A General Sketch of the European War: The First Phase

by Hilaire Belloc

The action for Lemberg itself opened, by a curious coincidence, the campaign which was the anniversary of the first fighting round Sedan, and closed precisely at the moment when the tide of German advance in the West was turned.

Forty-eight hours decided the issue. It was, perhaps, Russky's continual extended threat to envelop the left of the Austrian position and to come upon Auffenberg's communications which was the chief factor in the result; but that result was, after the junction of the two Russian armies, no longer really in doubt. The first heavy assault upon the trenches had taken place upon the Wednesday morning at dawn; before nightfall of Thursday the two extremes of the Austrian line were bent back into such a horseshoe that any further delay would have involved complete disaster. It is true that the central trenches in front—that is, to the east of the great town—still held secure, and had not, indeed, been severely tried. But it remains true that von Auffenberg had committed the serious error of risking defeat in front of such a city. And here some digression upon the nature of this operation may be of service to the reader, because it is one which reoccurs more than once in the first phases of the war, and must, in the nature of things, occur over and over again before the end of it.

Examples of it already appeared in the first six months of the war, in the case of Lille and in the case of Lodz; and it is a necessarily recurrent case in all modern warfare.

A great modern town, particularly if it has valuable industries, is a lure as powerful over the modern commander as was a capital or the seat of any government or even a fortress for those of earlier times. To abandon such a centre is to let fall into the enemy's hands opportunities for provisionment and machinery for his further supply; it is to allow great numbers of one's nationals to pass as hostages into his power; it is nearly always to give up to him the junction of several great railways; it is to permit him to levy heavy indemnities, and even, if he is in such a temper, to destroy in great quantities the accumulated wealth of the past.

On account of all this, it requires a single eye to the larger issues of war, and a sort of fanaticism for pure strategy in a commander before he will consent to fall behind a position of such political and material value, and to let it fall to his opponent.

But, on the other hand, such a position is as bad in strategical value as it is good in material and political value.

If you suffer defeat in front of a great modern town, and have to retreat through it under the blows of the victorious enemy, you are in the worst possible position for conducting that retreat. The streets of the town (but few of which will run parallel to your course and can, therefore, serve as avenues of escape for your army) are so many defiles in which your columns will get hopelessly congested. The operation may be compared to the pouring of too much liquid into a funnel which has too small an orifice. Masses of your transport will remain clogged outside the place; you run the risk of a partial and perhaps of a complete disaster as the enemy presses on.

There is very much more than this. A great town cannot but contain, if you have long occupied it, the material of your organization; you will probably abandon documents which the enemy should not see. You will certainly, in the pressure of such a flight, lose accumulated stores. Again, the transverse streets are so many points of "leakage," into which your congested columns will bulge out and get confused. Again, you will be almost necessarily dealing with the complication of a mass of civilian conditions which should never be allowed to interrupt a military operation.

In general, to fight in front of a great town, when the chances are against you, is as great an error as to fight in front of a marsh with few causeways; so far as mere topography is concerned, it is a greater error still.

Lemberg did not, indeed, fulfil all these conditions. It is very large (not far from a quarter of a million people), with all its suburbs it is nearly two miles in extreme extent, and its older or central part is a confusion of narrow streets; but it is not highly industrialized, and the position of the Austrian armies was such that the retreat could be effected mainly from either side of the built area, particularly as the main enemy pressure had not come in front of the city along the Busk Road, but far to the east and south in the open field. But Lemberg was an exceedingly important railway centre (seven lines converge there), and it contained an immense amount of war munitions. When, therefore, the retreat was tardily undertaken, the fact that the more precipitate retirement had begun in front of the city and not behind it was of considerable effect in what followed.