This further retirement found them, a day or two later, endeavouring to hold on to the town of Kielce along a forty-mile line of entrenchments. The Russians reconnoitred this position by night and attacked at dawn. A frightful conflict, often hand to hand, lasted the whole of a day and night. At last the defenders were routed with a loss of 2,400 men and 40 officers captured, with a howitzer, 10 light guns, and 11 machine-guns. These prisoners belonged to the 20th Corps, the Landwehr, the Guard Reserve Corps, and the 1st and 2nd Austrian Corps. Here Austrian and Prussian fought shoulder to shoulder.
Throughout November 2 the Austrians were fighting hard for the retention of the important town of Sandomir on the Vistula, which they had occupied and protected with a triple line of entrenchments and wire entanglements “carrying alternating electrical current.” The Russians stormed all three lines by irresistible bayonet charges. Nevertheless, in the hope of recovering the works the defenders brought up heavy reserves that night; but all in vain—attack and counter-attack ending in their total discomfiture with awful losses. They left all their sick and wounded behind them, whom the Russians found, together with much booty of all descriptions, on their victorious entry into Sandomir. In two days they captured from the Austrians nearly 5,000 prisoners, 18 field-guns, and 24 machine-guns.
The main German army was now in such rapid retreat that it was obvious to all that the scene of operations would shortly be shifted to their own territory. It was only possible to guess at the losses in the three weeks’ Titanic struggle for the possession of the capital of Russian Poland and the long line of the Vistula—losses which, if vast on the Russian side, must be reckoned as simply colossal on that of the Austro-German allies, plus in their case thousands on thousands of prisoners and the hundreds of guns taken.
The scheme of the onslaught upon the Vistula was generally condemned by critics not only of Russian, but of European repute, it being pointed out that if the conception of that offensive had been the avoidance of a battle around Cracow and on the plains of Silesia, such a conflict had merely been postponed—to take place under circumstances far less favourable to the German plans. Rightly or wrongly, General von Hindenburg came in for not a little of this adverse criticism, it being pointed out that, although the report might be correct that the Crown Prince had been nominally in command, Von Hindenburg was in all probability the guiding spirit of the move.
On the other hand, not one but several of Russia’s military leaders had enormously increased their reputations. These included General Russky—who had led the masterly advance along the river Pilitza—General Ivanoff, and, most of all, of course, the Grand-duke Nicholas himself. As Mr. Granville Fortescue phrases it, Nicholas Nicolavitch is a Russian of the old school. He is known to be a strict disciplinarian, but “when one carries the responsibility of one-sixth of the world on his shoulders one cannot listen to excuses. In the army he is the law and the word.” While the prolonged agony of the Warsaw battles was taking place the Tsar conferred upon the Grand-duke that prized decoration the Order of St. George. Lesser grades in the same decoration went to his skilful Chief-of-the-Staff, General Yanuskevitch, and to Quartermaster-General Daniloff. The Tsar also similarly rewarded Captain Martinoff for acts of deep devotion and gallantry. While not yet recovered from a wound, this brave man insisted upon taking over the command of Turret Hill in the defence of the fortress of Ossovetz, where he remained for three days in an exposed position of the utmost danger and under a continuous hail of fire. When a shell dropped close to the magazine and threatened to blow it up, Martinoff personally headed a party to the scene of the danger and extinguished the flames.
During the time of crisis Warsaw did not entirely escape the bomb-throwing from aeroplanes which has been such a feature of the German aggressive in both theatres of war. One such messenger of death (October 19), or, rather, several such, killed nine and wounded no fewer than fifty-six of the civilian population, including several women and children. Then was witnessed the novel spectacle of the people mounting the roofs of their houses and taking “pot-shots” at the deadly Taube machines, one of which had been instrumental in killing or maiming upwards of sixty non-combatants.
It was only natural that victory for the Russian arms should have enhanced the already high enthusiasm and patriotism of the Tsar’s peoples. It was known that there had long existed in German minds a profound contempt for the Muscovite military organisation, Potsdam professors of war having clung to the belief that they were opposed to a system which was faulty and calculated to break down, especially after the adverse verdict of the war with Japan in 1904-5. But such critics had not reckoned with the complete reorganisation of the Russian military “machine” carried out in 1910, nor yet allowed for the vastly improved personnel of the Russian rank and file. Of this last-mentioned point, one of the war correspondents wrote:
“The Russian ‘Tommy,’ or, as he is called here, Ivan, son of Ivan, is a most impressive-looking soldier. Nearly all over 5 ft. 6 in. in height, and of splendid build, they recall certain Irish regiments in size and swagger. For as soon as the peasant has donned the long, light, terra-cotta-coloured overcoat and learned to set his cap at a jaunty angle, he assumes the martial swagger. The Russian military overcoat is the best bit of soldiers’ wearing apparel I have seen in any army. Not only is it smart in cut and colour, but eminently practical. No better protection against the winter cold could be devised. I used to think that the English military overcoat was the best made; but the Russian is better. It is not necessary to emphasise the importance of having a good covering in Russia in winter.”