The Siberian Army Corps, now in action for the first time in Europe, proved themselves fighting men. Their attack turned the scale in the centre. The great wedge pushed forward from Moscow began to tell upon the German resistance, and as it gained more and more ground new masses of troops were brought across the river to extend the region of the close fighting. The weather had broken, and the battle was fought out under cloudy skies and amid driving showers of sleety rain.
On October 14 Warsaw heard the cannon thunder less loudly. The enemy’s centre was being driven steadily back with the loss of thousands of prisoners and many guns. Higher up the Vistula towards Ivangorod the German attempts to gain a footing on the east bank had also failed.
According to the Utro Rossii, elaborate attempts to cross the Vistula on rafts (after aeroplane reconnaissance) took place at two points, between Ivangorod and Sandomir and between Ivangorod and Warsaw. In the first of these attempts the Russians carefully waited until two battalions had crossed and then fell on them with the bayonet, while the rafts were cruelly raked with rifle-fire. In the second instance, the enemy were similarly uninterrupted while throwing their pontoons across. Then a burst of shrapnel fell upon the masses as they were in the act of crossing. The river ran red with blood, hundreds of corpses floated down the stream, and but few escaped. On the following day a tremendous artillery duel lasted for several hours. The Russians got the range and established their superiority, as was evidenced by the smoke and flames beginning to rise from the miserable villages within the enemy’s position, and by the slackening of his fire. The scene was one of sublime horror. The sky for miles was lit up by the blaze of the burning buildings and by the myriads of bursting projectiles. It was the beginning of the end of the invasion of Russian Poland.
Warsaw itself “returned to the normal” on October 14. The frightened people had been a good deal dispirited and disheartened by what had appeared to them like a falling-back of their defending army, and many of them had, indeed, already fled from the threatened city. They were further discouraged by the dissemination of a German proclamation announcing that the enemy would be in Warsaw “by the 18th”—instead of which, by the date named the Kaiser’s army was in full retreat. Now, however, the aspect was brighter. Numbers of ragged and dejected prisoners (but many of them Poles) were being brought into Warsaw daily. Institutions and shops that had been shut up were reopened. The utmost animation prevailed where yesterday there had been pessimism and dejection. Cheering crowds gave cigarettes, apples, milk, and bread to the Russian troops as they marched past with faces set towards the German frontier. The agony of Warsaw had endured for five or six days. All that time the outside world had watched and waited without being satisfied, so rigid was the Russian censorship of news.
If the policy of “waiting for the enemy” had so far been crowned with substantial success, much remained to be achieved. In the densely wooded country stretching away from the Polish capital to Petrikau, the fighting had been particularly deadly, several villages being taken and retaken. As far as could be ascertained, the German troops suffering the most heavily in this quarter were the 17th and 20th Corps. One Russian regiment alone lost three commanding officers in rapid succession. The behaviour of the Siberian troops under fire was especially gallant and noteworthy. With trenches full of water and the conditions generally depressing, these fine troops held on to one position during eight days of fighting, sometimes hand to hand, and always decimated by shell-fire. This place was swampy ground on the left bank of the Vistula. It was known from the prisoners that the German army detailed for the great movement upon Warsaw contained many of the Kaiser’s finest battalions. It was hoped to smash in the Russian centre while simultaneously dealing heavy blows both against Ivangorod and in Galicia. Apart from its great strategical value, due consideration was given to the moral results of the capture of Warsaw.
We have seen in part how this plan miscarried. I propose now to piece together a few missing links with the assistance of one of the longest and most remarkable despatches sent during the whole war—by Mr. Granville Fortescue to the Daily Telegraph. Mr. Fortescue suggests, as a starting-point for the phase when the Germans’ offensive “exhausted itself” and their complete defeat became inevitable, October 19-20. Close pressure upon the enemy’s left wing caused the huge front to swing round, running westerly instead of north and south. A comparison is made of the “luring” of the enemy towards Warsaw with the “luring” of Napoleon’s legions towards Moscow a century before. For, says this writer, “the Russians do not play by the German rules—they look on Nature as their first and strongest ally. With the elements on their side, batteries of 17-in. howitzers dwindle into insignificance.” There were stories also of friction between the high commanders on the Austro-German side; but as to this the correspondent could of course say nothing very definite, particularly as his information would of necessity be derived from prejudiced sources. Mr Fortescue continues:
“On October 20, when the battle of the Vistula was at its height, the German Austrian line of communications stretched across 150 miles of Russian territory. On that day the German attack exhausted itself. The tide of battle ebbed. The Russian right swept round, discouraged the enemy, and rolled him away from the Vistula. Warsaw no longer trembled under the salvos of the enemy’s artillery. The Russian cheers of victory echoed sixty miles away.
“The Germans, battling for the railroad bridges across the Vistula at Ivangorod, paused in their fight. In that pause they could almost hear the tread of the oncoming Russian legions. At Radom the Crown Prince and his staff hastily ordered up reserves to meet this new menace.
“For four days victory hung in the balance. Then the German resistance began to crumble. The force of numbers began to tell. At Radom steam was up on the engine that pulled the Crown Prince’s private car. Already the German army which had threatened Warsaw was in full retreat along the south margin of the river Pilitza. Under the threat of attack from this flank the Germans and Austrians holding the Kosenitze and Ivangorod front fell back, after offering a most desperate resistance. When the troops of the Kosenitze-Ivangorod line were smashed the German-Austrian position south along the Vistula, from Nowa Alexandria to Sandomir, could no longer hold. On November 5 the main body of the Austrians began to fall back precipitately. A final effort made here to dam the Russian tide was in a manner an heroic waste of force.”
This account is supplemented by the Russian official report, which conveniently divides the two later phases of the German overthrow into October 23-27, and October 28 to November 2. In the first of these phases the enemy battling in the Kosenizy-Ivangorod zone retreated on finding himself being outflanked by way of the river Pilitza. In the second, the German resistance along a line Novaya-Alexandria similarly broke down utterly.