The enemy next endeavoured to entrench and maintain himself upon a line running from Wirballen to Lyck; but on October 8 his flanks were enveloped after a fierce struggle, and the Russians marched into Lyck. They were now for the second time establishing themselves upon the soil of East Prussia—and this time with little likelihood of a somewhat demoralised foe being able to expel them in a hurry. For the German offensive along the Niemen had utterly failed.
At the time (October 8) when Rennenkampf followed up this triumph by driving the enemy out of Lyck, his troops had already been fighting for seven days and nights without a rest. But they were flushed with victory. This engagement of the 8th is likely to be known as the battle of Ratchka, from the name of the village on which the German right rested. It was ascertained that they had been reinforced with men and guns (several batteries being captured) from Königsberg. The rapidity of the advance seems to have had a staggering effect, and the enemy lost hundreds of his horses in the marshy boglands of the Suwalki province, leaving his heavy artillery, or much of it, to its fate.
A wounded Russian officer, in a description of the battle of Augustoff contributed to a Petrograd journal, pays a deserved tribute to the coolness, intelligence, and enthusiasm of the Slav soldier under fire. The troops, he says, were simply “chuckling with delight” on receiving an order to turn the enemy out of a position which could only be carried by great expenditure of life. With the utmost sang-froid they put the Germans to rout, then leaving them to the tender mercies of a particularly vigorous and merciless pursuit by the Cossack cavalry. Fresh enthusiasm was aroused by the appearance of General Rennenkampf, who rode on to the position to thank his gallant soldiers for the extraordinary exertions that had given them the well-worn field. The music of several bands then joined in the celebration, playing the beautiful Russian National Hymn to a perfect tornado of cheers from the weary but satisfied troops.
What a change had come over the scene within one month! A proud and unbroken enemy no longer retained a foothold upon Russian territory. Whether regarded as a serious invasion, or as a movement of co-ordination with the vaster invasion of Russian Poland now about to be described, the attempt had been signally beaten back in blood. “Whether,” wrote an English critic of the situation, “the Russians intend to aim at Berlin or Vienna, is of minor consequence. The great point is that they seem able to do what they like and to choose their particular objective as they please. Nothing has been more exhilarating than the brilliant strategy of Petrograd. The Russian soldiers have proved not only their steady persistence—a quality which we always knew to be one of their principal assets—but also a rapidity of movement and a dashing spirit of attack with which the world was hardly prepared to credit them.”
CHAPTER V
THE DEFENCE OF THE VISTULA
General Rennenkampf received from the Tsar telegrams congratulating him upon his well-ordered retreat and his victorious counter-attack and resumed invasion of East Prussia. In this message the Tsar noted that, during the retreat, the Russian General had not left a single pound’s weight of supplies to the enemy.
Before passing on to the story of the larger conflict in Central Poland, we may note some interesting incidents which occurred during this ebb and flow of the war on the East Prussian borders. One of these incidents shows that, with all their elaborate war training, the Germans were liable, from lack of ordinary precautions, to fall very easily into a dangerous trap. It occurred during the fighting around Wirballen, the little frontier town well known to all travellers from Western Europe to Russia as the point at which the railway from Ostend by Berlin crosses the frontier. The place was held at the time by the Russians, and was attacked by a German column.
After about an hour and a half’s brisk fusillade, which was but weakly replied to, the Germans advanced, fearlessly and without further precautions, under the impression that their enemy had withdrawn. But on crossing the frontier-line into Russian territory, their feelings became too much for them, and, preluded by loud shouts of “Hoch!” they sang with fervour their familiar Die Wacht am Rhein. At that moment the Russians, who had remained carefully sheltered by their trenches all the time, poured in a deadly rifle-fire, backed by the immediate charge of a sotnia of Cossacks. Taken at a disadvantage and utterly surprised, it was said that not a man of the German force survived to recross the border.