The Campaign in Russian Poland

by Percy Cross Standing

Perhaps never in the history of war have more lies, false rumours, and unintelligent anticipations got into print than in connection with the momentous event happening in Galicia consequent upon the “pleasant surprise” of the capture of Jaroslav on September 21. As that important success, taken in conjunction with the huge battles in East Prussia and Russian Poland, certainly implied the imminent danger of Przemysl, we heard all sorts of things about the fate of that great fortress. It was on the eve of capture, it was on fire, most of the forts were taken—the garrison was driven to the inner defences, etc., etc. In short, Przemysl was by the many-headed held to have been captured, or at all events isolated, quite early in September. But the powerful German advance into Poland, with the co-operating Austrian movement on their right in Galicia, had put the fortress for the moment out of danger. Jaroslav’s fall was a decided nail in the coffin of Przemysl, but no more.

This fortress—whose remarkable orthography was the subject of a sly little joke by Mr. Lloyd George in a speech on the war—is stated to have been insufficiently garrisoned (30,000). It has not a large civil population, and after September 21 the extreme step was taken by the Commandant of expelling all persons who had not provisions for a siege of three months. The retreating Austrians did not have time to destroy the bridges over the San, and the almost complete isolation of Przemysl was rendered more acute by the announcement that, “as the crow flies,” the Russian advance-guard was not more than 135 miles from Cracow itself! The general line of the Austrian retreat was mainly towards that famous and historic city, where the hospitals and houses were already crowded with their thousands of wounded. Such a retreat would link them up to the right wing of their German allies, when they would become a more component part of the Kaiser’s forces. Comparisons were freely bandied about, in which the energetic Russian pursuit was likened to Kutusoff’s chase of Napoleon’s Grand Army in 1812, and to Lee’s pursuit by Grant in the American Civil War in 1864. In any event, the crumbling away of the Austrian defence of Galicia was now so significant as to dwarf minor considerations.

The retreat towards Cracow was marked by a good deal of demoralisation and by the plundering of the estates of some of the Polish aristocracy. The capture of the railway junctions of Debica and Chyrov by the conquering foe further isolated the threatened fortress, while the passage of the Carpathians by way of the Uszok Pass was planting the Russian army firmly upon Hungarian soil, where there were no great places of strength to be reduced. The tables had been turned with a vengeance, and the invasion of Austro-Hungary was an accomplished fact. What would Germany do in face of these changed conditions? became for a week or so the burning topic among strategists and lookers-on at the great game.

Coincident, presumably, with the expulsion of most of the civil population, the garrison of Przemysl were placed upon three-quarter rations. If one thing was humanly more certain than another it was that, except by a miracle, relief could not reach them—they gleaned as much from their wireless communications with the retreating arm, the Russians not having yet succeeded in destroying the wireless station.

Late September and the first part of October was occupied by the Russians in the two main directions of pressing with great masses of troops the Austrian retreat towards Cracow, and in completing with slow but sure tenacity the investment of Przemysl, where the thousands of mouths to feed were now placed upon half instead of three-quarter rations. A series of sanguinary combats went on almost uninterruptedly with the beaten Austrians, who always fought bravely enough, but invariably continued their retirement with heavy losses in men and material of war. The great events in Russian Poland already narrated were naturally exercising their indirect influence in this quarter.

Professor Pares was privileged to visit the Galician battle-fields in October, and his impressions are of all the more interest from the fact that we have little else save scrappy official reports to go upon. Mr. Pares visited Galich, Stryl, and Rava-Ruska, and of the latter place he writes:

“Our visit to Rava-Ruska presented much greater military interest; we drove round the south, east, and north front of the Russian attack on this little town and very valuable explanations were given by an able officer of the General Staff. On the southern front near the station of Kamionka Woloska, where there were lines of trenches, the deep holes made by bursting Russian shells, and sometimes filled with water, lay thick together.

“The eastern front was more interesting. Here there were many lines of rifle-pits, Austrian, Russian, or Austrian converted into Russian. The Austrian rifle-pits were much shallower and less finished than the Russian, which were generally squarer, deeper, and with higher cover. An officer’s rifle-pit just behind those of his men showed their care and work, as was indicated in letters written just after the battle. Casques of cuirassiers, many Hungarian knapsacks, broken rifles, fragments of shrapnel, potatoes pulled up, and even such oddments as an Austrian picture postcard, were to be found in or near the rifle-pits.

“These wide plains, practically without cover, were reminiscent of Wagram. A high landmark was a crucifix, on which one of the arms of the figure was shot away; underneath it was a ‘brothers’ grave,’ containing the bodies of 120 Austrians and twenty-one Russians. Another cross of fresh-cut wood marked the Russian soldiers’ tribute to an officer: ‘God’s servant, Gregory.’ Close to one line of trenches stood a village absolutely untouched, and in the fields between stood a picturesque group of villagers at their field-work, one in an Austrian uniform and two boys in Austrian shakos.”