The Campaign in Russian Poland

by Percy Cross Standing

Intense enthusiasm was aroused throughout Russia by the announcement that the Tsar would proceed in person to the fighting area. In front of the Winter Palace at Petrograd, thousands of students and others paraded and demonstrated in honour of their “Little Father,” as well as to celebrate news of the victories in Galicia and East Prussia.

The German columns met with little resistance in their advance across the Polish plain. Lodz was occupied, and the two northern columns gained touch east of the town and advanced on a wide front between the northern bend of the Vistula and its tributary, the Pilitza, their objective being Warsaw. The right moved forward through Kielce and Radom against Ivangorod. According to German accounts, the advancing armies were joined by large numbers of the peasants, who welcomed them as deliverers; but the Russian story is that the people fled in terror before the invaders.

We have to depend during the war for our news of what is happening in Poland almost entirely upon Russian accounts official and non-official. The German wireless reports give only the briefest outline of the official view of the situation taken at Berlin, and these reports are often cut down by our own censorship. The few reports from Berlin that were allowed to be published in England contained, it is true, some references to a victorious advance of the Austro-German armies into Poland in the first days of October. But, at the time, these were treated as fictitious claims of success, for it seemed strange that, in the numerous telegrams that came from Russian sources, there was not a word of any important events in the central theatre of war. Official news told of fighting on the East Prussian border and in Galicia, and non-official reports were full of detailed statements as to the complete collapse of the Austrians, an invasion of Hungary through the Carpathians, attacks upon Przemysl that had reduced the fortress to desperate straits, and steady progress in the direction of Cracow.

It was, therefore, a surprise to every one when, towards the end of the second week in October the official bulletin from St. Petersburg admitted that Von Hindenburg had forced his way up to the left bank of the middle Vistula and overrun all Western Poland—this, too, at a time when all the rest of Europe believed that the Germans were still on the frontiers of Poland and Galicia, and busy preparing the fortresses of Thorn and Posen for a siege. It was afterwards explained that the Russian retirement to the Vistula was a deliberate “strategic” movement intended to lure the Germans to destruction. But it is fairly certain that the Russians had sent such large masses of men northwards and southwards for the operations in East Prussia and Galicia, besides providing for an army they were concentrating on the Black Sea coast and the Caucasus, that their forces in Central Poland had been considerably reduced. During Von Hindenburg’s advance they were busily engaged in reinforcing the army on the middle Vistula and in the Polish triangle of fortresses, and for this purpose they drew in several army corps from their left.

Weakened by this withdrawal, the Russian army in Galicia gave way before the advance of the Austrian armies on the German right. Jaroslav was abandoned, the siege of Przemysl was temporarily raised, and General Brussiloff concentrated his forces to protect Lemberg from recapture.

The right column of the German advance, pushing forward through Radom, reached the river Vistula near Ivangorod, tried to force a passage over it below the fortress, and attacked the outlying defences of the place. The columns of the left and centre, under Von Hindenburg’s personal command, penetrated to within a few miles of Warsaw, where at last they met with serious opposition. The Grand-duke Nicholas began to push a considerable force westward from the city to protect it from even a temporary occupation, while his main line of defence lay along the right bank of the Vistula above and below the city. It was early on the morning of October 11 that the thunder of the guns told the inhabitants of Warsaw that a great battle had begun at the very gates of their city.

During the preceding days there had been rumours not only that the Germans were approaching in great force, but that the Grand-duke was about to evacuate the city.

The wealthier classes of Warsaw are largely made up of those who hold government positions, or whose interests are, in one way or another, closely connected with the existing Russian regime, and there was something like a panic as the rumour spread that the place might soon be in the hands of an invader. The alarm was increased by the sight of German aeroplanes circling high over the houses and dropping bombs into the streets. One of these aeroplanes had an accident to its engine and fell on the estate of Count Briansky in the suburbs of Warsaw. The aviators were murdered by a mob of peasants before they could be taken prisoners by the troops.

For three days Warsaw could hear the cannon thunder close at hand. Indeed, at first, it seemed to be coming nearer and nearer on the south side of the city. The arrival of long trains of wounded men hour after hour told that the fight was a costly one, and this fighting close to Warsaw was only part of an engagement stretching out upon an enormous front along the Vistula. The Grand-duke was, however, holding his own and using the central position in front of Warsaw as a starting-point from which to drive a way into the German line, while along the river the enemy were wasting their forces in desperate attempts to effect the crossing.