw almost all of this territory again in the hands of the Germans, and on the 17th they succeeded even in crossing the Vistula over a pontoon bridge slightly south of Warsaw. However, even then the arrival of Russian reenforcements made itself felt, for after a short stay on the right bank of the Vistula the Germans were thrown back by superior Russian forces. All that day the fighting went on most furiously and lasted deep into the night. The next day at last the Russian armies had all been assembled.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER LXXVIII
GERMAN RETREAT FROM RUSSIAN POLAND
On October 19, 1914, the Germans, who apparently had accurate information concerning the immense numbers which they now faced, gave up the attack and began their retreat. The retreat was carried out with as much speed and success as the advance. By October 20 the Germans had gone back so far that the Russian advance formations could not keep up with them and lost track of them. Without losing a gun, the First German Army managed to escape the pursuing Russians as well as to evade two attempts—one from the south and one from the north—to outflank them and cut off their retreat.
During the fighting before Warsaw the total front on which the Russian armies were battling against the German and Austrian invaders of Poland was about 160 miles long, stretching from Novo Georgievsk in the north, along the Vistula, through Warsaw and Ivangorod to Sandomir at the Galician border in the south. All along this line continuous fighting went on, and the heaviest of it, besides that directly before Warsaw, took place around the fortress of Ivangorod. Two attempts of the Russians to get back to the left side of the Vistula on October 12 and 14, 1914, were frustrated under heavy losses on both sides. A German soldier states in a letter written home during the actual fighting before Ivangorod that at the end of one day, out of his company of 250, only 85 were left—the other 66 per cent having been killed or wounded.
Just as the Russians had succeeded in assembling sufficient reenforcements at Warsaw, to make it inevitable for the German forces to retreat, they had brought equally large numbers to the rescue of Ivangorod. However, these did not make themselves really felt there until October 27, 1914. Previous to that date the Germans and Austrians captured over 50,000 Russians and thirty-five guns. When, on October 23 and 24, 1904, aeroplane scouts discovered the approaching vast reenforcements, and similar reports were received from the First Army fighting around Warsaw, the German and Austrian forces were all withdrawn. The retreat of these groups of armies was accomplished much in the same way as of that in the north, except that it began later and brought with it more frequent and more desperate rear-guard actions. The Russians, who were trying desperately to inflict as much damage as possible to the retreating enemy, showed wonderful courage and heroic disregard of death. In some places, however, the Germans had prepared strong, even if temporary, intrenchments, sometimes three or more lines deep, and the storming of these cost their opponents dearly.
By October 24, 1914, the invaders had been forced back in the south as far as Radom and in the north to Skierniewice; by October 28 Radom as well as Lodz had been evacuated and were again in Russian hands. The lines of retreat were the same as those of advance had been, namely, the railroads from Warsaw to Thorn, Kalish, and Cracow. Much damage was done to these roads by the Germans in order to delay as much as possible the pursuit of the Russians. Considerable fighting occurred, however, whenever one of the rivers along the line of retreat was reached; so along the Pilitza, the Rawka, the Bzura, and finally the Warta. By the end of the first week of November the German-Austrian armies had been thrown back across their frontiers, and all of Russian Poland was once more in the undisputed possession of Russia.
In a measure Von Hindenburg followed the example of his Russian adversaries when he withdrew his forces from Poland into Upper Silesia in November, 1914, after the unsuccessful first drive against Warsaw, of which we have just read the details. His reasons for taking this step were evident enough. When it had been established definitely that the reenforcements which Russia had been able to gather made futile any further hope of taking Warsaw with the forces at his command, only two possibilities remained to the German general: To make a stand to the west of the Vistula until reenforcements could be brought up, or to fall back to his bases and there concentrate enough additional forces to make a new drive for Poland. He chose the latter, undoubtedly because it was the safer and less costly in lives.
How quickly the German retreat was accomplished we have already seen. In spite of their rapidity, however, the Germans found time to hold up the Russians, not only by severe rear-guard actions, but also by destroying in the most thorough manner the few railroad lines that led out of Poland. In this connection they proved themselves to be as much past masters in the art of disorganization as they had hitherto shown themselves to be capable of the highest forms of organization.
About November 10, 1914, Von Hindenburg had completed his regrouping. The line along which the Russians were massed against him stretched from the point where the Niemen enters East Prussia, slightly east of Tilsit, along the eastern and southern border of East Prussia to the Vistula at Wloclawek, from there to the Warta at Kola, where it turns to the west, along and slightly to the east of this river through Uniejow-Zdouska-Wola to Novo Radowsk. From there it passed to the north of Cracow in a curve toward Galicia, where strong Russian armies were forcing back the Austrians on and beyond the Carpathians. Along this vast front—considerably over 500 miles long—the Russians had drawn up forces which must have amounted very nearly to forty-five army corps, or over 2,000,000 men. These were distributed as follows: The Tenth Army faced the eastern border of East Prussia west of the Niemen; the First Army the southern border of this province, north of the Narew and both north and south of the Vistula; the Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Armies, forming the main forces of the Russians, fronted along the Warta against lower Posen and Upper Silesia, while the balance of the Russian armies had been thrown against the Austro-Hungarian forces in Galicia.
Against these Von Hindenburg had three distinct armies which were available for offensive purposes. The central army under General von Mackensen was concentrated between Thorn and the Warta River; a southern army had been formed north of Cracow and along the Upper Silesian border, and was made up chiefly of Austro-Hungarian forces with a comparatively slight mingling of German troops. North of the Vistula, between Thorn and Soldau, a third and weaker army had been collected for the protection of West Prussia. In Galicia, of course, stood the main body of the Austro-Hungarian forces, and in East Prussia defenses had been prepared which made it possible to leave there weaker formations for defensive purposes only.
The Germans fully appreciated the danger of the Russian numerical superiority. If these mighty forces were once allowed to get fully under way and develop a general offensive along the entire front, the German cause would be as good as lost. The main object of Von Hindenburg, therefore, was to break this vast offensive power, and he decided to do so by an offensive of his own which, if possible, was to set in ahead of that of the Russians. Though the latter most likely had at least one-third more men at their disposal than he, he had one advantage over them, a wonderfully developed network of railroads, running practically parallel to this entire line. The Russians, on the other hand, had nothing but roads running from east to west or from north to south, which could be used as feeders only from a central point to a number of points along their semicircular line. Troops having once been concentrated could be thrown to another point if it was at any distance at all only by sending them back to the central point and then sending them out again on another feeder, or else by long and difficult marches which practically almost took too much time to be of any value. Von Hindenburg could, if need be, concentrate any number of his forces at a given point, deliver there an attack in force and then concentrate again at another point for a similar purpose, almost before his adversary could suspect his purpose. His plan was to attack with his strongest forces under Von Mackensen the weakest point of the Russian line between the Vistula and the Warta, beat them there and then march from the north against the right wing of the main forces of the Russians, which latter was to be kept from advancing too far by the mixed Austrian and German army. On his two outmost flanks, in East Prussia and East Galicia, nothing but defensive actions were contemplated.
The Russian plan was somewhat similar, except that their main attack apparently was to be directed in the south against Cracow, and from there against the immensely important industrial center of Silesia. At the same time, they intended to press as hard as possible their attacks in East Prussia and Galicia in order to force a weakening of the German center.[Back to Contents]