The German Army of the Vistula, with which I had thrown in my lot as a witness of the war, was not slow to gather itself together after the battle of Alexandrovo, and start in pursuit of Gourko’s shattered forces, but much precious time was lost by us in repairing bridges which our retreating foes had blown up; and though at last, by dint of great exertions on our part, the railway proved not altogether unavailable to us for transport purposes, still the earlier stages of our advance on Warsaw simply assumed the form of an ordinary march along, and parallel with, the line, the engineers pontooning or planking any bridgeless stream or ravine which obstructed our progress.
At Vlokavek, which our advanced guard reached on the fifth day after the battle of Alexandrovo, though the distance is only about thirty miles, we were considerably hampered, and even hurt, by the flanking fire of a Russian battery, which had established itself in a safe position on the right bank of the Vistula—a battery, strange to say, which was unsupported by any body of infantry of which we could discover trace; and the King of Saxony, who, in spite of his sixty-four summers, is still almost as vigorous and alert as when he commanded on the Meuse, determined to imitate, though, of course, on a very much smaller scale, the celebrated passage of the Douro by Wellington (of which, by the way, this was, curiously enough, the anniversary, the 12th May). Accordingly, the 3d battalion of the ‘Old Dessauers’ Magdeburg regiment, under Major von Wusterhausen, was stealthily ferried over the Vistula, which is here both broad and deep, at the dead of night; and, performing a silent and circuitous march to the rear of the Russian battery, it opened a heavy fire on the bewildered Muscovites, just as the latter, profiting by the breaking dawn, were about to begin their usual day’s work of pounding away at our advancing columns; and, charging with a cheer up to the emplacements, before the pieces could be reversed, the ‘Old Dessauers’ killed or captured every one of the gunners. For this smart and effective feat of arms Major von Wusterhausen will doubtless receive the Iron Cross of the first class and the rank of colonel.
This was the main incident which marked the course of our advance, though I might fill columns by recounting the minor vicissitudes of our march, especially the intolerable botheration which was occasioned us by the clouds of Cossacks and Dragoons—the latter little more than mere mounted infantry—who pertinaciously hovered on our flanks in search of fitting opportunities for harassing us, and had ever and anon to be brushed away like so many troublesome swarms of mosquitoes.
In the meantime the telegraph had kept us duly informed of the various stages in the forward movement of the army of Silesia along the other and longer side of the triangle, of which Skierniwiçe is the apex, and it was naturally enough our endeavour so to time our junction with it as to render it impossible for the Russians to attack our two armies severally and beat them in detail, even if they should have the stomach to assume the offensive, which we gravely doubted.
When our headquarters had reached Lowitz, which is only about fourteen miles from Skierniwiçe, and established itself in a pretty chateau, Arcadia by name, belonging to the Radziwill family, an officer of the Empress Frederick’s Posen Hussars (Death’s Heads), who had made a long and venturesome ride across country from Lipce, came spurring in with a despatch from Prince George of Saxony, announcing that the combined Russian forces under Gourko and the Grand Duke Vladimir had taken up a strong defensive position behind the Lupta brook (which runs into the Bzura, an affluent of the Vistula), with their left resting on a village, Stryzboga, and their right on another hamlet, Dromiloff, their centre being Skierniwiçe. The left half of their line, defended by the troops of the Czar’s eldest brother, was formed by the Lupta itself, a brook about the size of the Bistritz at Sadowa; while the right half was thrown back from this streamlet at an angle of about twenty-five degrees, so as to profit by some ridgy ground in its rear. Prince George of Saxony, therefore, invited his royal brother to attack General Gourko with all energy on the morrow, while he himself would simultaneously assail the position of the Grand Duke Vladimir, a proposal which King Albert, after brief consultation with his Staff, declared his readiness to act upon.
Accordingly, two hours before dawn, all our troops were under arms, and in motion for the various positions which had been assigned them. On our half of the Russian front the 3d (Brandenburg) Corps, with the 7th Division, advanced to open the attack, while the 8th Division acted as reserve, and our two Cavalry Divisions were directed to keep a look-out on our left flank, adapting their action to the nature of the ground and the development of the infantry portion of the fight. Between us and the enemy the terrain was pretty wavy with occasional patches of crops and cover, while in front of Skierniwiçe it rose into a gentle slope, on the top of which spread the extensive wood forming the deer park and game preserves of the castle (famous for its Three Emperors’ Meeting), of which the turrets were just visible above the tree-tops. This, as I said, formed the centre of the Russian position; and it was by opening our guns in this direction that we began the battle, with the view of making the enemy believe that our main objective was the middle of their line.
For a couple of hours or so the fight was nothing but an artillery duel at long range, and it was plain that although the Russian artillery was more advantageously posted, it had the utmost difficulty in finding the range, and even the exact position of our guns, owing to the comparative smokelessness of their discharges. On the other hand, after the Russian outposts had been driven in, the Jäger Battalion of the 3d Corps, which, courting every dip in the ground, had stealthily crept forward for some considerable distance in a hollow beyond our batteries, and lined the edge of a rye-field, within about 3000 metres of the Russian guns, opened fire at this very long range, and not without fatal effects; for with a good glass we could see the Russian artillerists dropping beside their pieces, a fact which made us realise the truth of the German Emperor’s remark that, if field guns are to hold their ground as weapons of modern warfare, their range must still be further increased beyond that of the newest form of small bore rifle.
To emphasise the impression produced by this combined artillery and musketry fire—of such a galling and invisible kind—we made a show of manœuvring large bodies of infantry over against the Russian centre, as if in preparation for an attack in force; and presently we could discern that this feint movement on our part was responded to by the pushing up of more of the enemy’s force from either flank into the woods of Skierniwiçe, for the purpose of giving us a reception lacking nothing in warmth should we have the temerity to essay an entrance there.
While this renewed concentration in the Russian centre was going on, a curious incident happened, which puzzled us not a little at first. This was the sudden emerging from the wood of what appeared in the distance to be several squadrons of cavalry, which headed straight for our lines, and came careering down right on the rye-field where the Jäger Battalion before-mentioned, from its concealed position, was playing such sore havoc among the Russian gunners with their long range and invisible fire, and we doubted not that their whereabouts had at last been discovered. Accordingly, while our guns loaded with shrapnel, word was passed to the Stendal Hussars, who, acting as cavalry of the 7th Division, were standing ensconced in a hollow on the rear flank of our batteries, to prepare for hurling themselves upon these presumptuous horsemen. But this counter attack proved to be unnecessary; for presently we could discern that the Russian steeds were riderless, and, on coming nearer, they turned out to be only a huge herd of very fine deer, which had been scared out of their leafy haunts in the forest of Skierniwiçe by the infernal pother going on there. It may be remembered that, in his narrative of the battle of Königgrätz, the late Count Moltke referred to a similar incident.
Meanwhile, our real object, which was the delivery of our main attack on the right flank of the Russians, was being successfully attained. It can scarcely be expected that I, or any other single eye-witness, should be able to detail the incidents and development of a battle which extended along a line of more than six miles, as the reasons which preclude a General from exercising anything like unity of command over so vast an area form an equal restraint upon the War Correspondent’s power of all-embracing observation. Even of conflicts like Königgrätz and Sedan, a pretty complete description of a general kind could always be given by one pen by reason of the smoke which betrayed the whereabouts of friend and foe and the fluctuations of the fight; but now that science has robbed war of one of its most picturesque appendages, a modern battle by day is a most bewildering spectacle. You hear the roar of cannon and the rattle of musketry, but this incessant thunder is accompanied by no lightning-flash. You see men flinging up their arms and falling around you, but know not whence they received their death-wounds any more than if they had been stricken down by the invisible arrows of the Sun-God Apollo.