It was stated, apparently with authority, that some of the German prisoners arriving at Vilna were lads of sixteen years of age. Among stories of “atrocities” vouched for was one to the effect that an enemy patrol, having captured a Cossack trooper, flung the poor wretch on to a fire and literally roasted him alive! It was averred that a Russian officer, doubting the reliability of the horrible story, caused the charred remains of the Cossack to be disinterred. But there were counter-charges of atrocities preferred against the Russians, and on both sides some very wild talk on the subject. In a war of such inveterate bitterness as this had now become one must perforce suspend judgment.
The official communiqué upon the defence of the Vistula and the complete defeat of the invasion of Russian Poland closed with these impressive words: “We owe thanks for our victory to the unfailing grace which God has shown to the superhuman heroism of our warriors, of whom Russia may be justly proud. The victory which has been achieved makes it possible for our troops to set about the solution of fresh problems, the grappling with which commences a new period of the war.”
At Radom—now in Russian hands again after a month’s occupation by the enemy, and where his invasion plan is supposed to have been perfected—the following proclamation to the Polish inhabitants was issued by the commander of a Russian army corps: “Poles! Our wounded officers and soldiers, and also our prisoners who had fallen into the hands of the enemy and had passed through the town and province of Radom, speak with deep gratitude of your cordial treatment of them. You have tended the wounded, fed the starving, and sheltered from the enemy those escaping from captivity. You have given them money, and guided them to our lines. Accept from me, and from all ranks of the army entrusted to me, warm and hearty thanks for all your kindness, for your Slavonic sympathy and goodness.”
CHAPTER VI
THE SIEGE OF PRZEMYSL—THE STRUGGLE ON THE SAN
“When Przemysl falls,” wrote Mr. Granville Fortescue in the Daily Telegraph, “the name of Radko Dimitrieff will ring around the world.” It was not, however, the immediate object of General Dimitrieff and his coadjutors to bring about a hurried capitulation of this commanding fortress and its 30,000 defenders. The Russian headquarters in Galicia could well afford to play a waiting game and let the grim business of starvation do its work.
In our [second chapter] we brought down the record of events on the Galician theatre of war to the important capture of Jaroslav by the Russians on September 21, after only three days’ investment. The Colonel Shumsky from whom I have already quoted points out the enormous significance of this capture when taken in conjunction with the all-round breakdown of the Austro-German conception. That plan assumed, he opines that Western Poland would have been cut off, and there would have been a last development of the Austro-German forces from Jaroslav over Ivangorod and East Prussia seawards. From “the Baltic to the Carpathians” was certainly the grandest of grand conceptions—instead of which, we have the well-nigh incredible estimate of a million Austrian troops put out of action in less than two months of war, and the frank statement by one of their general officers that “the enemy is too much for us.”
It would appear that the Austrian forces operating along the line Lublin-Holm in August to September included the 3rd, 11th, 12th, and portions of the 7th, 13th, and 14th Army Corps, with five cavalry divisions. But in one day’s fighting alone they are known to have had 20,000 casualties, the mobility and rapidity of the Russian offensive seeming quite to have paralysed them. After Lemberg, the capture of Halicz and later still of Jaroslav rendered their position still more unenviable. As Professor Pares points out, “the chief harm which Germany and Austria could inflict in a war against Russia was to conquer Russian Poland, whose frontier made defence extremely difficult. Regarding this protuberance as a head, Germany and Austria could make a simultaneous amputating operation at its neck, attacking the one from East Prussia and the other from Galicia. But the German policy, which had other and more primary objects, precipitated war with France and threw the bulk of the German forces westward. Thus the German army in East Prussia kept the defensive, and Austria was left to make her advance from Galicia without support.” We have seen in part how that forlorn advance was destined to be beaten back in blood.