CHAPTER XLV
BATTLE OF KRASNIK—CAPTURE OF PRZASNYSZ
On July 2, 1915, the forces of the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand which had passed through Krasnik, on the Lublin road, struck serious resistance from the Russian army of General Loesche which held strong positions across the highway, just to the north of the town, and was now evidently determined to stop once for all the Teuton advance toward the railway at its back, connecting Warsaw with Kiev, through Lublin and Cholm.
On July 3, 1915, the Austrian report, however, announced that 4,800 prisoners and three machine guns had been taken in the neighborhood of Krasnik and along the Por stream, and the next day they reported that they had occupied the heights which run along to the north of the city, having pierced the enemy's main position on both sides of Studzianki, and taken more than 1,000 prisoners, three machine guns and three cannon.
The Russian front was turned to such an extent that they had to fall back some three miles on the Lublin road. The Austrians on the 5th of July summed up their enemy's losses as twenty-nine officers, 8,000 men, six cannon, five ammunition wagons, and six machine guns. As the result of this Austrian advance the adjoining enemy forces to the eastward along the Wieprz River had been obliged to fall back beyond Tarnograd, and by the 6th of July Vienna summarized the Austrian captures in these battles as having grown to forty-one officers, 11,500 men.
The Austrians, however, could make no further headway. On July 5, 1915, they were heavily attacked, being forced back to their intrenched lines on a ridge of hills to the north of Krasnik. The Russians now reported that they had taken 15,000 prisoners and a large number of machine guns. Two thousand bodies were reported by the Russians to have been found before their front. More prisoners were taken by the Russians on the 7th and it was only on the afternoon of July 9 that the Austrians were able to stem the tide. The total loss of the Austrians in this action was given by their opponents as 15,000 men.
The Austrian explanation of their retirement in front of Krasnik issued on July 11, 1915, pointed out that the relative subsidence of activity of the Teutonic allies was due to the fact that the goal set for the Lemberg campaign had now been attained. This, they explained, was the taking of the city and the securing of strong defensive positions to the east and north. The ridge to the northward of Krasnik was a natural choice for this purpose on the north, while the line of the Zlota Lipa and Bug rivers served the purpose toward the east (see Austro-Russian campaign). The Austrian explanation pointed out further that some of their troops had rushed beyond the positions originally selected to meet heavy reenforcements brought up by the Russians from Lublin, and that these had to withdraw to the ridge, where they were successfully resisting all attacks.
The battle of Krasnik was regarded by the Russians as an effective victory, for it seemed to have halted the advance on Lublin. The army of Von Mackensen had now also come to a stop about halfway between Zamosc and Krasnostav, an artillery duel on July 7, 1915, being the last activity noted on the front of this army for some time.
Their comparative quiet in the region between the Vistula and the Bug where the main advance of the Teutonic forces on the south had been under way with great vigor for several weeks until the check at Krasnik was not interrupted until July 16, 1915. Day after day the Teutonic headquarters reported "nothing of importance" in this quarter. When the quiet was finally broken it appeared that it had been the lull before the storm. Before taking up again the activities on this section of the front, it will be necessary to take a glance toward the northern half of the great arc that enveloped the Warsaw salient on two sides.
In these early days of July, 1915, considerable uncertainty prevailed among those who were watching the progress of the campaign in Poland as to where the heaviest blow of the Teutons would fall, whether from the south or the north. The decisive stroke came with lightning suddenness. A tremendous attack was launched in the direction of the Narew by the army of General von Gallwitz.
A laconic announcement of the German General Staff on July 14, 1915, bore momentous news, although its modest wording scarcely betrayed the facts. It read: "Between the Niemen and the Vistula, in the region of Walwarga, southwest of Kolno, near Przasnysz and south of Mlawa, our troops have achieved some local successes." The Russian report referring to the beginning of the same action was equally noncommittal, though possibly more misleading. This states: "Considerable enemy forces between the Orczy and the Lidynja adopted the offensive and the Russians declining a decisive engagement retreated during the night of the 13th to the second line of their positions."
On July 15, 1915, the Germans announced that the city of Przasnysz, for which such hot battles had been fought in February, and which had since been strongly fortified by the Russians, had been occupied by them. The German summary of this action given out a few days later stated that three Russian defensive lines lying one behind the other northwest and northeast of Przasnysz had been pierced and taken, the troops at once rushing forward to Dzielin and Lipa, respectively west and east of the town. Under attack from these two points the Russians after yielding Przasnysz, on the 14th, retired to their defensive line Ciechanow-Krasnosielc which had been prepared long beforehand. On the 15th the German troops pressing closer upon the retiring Slavs stormed this line and broke through it to the south of Zielona on a breadth of seven kilometers, forcing the Russians again to retire. General von Gallwitz's troops in this assault were supported by the forces of General von Scholtz, on their left, who were pressing the Russians from the direction of Kolno. On July 16, 1915, the Russians were retreating on the whole front between the Pissa and the Vistula, toward the Narew.
The German summary of the fighting during these days reported the capture by the army of General von Gallwitz of eighty-eight officers, 17,500 men, thirteen cannon (including one heavy gun), forty machine guns, and seven mine throwers; and by the army of General von Scholtz of 2,500 prisoners and eight machine guns.
This great attack in the north, to which may be ascribed the final breaking of the lines that had so long protected Warsaw, had been carefully planned and undoubtedly was timed in coordination with the movements of Mackensen's armies on the south, striking the Russians just when Mackensen and the Archduke Josef, having had time for recuperation and preparation for another push forward after the check administered at Krasnik, were in readiness to inflict a heavy blow on their side of the Warsaw salient. When it began the German lines all along the front burst into fresh activity. It was the signal for a simultaneous assault along nearly a thousand miles of battle front.
In the Mlawa sector to the north of Przasnysz the Russians had developed an exceedingly strong system of fortified positions between their advance lines and the Narew fortresses. For miles, to a depth of from fifteen to twenty kilometers, there ran some three or four and at certain points even five systems of trenches, one behind the other. Hundreds of thousands of thick tree trunks had been worked into these defensive works and millions of sand bags piled up as breastwork. Bombproof dugouts had been constructed deep in the ground. Everywhere there were strong wire entanglements before the front, sometimes sunk below the level of the earth, arranged in from two to three rows. Projecting bastions and thoroughly protected observation posts gave these systems of trenches the character of permanent fortifications.
The country in this region is hilly, with here and there steep declivities and peaks of considerable elevation. The Russians had cut down whole stretches of forest in order to afford them a free field for their fire and an opportunity to observe the advance of their opponents. Enveloping tactics on the part of the Germans were here quite excluded as the two lines ran uninterruptedly close to one another. Przasnysz which had become a heap of ruins had been converted virtually into a fortress by strong defensive works built while the Germans and Russians lay opposite each other in front of it throughout the spring. The country round about had been drenched with much German and Russian blood.
General von Gallwitz, to capture a place with the least possible loss, decided to break through the Russian defenses at two points at both sides of the town sufficiently close to each other so that the intervening lines would be immediately affected. His attacks were therefore directed at the first line Russian positions, which formed projecting angles to the northwest and northeast of Przasnysz so that instead of taking the city directly from the front he would seize it as with a gigantic pair of pincers from both sides and behind. The plan succeeded to the full. The Russian lines were broken on both sides of the city and the German troops, rushing through, met behind it, forcing the Russian defenders hastily to evacuate the place to avoid being caught within the circle.
Strong infantry forces were collected opposite the points of attack, and enormous masses of artillery were placed in position with abundance of ammunition in readiness. The preparations had been made with all possible secrecy and even when the German batteries had begun gradually to get their range by testing shots no serious assault seems to have been expected by the Russians. On the morning of the attack they were just to inaugurate service on a small passenger railway line they had constructed behind their front.
On the morning of July 13, 1915, soon after sunrise, a tremendous cannonade was let loose from guns of all calibers. Although the weather was rainy and not well fitted for observation the German guns seem to have found their marks with great accuracy. When the German infantry stormed the first line of works which had been shattered by the artillery fire they met with comparatively little resistance and their losses were small. The bombardment apparently had done its work thoroughly. The German infantry rushes were started in successive intervals of a quarter of an hour, line following line. Swarms of unarmed Russians could be seen coming out of the trenches seeking to save themselves from the terrible effect of the shell fire by surrendering. During the course of the forenoon the sun came out and illuminated a scene of terrific destruction. The Russian positions on the heights northwest of Przasnysz had been completely leveled. In their impetuous forward rush the German troops did not give the enemy time to make a stand in his second line of trenches and overrunning this, by night began to enter the third Russian defensive line. Przasnysz was flanked in the course of twenty-four hours and could no longer be held. A fine rain was falling as the German columns marched through the deserted, smoke-blackened city, a melancholy setting for a victory.
On July 14, 1915, the German troops had broken through on both sides of the city, met to the south of it and forming a mighty battering ram, on the next day, forced the next Russian line, the last, to the north of the Narew. This ran through Wysogrod-Ciechanow-Zielona to Kranosiele. The Russians here made a desperate defense and the German advance pushed forward but slowly. The effect of the German artillery fire seems not to have been as striking as on the first day of battle. The German report of the attack on this line points out that the regiment of the Guard holding the right wing of a division which was to attack the heights to the south and southeast of Zielona was impatient to go forward, and was allowed to advance before the reserves which were to be held in readiness to support the move had come up.
However, confident of the accuracy with which the "black brothers" (shells from the big guns) struck the enemy's trenches, the riflemen leapt forward through fields of grain as soon as they saw that a gust of their shells had struck in front of them. By means of signs which been agreed upon they then signaled their new positions and the guns laid their fire another hundred meters farther forward. The infantrymen then stormed ahead into the newly made shell craters. Thus they went forward again and again. Neither Russian fire nor the double barbed wire entanglements were able to check their assaults.
As the German shouts rolled forth the Russians ran. A neighboring division consisting of young men who had enlisted in the course of the war, in a brilliant charge took a bastion at Klosnowo. The effect of this first penetration of the Russian main position made itself felt in the course of the afternoon and night along the whole front. Further German forces were thrown into the breach and strove to widen it.
The Russians at many points resisted obstinately, but under the pressure from the front and in the flank they were finally unable to hold their ground. The German account speaks with admiration of the ride to death of a Russian cavalry brigade which attacked the German infantry southeast of Opinozura without achieving any results. Cossacks and Hussars were mowed down in an instant.
The German advance taking several intermediate places did not halt until it stood before the fortification of the Narew line itself. As a result or this stroke the German troops had advanced some forty to fifty kilometers into hostile territory on a breadth of a hundred and twenty kilometers and had captured some 10,000 prisoners and much war material. By the 18th of July, 1915, German trains were running as far as Ciechanow.
Advances were likewise made by the Germans to the right of the attack on the Przasnysz positions on both sides of the Mlawa-Ciechanow Railway, rolling up the Russian positions as far as Plonsk. On the left progress had also been made and heavy fighting done, but the German great headquarters pointed out that in times to come history will assign the important place to the central feature of this great offensive by General von Gallwitz, that is the enveloping attack at Przasnysz and the ramming thrust at Zielona.
The report issued by the Russian General Staff on July 19, 1915, admitted that to the west of Omulev their troops had withdrawn to the Narew bridgeheads on the 17th. The points of some of the German columns on this day, in fact, came within the range of the artillery of the fortress of Novo-Georgievsk and the army of General von Scholtz reached the line of the Bobr and the Narew between Osowice and Ostrolenka. The action at Przasnysz had been decisive. It resulted ultimately in the relinquishing by the Russians of the lines of the Rawka and Bzura which had been so stubbornly held against the Germans in the long defense of Warsaw. The troops directly charged here with defending the capital fell back to the Blonie lines about fifteen miles from the city.
CHAPTER XLVI
GRAND OFFENSIVE ON THE WARSAW SALIENT
The great stroke at Przasnysz was the most dramatic feature of a grand offensive all around the German lines that were endeavoring to close in upon the Russian armies. On July 16, 1915, the Archduke Joseph struck hard at the Russians on the Krasnik-Lublin road in an endeavor to carry the fortified positions at Wilkolaz. His men, however, were thrown back after ten furious assaults. Krasnostav, on the road to Cholm, was attacked on the same day by the army or General von Mackensen, and after a series of desperate rear-guard actions had been fought by the Russians was swept over by the German Allies. By the close of the day the Germans had taken twenty-eight officers, 6,380 men, and nine machine guns.
The Germans, prepared in the recent pause in the fighting, by the bringing up of their artillery on the long lines of communication which now stretched behind them, with troops reenforced by such fresh forces as they could muster, were hurling themselves upon the Russian defensive positions everywhere along the line. Thus, on the forenoon of July 17, 1915, the army of General von Woyrsch, whose objective was the mighty fortress Ivangorod, operating just to the west of the upper Vistula, broke through the Russian wire entanglements and stormed the enemy's trenches on a stretch of 2,000 meters. The breach was widened in desperate hand-to-hand combat. The Teutons by evening inflicted a heavy defeat on the Moscow Grenadier Corps at this point and the Russians were forced to retreat behind the Ilzanka to the south of Swolen. Some 2,000 men were taken prisoners by the Germans in this battle and five machine guns were captured.
Far in the northeast in Courland the army of General von Bülow, on July 17, 1915, defeated Russian forces that had been rushed up at Alt-Auz, taking 3,620 prisoners, six cannon and three machine guns, and pursuing the Slavs in an easterly direction. Desperate fighting was also taking place to the northeast of Kurschany.
Notes of anxiety mixed with consoling speculations had begun to appear in the press of the allied countries when the vast German offensive had thus become plainly revealed and had demonstrated its driving force. A Petrograd dispatch to the London "Morning Post" on the 15th of July, 1915, said of the German plan that it was to catch the Russian armies like a nut between nut crackers, that the two fronts moving up from north and south were intended to meet on another and grind everything between them to powder. The area between the attacking forces was some eighty miles in extent, north to south, by 120 miles west to east. The writer offered the consolation that this space was well fortified, the kernel of the nut "sound and healthy, being formed of the Russian armies, inspired not merely with the righteousness of their cause, but the fullest confidence in themselves and absolute devotion to the proved genius of their commander in chief."
The dispatch pointed out that it was all sheer frontal fighting, that the Germans had been twelve months trying frontal attacks against Warsaw on a comparatively narrow front and in vain. What chance had they, he added, "of success by dividing their forces against the united strength of Russia." This sort of argument is typical of the endeavor to sustain the hopes of Russia's friends during these days. Doubts, however, began to creep in more strongly as to the possibility of holding Warsaw.
In Berlin the announcement of the Teutonic victories that began with the successful assault at Przasnysz was received with general rejoicing, and the appearance of flags all over the city. The Russian retreat toward the Narew River in particular was regarded by the military critics as threatening momentarily to crumble up the right flank of the positions of the Russians before the capital of Poland.
| GERMAN ATTEMPTS TO REACH WARSAW IN 1914 |
Cholm and Lublin on the southern line of communication of the Russian armies were now in imminent danger. On July 19, 1915, came the announcement that the troops under Field Marshal von Mackensen, which had pierced the Russian line in the region of Pilaskowice and Krasnostav, had increased their successes, and that the Russians were making the most desperate effort to prevent complete defeat. All day the battle had swayed in a fierce struggle for mastery. The Russians threw a fresh division of the Guards into the fight, but this too had to yield to the overwhelming force of the Teuton onslaught. Farther to the east as far as the neighborhood of Grabowiec, Austro-Hungarian and German troops forced the crossing of the Wolica, and near Sokal in Galicia Austro-Hungarian troops crossed the Bug. (See Austro-Russian Campaign.) In consequence of these Teuton successes the Russians on the night of the 18th to the 19th of July retreated along the whole front between the Vistula and the Bug—practically the last line of defense, for the Warsaw-Kiev railway had been broken down. The German troops and the corps under the command of Field Marshal von Arz alone from the 15th to the 18th of July, 1915, took 16,250 prisoners and 23 machine guns.
It was announced by the Germans that according to written orders captured during this action the Russian leaders had resolved to hold the positions here conquered by the Germans to the utmost, regardless of losses.
The same day that brought the report of this Russian retreat on the south brought the news that in the adjoining sector to the west of the Upper Vistula the army of General von Woyrsch had met resistance from the Russians behind the Ilzanka after the Russian defeat on July 13, 1915, that, however, Silesian Landwehr on the 18th had captured the Russian defenses at Ciepilovo by storm, and that the Russian line at Kasonow and Barenow was beginning to yield. The army of General von Gallwitz had now taken up positions along the whole Narew line from southwest of Ostrolenka to Novo Georgievsk. The Russians, however, as already indicated, were still holding fortified places and bridgeheads on the right bank of the river. In this sector the number of prisoners taken by the Germans had risen to 101 officers and 28,760 men.
In the sector next adjoining, passing onward around the enveloping lines, that lying between the Pissa and the Szkwa, the Russians likewise had retreated until they stood directly on the Narew. Here the Slavs had been favored by forests and swampy land which made pursuit difficult.
At the extreme left end of the German line a magnificent success had been achieved in the occupation of Tukkum and Windau. This capture brought the Germans to within fifty miles of Riga, seat of the governor general of the Baltic provinces. They were, however, destined not to make any substantial progress in the direction of that city for many months to come.
Blow fell upon blow. The question "Can Warsaw be held?" began to receive doubtful answers in the allied capitals. The colossal coordinate movement of the Teutonic forces in these July days had received so little check from the Russian resistance that the British press had begun to discount the fall of the Polish capital. Shortness of ammunition and artillery was ascribed as the cause of Russia's failure to make a successful stand against the onrushing Teutons.
On July 20, 1915, Berlin announced the capture of those fortifications of Ostrolenka lying on the northwest bank of the Narew River. This was one or the strong places designed to protect the Warsaw-Grodno-Petrograd railway. The threatened fall was highly significant. To the south of the Vistula the Teuton troops had advanced to the Blonie-Grojec lines. Blonie is some seventeen miles west of Warsaw and Grojec twenty-six miles south of the city.
Farther eastward and to the south troops of the army of General von Woyrsch had completely turned the enemy out of the Ilzanka positions, having repulsed the counterattacks of the Russian reserves which had been quickly brought up, and captured more than 5,000 prisoners. Von Woyrsch's cavalry had now reached the railway line from Radom to the great fortress of Ivangorod, the objective point of this army, and Radom itself had been seized.
CHAPTER XLVII
BEGINNING OF THE END
So uncertain had grown the positions of Lublin on the southern railway line leading to Warsaw that the Russian commander in chief had issued an order that in case of a retreat the male population of the town was to attach itself to the retiring troops.
On July 21, 1915, the Russians throughout the empire were reported to be joining in prayer. "Yesterday evening," telegraphed the London "Daily, Mail's" Petrograd correspondent on the 21st, "the bells in all the churches throughout Russia clanged a call to prayer for a twenty-four hours' continual service of intercession for victory.
"To-day, in spite of the heat, the churches were packed. Hour after hour the people stand wedged together while the priests and choirs chant interminable litanies. Outside the Kamian Cathedral here an open-air Mass is being celebrated in the presence of an enormous crowd."
The chronicle of the closing days of July, 1915, is an unbroken narrative of forward movements of German armies on all parts of the great semicircle. The movement now, however, was slow. The Russians were fighting desperately, and the Germans had to win their way inch by inch. By the 21st the Russians were withdrawing in Courland to the east of the line Popeljany-Kurtschany, and the last Russian trenches westward of Shavly had been taken by assault. To the north of Novgorod the capture of Russian positions had yielded 2,000 prisoners and two machine guns to the Germans on the 20th.
Farther south on the Narew a strong work of the fortress Rozan defending an important crossing was stormed by the Germans, and desperate fighting was going on at Pultusk and near Georgievsk. Already the Russians were beginning to yield their positions to the west of Grojec, which meant that the Teuton armies were about to push into the opening between Warsaw and Ivangorod and divide the Russian forces. The armies of Von Woyrsch on July 20, 1915, seized a projecting bridgehead to the south of Ivangorod, and captured the lines that had been held by the Russians near Wladislavow.
In the positions defending the railway between Cholm and Lublin, Russian resistance was once more marked, and was checking the progress of the armies of Von Mackensen and Archduke Joseph Ferdinand.
By noon of July 21, 1915, the Silesian troops of Von Woyrsch had stormed the bridgehead on the Vistula between Lagow and Lugawa-Wola, with the result that Ivangorod was now inclosed from the south, while to northwest of the fortress Austro-Hungarian troops were fighting on the west bank of the Vistula. Austro-Hungarian troops too were battling their way close up to the fortress directly from the west. Line after line was giving way before the Teutons. The Russian retreat over the bridge at Novo Alexandria to the south of Ivangorod was carried on under the fire of German artillery. Numerous villages set afire by the Russians were now sending great clouds of smoke into the sky over all this region.
The troops of the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, after a stubborn resistance on the part of the Russians, seized enemy positions on July 21, 1915, near Chodel and Borzechow, advancing another step toward Lublin. Eight thousand Russian prisoners, 15 machine guns, and 4 ammunition wagons were taken.
By the 23d of July, 1915, the Teutonic troops were close up to the encircling forts of Ivangorod and stood on the Vistula all the way between the fortress and the mouth of the Pilica. On the 24th the Teutons announced a victory over the Fifth Russian Army by General von Bülow at Shavli. The report read: "After ten days of continuous fighting, marching, and pursuit, the German troops yesterday succeeded in bringing the Russians to a stand in the regions of Rozalin and Szadow and in defeating them and scattering their forces. The booty since the beginning of this operation on the 14th of July consists of 27,000 prisoners, 25 cannon, 40 machine guns, more than 100 loaded ammunition wagons with their draft animals, numerous baggage wagons and other material."
This day brought the announcement also of the capture of the fortresses of Rozan and Pultusk on the Narew, after violent charges by troops of General von Gallwitz. The crossing of the Narew between these places was now in German hands, and strong forces were advancing on the southern shore. The Russians had been resisting obstinately in this quarter, and the Germans had made their way only by the most heroic efforts. German headquarters announced at this time that in the battles between the Niemen and the Vistula covering the ten days since July 14, 1915, more than 41,000 prisoners, 14 cannon, and 19 machine guns had been captured. The German troops now also attained the Vistula to the north of the Pilica. In their summing up of results since the 14th of July the Teutons recounted further on this day, the 24th, that some 50,000 prisoners had been taken by the armies of General von Woyrsch and Field Marshal von Mackensen during the period.
The army of Archduke Joseph Ferdinand had been making rapid progress. On July 24, 1915, under the attacks of these troops the Russians retreated on a front of forty kilometers, between the Vistula and the Bistritza, from eight to ten kilometers northward to prepared lines, their attempts to halt in intermediate positions being frustrated by the onrush of the victorious Teutonic forces in pursuit.
By July 25, 1915, the Narew had been crossed by the Germans along its whole front, southward from Ostrolenka to Pultusk, and by the 26th they had gained the farther side of the Narew above Ostrolenka likewise. The troops moving southeast from Pultusk now approached the Bug, getting toward the rear of Novo Georgievsk and Warsaw, and threatening to close the Russians line of escape, the Warsaw-Bielostok railway.
On July 26, 1915, the Russians made a determined counteroffensive from the line of Goworowo-Wyszkow-Serock in an effort to remove the threat to the rear of Warsaw. This, however, had little success, the Russians losing 3,319 men to the Germans in prisoners.
To the south of Warsaw the Germans had seized the villages of Ustanov, Lbiska, and Jazarzew, which brought them nearly to the Vistula, just below the capital.
The great attacks of the Germans on the troops defending Warsaw were being hampered to some extent by the laying waste of the country by the retiring Russians. Difficulty in moving heavy artillery on roads had also interfered with their progress, but on the morning of July 28, 1915, Von Woyrsch crossed to the eastern shore of the Vistula between the mouth of the Pilica and Kozienice at several places, and was threatening the Warsaw-Ivangorod railway.
Novo Georgievsk was steadily being inclosed. The Russian counterthrusts in the neighborhood of Warsaw both on the north and the south of the city were repelled by night and day. To the south near Gora-Kalvaria a desperate attempt of the Russians to push forward toward the west on the night from July 27th to the 28th, 1915, was shattered.
The armies of Field Marshal von Mackensen, breaking through Russian positions to the west of the Wieprz, captured thousands of prisoners and many guns, and once more thrust back the Russian front between the Vistula and the Bug. On the evening of the 29th they attained the Warsaw-Kiev railway at Biskupice, about halfway between Lublin and Cholm, thus crowning their efforts to get astride their important line of communications. The Russians were destroying everything of value in the country as they retired, even burning grain in the fields.
On the afternoon of July 30, 1915, Lublin at last was occupied by the army of the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, and on the 31st the Germans of Von Mackensen passed through Cholm. Thus the Teutonic armies were now across the important railway from Warsaw and Ivangorod to Kiev, on a broad front, running all the way down to the Vistula at Novo Alexandria. In Courland the Germans continued to push forward, so that on the 12th of August they were enabled to seize the important railway center Mistan.
Hope in Russia died hard. Press correspondents up to July 29, 1915, still spoke of the possibility of the Russians standing a siege in their principal fortress on the Warsaw salient. On the 29th, however, reports came from Petrograd that the fortresses of the Warsaw defense were to be abandoned and the capital of Poland given up to the army.
The correspondent of the New York "Times" on July 29, 1915, in a special cable summed up the situation in an announcement that the fate of Europe hung on the decision that Russia might make on the question: "Shall Russia settle down to a war of position in her vast fortifications around Warsaw, or shall she continue to barter space against time, withdrawing from the line of the Vistula and points on it of both strategic and political importance, in order to gain the time which Germany has already stored in the form of inexhaustible gun munitions?" The reply was the evacuation of Warsaw.
The decisive blow to Russia's hopes came with the crossing of the Vistula about twenty miles north of Ivangorod on July 28, 1915, already noted. It showed that Warsaw was being rapidly surrounded. The Russian communiqué of the 30th of July told of the crossing over of the Teutons on both sides of the Radomka, a tributary of the Vistula, to the right bank of the Vistula on pontoons, and of attempts to throw bridges across the great rivers. Von Woyrsch's troops that had crossed over were irresistibly pursuing still farther east on the 30th, defeating troops hastily brought up to stop their advance. By August 1 two entire German army corps reached the right bank of the Vistula. Ivangorod, now threatened from all directions, could evidently not be held much longer.
The fortress surrendered on August 4, 1915, after a violent bombardment of the outer forts had taken place, beginning on the first of the month. Austro-Hungarian troops under General von Koevess especially distinguished themselves in the attack on the west front.
CHAPTER XLVIII
WARSAW FALLS
The retreat from Warsaw began during the night of August 3 and 4, 1915. Already the city had been stripped as far as possible, to judge by reports from Petrograd, of metals, such as church bells and machinery that might possibly be of use to the Germans. A portion of the civilian population left the city. The Blonie line just to the west of the capital was given up under pressure from the Teutons on the 3d. While the retreat was taking place the Russians gave all possible support to their forces defending the Narew lines, so far as they still were maintained.
Desperate charges were hurled by the Russians against the Germans moving forward all along the front Lowza-Ostrow-Wyszkow. The bravery of the Russians, especially in their counterattacks on both sides of the road from Rozan to Ostrow on the 4th of August, won the admiration of the Germans.
The correspondent of the London "Times" reports that on August 4, 1915, there was probably not over one Russian corps on the west side of the Vistula. "Half of that crossed south of Warsaw before 6 p. m.," he writes, "and probably the last division left about midnight, and at 3 a. m. on August 5 the bridges were blown up. The Germans arrived at 6 a. m." The formal entry of the Polish capital was made by Prince Leopold of Bavaria as Commander in Chief of the army which took the city.
The formal announcement issued by the German Great Headquarters on the 5th of August read: "The army of Prince Leopold of Bavaria pierced and took yesterday and last night the outer and inner lines of forts of Warsaw in which Russian rear guards still offered stubborn resistance. The city was occupied to-day by our troops."
| ADVANCE AND CAPTURE OF WARSAW |
In the capture of Warsaw seven huge armies had been employed. The German northern army, operating against the double-track line which runs from Warsaw to Petrograd, 1,000 miles in the northeast, via Bielostok and Grodno; the army operating in the Suwalki district, threatening the same line farther west; the army aimed at the Narew based on Mearva; the army directly aimed at Warsaw, north of the Vistula; the (Ninth) army directly aimed at Warsaw, south of the Vistula; ten or twelve Austrian army corps attempting to reach the single- and double-track railway from Ivangorod to Brest-Litovsk and Moscow, and the line from Warsaw to Kiev via Lublin and Cholm, which is for the most part a single track, and, finally, the army of Von Linsingen, operating on the Lipa east of Lemberg.
The campaign for Warsaw had been fought along a front of 1,000 miles, extending from the Baltic to the frontier of Rumania. An estimate which lays claim to being based upon authoritative figures placed the number of men engaged in almost daily conflict on this long line at between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000. The attacks upon the sides of the lines on which the defense of Warsaw depended had been the most furious in the course of the war on the eastern front. The losses on both sides undoubtedly were enormous, though they can be ascertained only with difficulty, if at all.
The following summary of captures was issued by the German Great Headquarters on August 1, 1915: "Captured in July between the Baltic and the Pilica, 95,023 Russians; 41 guns, including two heavy ones; 4 mine throwers; 230 machine guns. Taken in July in the southeastern theatre of war (apparently between Pilica and the Rumanian frontier): 323 officers; 75,719 men; 10 guns; 126 machine guns."