The Campaign in Russian Poland

by Percy Cross Standing

“The Germans had not proceeded more than nine miles when they found that they could not move their guns a yard farther owing to the marshy nature of the ground. In this predicament they opened fire with their artillery, and then sent forward their infantry with numerous machine-guns. The latter got within four miles of the fortress, but they made no further progress.

“During the night the Russians made a sortie, and, marching by roads and paths of which the enemy were completely ignorant, they completely enveloped both the German wings. Imagining that they held all the practicable roads, the Germans had concentrated their attention on the fortress and neglected their flanks. When the enveloping movement became apparent, a fierce engagement ensued, the enemy being completely at a disadvantage. The fortress guns mowed them down on the open road, while the Russian infantry poured a devastating fire into their wings. The battle lasted thirty-six hours, and ended in the complete rout of the Germans, who fled in disorder along the Graevo road. All the German guns which had stuck in the marshy ground were captured.”

Retiring through the frontier woods Rennenkampf fell back upon and recrossed the Niemen. It would have been well for Von Hindenburg if he had contented himself with having driven the invaders out of East Prussia. But, flushed with victory, and underrating the fighting power of his opponent, he endeavoured to force a way across the Niemen. By this time, however, the Russian mobilisation had long been completed, and Rennenkampf was reinforced by several army corps when he reached the right bank of the river. The German attempt to cross it in the face of superior numbers ended in a disaster. The attack was pushed with reckless daring, and simultaneously at many points attempts were made to construct pontoon bridges under the fire of the Russian artillery. Every attempt ended in failure. Hundreds of dead bodies floated down the stream, and the efforts of the German gunners to crush out the fire of the enemy’s batteries were unavailing. At last, after incurring much useless loss, Von Hindenburg abandoned the attempt under the pressure of a Russian attack on his flank from the southward.

Once more there was fighting day after day in the forests of Augustovo, as Von Hindenburg’s army fell back through the woods towards the borders of East Prussia, pursued by the victorious Russians.

Rennenkampf claimed that during these operations the losses of the Germans amounted to 60,000 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners. The scenes of desolation around Suwalki and Augustoff after this sanguinary fighting were pitiful in the extreme. Practically everything had been destroyed, so that they resembled towns of the dead. All bridges had been blown up, and but for embankments and broken telegraph-wires it was hardly recognisable that there had been a railway at all. Wrote a Daily Telegraph war correspondent of the unholy scene:

“On the fields one sees the ravages of artillery projectiles—deep, conical holes five or six feet in diameter. Here, too, one finds shrapnel cases, splinters of shells, skeletons of horses, fragments of blood-stained clothing, cartridge-pouches, blue-grey coats of German soldiers, empty schnapps and beer-bottles. In one trench there was a particularly large number of empty bottles. It is evident that the German soldiers invigorate themselves with alcohol before battle. Near one of these batteries of bottles was a soldiers’ common grave. Along the road are many burnt houses and plundered farms.

“Of entire villages, in some cases only blackened ruins remain. Inside the houses that have not suffered in this way nothing remains whole. Pillows and quilts have been ripped open and the down scattered about. Samovars, dented by heels of heavy boots, are lying about on the floor. Cupboards and drawers have been rummaged with bayonets.

“What the Prussians could not carry away they have spoilt. Whole forests have been hewed down or burnt. Wide areas have been cleared for fields of fire. Peasants’ gardens have been stripped of their produce. Potatoes, carrots, and other vegetables have been dug up wholesale and carried off. Local inhabitants, mostly Lithuanians and White Russians, have been so terrified by the Germans that they hardly realise what has happened to them.”