On July 26 the Tsar left St. Petersburg on a trip to the Finnish Skerries, after having authorised, in consequence of the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia (p. [330]), the issue of orders for a mobilisation of fourteen Army Corps on the Austrian frontier, and of the rest of the Russian Army immediately upon mobilisation in Germany.
Russia and Germany had never since the partition of Poland been in antagonism until now. Austria had given the Poles liberty and self-government, and they were naturally ready and willing to fight for her. But Russia had alienated them by her incessant persecution of their language and national institutions, and by her fruitless attempts to crush their national existence and turn them into Russians, while Germany, acting by more subtle means with a similar object, was feared as well as detested. Both, now that Poland was to be the battlefield, appealed to the Poles for their support, making golden promises to them of which the motives were only too evident, and which a tragic experience had taught them were not to be depended upon. By the side of Germany, as Russia's most formidable enemy, they were ready though reluctant to fight. But of the many thousands in the Russian Army who surrendered to the Austrians many were Poles, and thousands more escaped from Russian Poland to join the Polish legions which were formed under Austrian auspices. The feeling of the other Slavs in Austria-Hungary and elsewhere with regard to Russia was equally hostile. The Czech Glas Naroda, commenting on one of the appeals of the Grand Duke Nicholas to the Poles, saying the war "is a war of liberation for the Slavs," and promising "to unite all the parts of Poland now under the rule of Austria-Hungary and Germany, give them self-government, and restore Poland under his sceptre," asked: "From what are the Slavs to be liberated? From the freedom and self-government which they enjoy under Austria-Hungary? They will hardly be tempted to exchange these benefits for the despotic rule of a corrupt bureaucracy. As for the Czechs, they often oppose the Government, but are always warmly attached to the State with whose existence their own is inseparately bound. Austria-Hungary gives equal rights to all the nationalities in the Empire and enables them freely to develop themselves. Russia does not tolerate any other nationality in her dominions, not even a Slavonic one." Shortly after the bombardment by the Turkish fleet of the Russian towns on the Black Sea a deputation of Ruthenians from the Ukraine came to Constantinople and issued an address to the Ottoman nation, saying that Russia had always been the enemy of Turkey, that the treatment of the Mohammedans in Russia was a crime against humanity, and that thirty millions of people in the Ukraine hoped to be rescued from such sufferings by Turkey, the old ally of the Cossacks of the Ukraine. In Bulgaria, too, the Rabotniczewski, an organ of the Labour party, described Russia's claim to pose as the liberator of the smaller European States as a "shameless piece of cynicism," as 180,000,000 people, Russians, Poles, and Finns, were suffering under her despotic rule. While in France, Belgium, Germany, and Austria-Hungary the Socialists joined with the other parties in supporting the Government, in Russia they declared in a letter to M. Vandervelde, the eminent Belgian Socialist and ex-Minister, who had urged them to join in the war against Germany, that they would continue their struggle against Tsardom with more energy than ever, and take every opportunity of reversing it: "The Russian as well as the German Government is the enemy of democracy; even now that it is at war it persecutes the working-men and the non-Russian nationalities, and should it be victorious it would be the propagator of political reaction in all Europe."
At the beginning of the war the Russian troops were removed from the frontier districts to the great fortresses of Ivangorod and Brzesc Litewski, where they were formed into three Armies, one to advance through East Prussia and Silesia towards Berlin, another to break through the Carpathians into Hungary, and the third and strongest to march upon Galicia. The advance into Prussia was to be a powerful diversion with the object of weakening Germany's invasion of France by forcing her to send troops from there to the East to defend her own territory, while the object of the advance to Hungary was to help the Serbians against the Austrian invasion. To strengthen these Armies the whole of Finland, nearly the whole of Russian Poland and large districts in Central and Northern Russia, as far as Siberia, were left without troops. The Grand Duke Nicholas, the nephew of Alexander II. and husband of the Princess Anastasia of Montenegro, was appointed Commander-in-Chief, and General Sukhomlinoff, Minister of War, Chief of the General Staff. As not only the troops, but the gendarmes and the Customs officials, were removed from the frontier districts, and the Custom houses were closed in anticipation of an Austrian advance before the Russian mobilisation was completed, people could pass into Austria without examination at the frontier, and many Poles took the opportunity of thus escaping enlistment into the Russian Army and joining the Polish legions which were being formed at their own expense by the Poles in Galicia for service with the Austrian Army. On marching with his troops into Russian Poland the Grand Duke Nicholas issued the following address to the Poles: "Poles, the hour has struck when the sacred dreams of your fathers and ancestors can be realised. A century and a half ago the living body of Poland was torn to pieces, but its soul did not die. She lived in the hope that the hour of resurrection would come for the Polish nation and its fraternal reconciliation with Great Russia. The Russian troops bring you the solemn news of that reconciliation. May the Poles of Russia unite under the sceptre of the Russian Tsar, under that sceptre Poland will be born again, free in her religion, her language, and her autonomy. Russia only asks that you should respect the rights of the nationalities to which history has allied you" (i.e. the Ruthenians). "With open heart and hands fraternally held out, Great Russia comes to meet you. The sword which struck down the enemy at Grünwald (an allusion to the battle in which the Polish King, Ladislaus Yagiello, defeated the German crusaders and made them his vassals) has not yet rusted. The Russian Armies march from the shores of the Pacific to the North Sea. The dawn of a new life begins for you. May the sign of the Cross, the symbol of the suffering and the resurrection of the nations, glitter in that dawn." A reply to this address, signed by some Poles in Warsaw, expressed their loyalty to the Tsar and their wish for the success of the Russian arms, but among many of the Poles the Grand Duke's promises were regarded as merely a device for keeping them quiet. The address produced more impression among the Russians than among the Poles; at Moscow and Kieff large sums were subscribed for the relief of the Poles who were suffering from the total devastation of their country caused by the war, and there was a revulsion of feeling in favour of the Polish nation.
While the Russians were massing their armies in the "Trilateral" (Ivangorod, Novo Georgievsk and Brzesc Litewski), Austrian troops crossed the frontier and occupied Kielce and other towns in Russian Poland, and were at first well received by the people, but when subsequently their place was taken by German troops, who imposed contributions, took hostages, and bombarded churches and villages, the feeling for their new rulers naturally changed. There were 1,300,000 Polish soldiers in the Russian, German and Austrian Armies, military service in all three States being obligatory, and their country, seven times as large as Belgium, was even more devastated by the constant marchings to and fro of millions of troops, which destroyed everything that could be of advantage to their enemies; and often, notably the Cossacks, the Honveds and some of the Germans—as in Belgium—burnt villages and plundered country houses.
Directly after the declaration of war, on August 2, a strong Russian column, with guns, crossed the Prussian frontier near Biala, and marched to Johannisburg. The Germans, on the other hand, occupied Bendzin, Kalisch, and Czenstochowa in the Kingdom of Poland. On August 1 the Russians occupied Stallupönen, east of Insterburg, and Lyck, after five days' skirmishing with the Germans at Eydtkuhnen and Wirballen. These, however, were merely reconnaissances in force; the general advance of the Russian Armies did not begin until August 18, when they sent two Armies into East Prussia and invaded Galicia from the north and east, converging upon Lemberg. On crossing the frontier the Grand Duke Nicholas published an appeal to the Ruthenians in Galicia, addressing them as brothers "who had languished for centuries under a foreign yoke" and calling upon them "to raise the banner of united Russia."
The first great battle of the war between the Russians and Germans took place on August 20 between Pilkallen and Stallupönen, on the road to Tilsit; it lasted fourteen hours, and the four German Army corps which took part in it were driven by the Russians towards Gumbinnen with a loss of 3,000 men and thirty guns, and followed to Insterburg, which the Russians captured on August 23 without resistance. Then came a Russian attack on Kielce and Tomaszow, in the Kingdom of Poland, which had been occupied by the Austrians; the Russians were driven back with great loss, and the Austrians then occupied Sandomierz. Meanwhile the Germans brought up three Army corps of 160,000 men near Gumbinnen, and endeavoured to turn the Russian left, but without success, and the Russians then occupied Soldau, which commands the railway to Dantzig, and took possession of nearly one-half of the territory of East Prussia. Their attempts to enter Galicia were less fortunate. They were beaten at Sokal on the road to Lemberg with the loss of a whole brigade and two generals, one of whom was killed and the other taken prisoner. At Pavosielica, on the frontier of Bukovina and Bessarabia, 20,000 of the Russian cavalry were driven back by the Austrians; on August 24 an Austrian Army under General Dankl, engaged the Russians in a three days' battle on a line of fifty miles at Krasnik, on the road to Lublin, and on September 2 another Austrian Army, under General Auffenberg, attacked 280,000 Russians in eight days' fighting on a front of 200 miles at Zamosc and Komarow. A fresh Russian Army, however, under General Russky, coming up from the south-east between the two Austrian Armies, which had lost 20,000 killed and wounded, with 76,000 prisoners and 300 guns in the previous battles, inflicting on the Russians a loss of 19,000 prisoners and 200 guns, forced them to retire, and occupied on September 3 Lemberg (which they renamed by the Polish name Lwow), the capital of Galicia, which remained in the hands of Russia till the end of the year, with a Russian administration, Russian clergy (the Ruthenian Archbishop having been banished to Russia) and obligatory teaching of Russian, instead of Ruthenian, in the schools. Meanwhile the Russians, who had completed the mobilisation of 8,000,000 men, divided into four Armies, to be sent into the field one after the other, marched two of them into East Prussia, and were so confident of victory that they expected to reach Berlin within three weeks. One, under General Rennenkampf, occupied Tilsit and marched on Königsberg; the other, under General Samsonoff, started for Thorn and Posen, but on reaching Tannenberg, near Ortelsburg, it was confronted on August 28 by the Germans under General Hindenburg, who, using a similar manœuvre to that of Hannibal at Cannæ, drew on the Russians with apparently inferior forces into the swampy region of the Mazurian lakes, and then, attacking them on both flanks and in the rear, compelled them to surrender with a loss of 50,000 killed and wounded, including three of their best generals and several staff officers, 90,000 prisoners and 516 guns. The second Army under General Rennenkampf, which had come too late to prevent the disaster, was also routed by General Hindenburg on September 10, and for the time being the Russian offensive in East Prussia was abandoned. The remnants of the Russian Army were again defeated on September 15 at Elk, and were pursued by the Germans into Russian territory as far as Augustowo, near the fortress of Ossowiec, which they invested on September 30.
Although the capture of Lemberg was a great blow to Austrian prestige, the Austrian armies, together with some German corps which had been brought up to their assistance after the Russian defeat at Tannenberg, pursued their attacks upon the Russians at Rawa Russka, after a battle which lasted from September 7 to September 11, with terrible loss on both sides. The Russians had still 2,000,000 men in the field on the Austrian and Prussian frontiers, and their attempt to break through the Germans in the direction of Königsberg and Thorn having failed, they now made the fortresses of Przemysl and Cracow their objective, as if these were taken the road would be clear to Berlin and to Vienna. After seventeen days' fighting they advanced towards Przemysl, and attacked the Austrian Army while it was crossing the river San, capturing the whole of its rearguard, amounting to 30,000 men. The Austrians fought well, but the Russians, as regards fighting efficiency were more than equal to their opponents. Nearly the whole of Eastern Galicia and Czernowitz, the capital of Bukovina, were now in their hands; on September 18 they occupied Sandomierz, on the 22nd Jaroslaw, on the railway between Lemberg and Cracow, and on the 28th they began the siege of Przemysl, while other Russian forces advanced to the passes of Uszok and Dukla, in the Carpathians, for a raid into Hungary, which, however, was beaten back by the Hungarians and the Polish legionaries on September 30. When the Russians arrived at Medyka, near Przemysl, they were also attacked by the Austrians, who inflicted on them a loss of 5,000 killed, 40,000 wounded, and 10,000 prisoners. This, combined with their losses in attempting to take Przemysl by storm, when whole regiments perished under the deadly fire of the Austrian artillery, and the menace of the Germans in Northern Poland, led to a retreat of the Russians from Western and South-Eastern Galicia, though not from Lemberg and the adjoining territory. The Austro-German Allies were at the beginning of October again strongly posted along the Vistula and the San, and in possession of the whole of Western Galicia, the Bukovina, and the passes of the Carpathians, besides one-half of the Kingdom of Poland. The Russian attempt to invade Prussia and to destroy the Austro-Hungarian Army had, therefore, so far failed. But new Russian forces were brought up from Warsaw and the adjoining fortresses which caused the Germans to retreat towards the frontier, while the Austro-Hungarians took the offensive in Galicia on the line from Sambor to Stanislawow. The main Armies of Austria-Hungary and Germany and Russia were now in close touch over a front of 270 miles, and on October 14 the whole of Poland west of the Vistula, including the important town of Lodz, "the Polish Manchester," which was captured after severe fighting on October 8, was in the possession of the Austrians and Germans, who, with the Polish legions, penetrated to within half-a-day's march of Warsaw, and caused much indignation among the people by their aviators throwing bombs on the town and killing or wounding many civilians, but they were attacked both on the front and on the flanks by four Russian Armies of 200,000 men each, who after seven days' fighting forced them to retire on October 20. The Polish legions, furious at the order to retreat being given when they were within sight of Warsaw, made a rush forward and had to be surrounded by the Germans to prevent their being annihilated. The German line was then pushed back to Skierniewice, fifty miles west of Warsaw, and on October 27 the Russians reoccupied Lodz, but the battle continued to rage on both fronts with unprecedented tenacity, the Russians fighting with intense energy and spirit. On November 3 they took Kielce, having captured Radom on the previous day, and on November 4 they entered Sandomierz, on the Vistula. On November 8 they resumed the invasion of East Prussia, advancing to Stallupönen, Soldau, and Pleschen, in the German province of Posen. In Galicia, however, the Austrians still held to the left bank of the San, notwithstanding the vigorous attacks of the Russians, who inflicted upon them a loss of 100,000 men besides those who suffered on the other lines of retreat. Meanwhile the Germans, who had brought up fresh troops from the West, resumed the offensive in Russian Poland on November 18, and broke through the Russian lines at Kutno, between the Vistula and the Wartha, compelling the Russians to retire several miles in the direction of Lowicz. In this battle the Russians were stated to have lost 45,000 men, including the Governor of Warsaw, who drove inadvertently into the German lines. After their victory at Kutno the Germans again advanced towards Warsaw, driving the Russians before them, and on the 22nd they were within forty miles of the Polish capital. In East Prussia, too, they drove the Russians from their fortified positions and captured 23,000 prisoners at Wloclawek, on the road to Thorn. The Russian Armies, on their western frontier, now numbered 3,500,000 men, while the Austro-Hungarian and German Armies combined did not exceed 2,000,000. Another great battle took place before Lodz, which, after a fortnight's desperate fighting, with immense loss on both sides, was recaptured by the Germans on December 8, who after being almost enveloped by the Russians broke the ring which was being drawn round them and put back the Russian front before Warsaw. This check was attributed to dissensions among the Russian generals, and General Rennenkampf, who arrived too late to relieve the Russian centre, was, with seven other generals, arrested and brought before a court martial. General Hindenburg, on the other hand, was made a Field-Marshal for what was described by the German General Staff as "one of the finest deeds of arms in the whole campaign," having captured 60,000 unwounded prisoners and 100 guns. The Germans were not able, however, to pursue their advantage; the powerful attacks of the Russians prevented their getting any nearer to Warsaw than Sochaczew, about thirty miles to the west of that city. They strove hard up to the end of the year to push through to Warsaw, but were unable to get any farther than the Rivers Bzura and Rawka, where they entrenched themselves and made a series of fruitless attacks on the Russian positions on the other side of those rivers, Farther north, however, Mlawa, near the Prussian frontier, was retaken by the Germans on December 26. The German main line at the end of the Ysar ran from Mlawa to Ilow Lowicz, and Tomaszow, all of which towns were in their hands, but the Russians remained in occupation of about 8,000 square kilometres of Prussian soil.
Meanwhile in Galicia, the Russians occupied Tarnow on November 13, resuming the siege of Przemysl on the following day, and on December 2 they entered Wieliczka, the centre of the salt mines in Western Galicia, three and a half miles from the outer fortifications of Cracow, which were now invested by them. There was much fighting north, west, and south of Cracow (especially at Limanowa, where the Russians lost 40,000 prisoners), but the city itself escaped damage, none of the shots of the Russian artillery having reached it, and at the end of the year, both Przemysl and Cracow still remained free from the invaders, who temporarily abandoned the advance on them on December 12 after a series of battles in which they suffered heavy losses and were driven eastward for a distance of forty miles. Although Russia had yet made little progress towards Berlin, she had conquered a great part of Galicia, and she had given valuable help to her Allies by compelling Germany to detach large forces from France in order to protect her frontier in Poland.
In November Russia was involved in another war, owing to the attack of the Turkish fleet on the Russian ports in the Black Sea (p. [352]). On November 4, Russian troops entered Asia Minor and advanced for seventeen miles along the road to Erzeroum, and on November 8, they successfully resisted an attack by the Turks armed with German heavy artillery, at Kuprikeui in Armenia, from which there are mountain paths in the direction of Erzeroum. Further attacks were made by the Turks during the rest of the month, and, also in December, in the Euphrates Valley without any notable result, until they reached Ardahan and Sarakamysch in an attempt to regain Kars, when in a three days' battle with the Russians at the end of the year they were driven back with enormous losses, the whole of one of their Army corps having surrendered.
Apart from the two wars, there is little to record in the Russian history of the second half of the year. On September 1, an Imperial order was issued directing that the city of St. Petersburg should in future be designated as "Petrograd" (Peter's City). This was an outcome of the hostility in Russia to everything German, as was a decree issued in November, depriving German and Austro-Hungarian subjects of Russia of their rights to immovable property either leasehold or freehold situated in rural districts near the Russian land frontier, the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azoff. In November an income tax was imposed on all incomes exceeding 1,000 roubles (100l.), at the rate of from 16 roubles (1l. 15s.) up to 15,600 roubles (1,700l.) for incomes exceeding 190,000 roubles (19,700l.), together with a tax on men exempt from military service. As regards Finland and Poland there was no alleviation of the methods of Russification previously practised, although the devastation caused in Poland by the war produced a current of more friendly feeling towards the Poles among some sections of the Russian people. At Petrograd a society was formed for a reconciliation between the Russians and the Poles, which struck medals representing a Russian and a Pole shaking hands; but these were promptly confiscated by the Government, and in the Duma but little was said on behalf of the Poles. The Socialists were pursued with the utmost rigour, their members in the Duma were arrested, and when M. Burtzeff, known by the part he took in the exposure of Azeff and other Russian agents provocateurs, left Russia in 1907 with a regular passport, not having been prosecuted for any offence, returned to that country in order, as he stated in a letter to The Times, to promote "a unity of all nationalities and all parties" in pursuing the war, he was arrested on his arrival in November on a charge of having insulted the Tsar in a Paris newspaper while he was living in France, and sentenced to deportation to Siberia.