A tide of refugees, estimated at not less than a hundred thousand in a few days, was flying towards the city of Berlin from the East Prussian and Silesian borders. What a change from the “To Paris—to London!” of a few weeks previously. It was no longer practicable to conceal from the mass of the people the news of the total breakdown of the Polish invasion and the Austrian debacle. Events would still be slow-moving, since the mighty military machine of All the Russians, however well oiled, could only proceed at a certain regulated pace. Reports told of a new conception whereby the Germans hoped, northwards of Thorn, to concentrate masses of troops flanked by the river Vistula on the one hand and the river Warthe on the other. Here they would have the advantage of a battle-ground on a slightly raised platform as compared with the marshy wildernesses of the recent Polish operations; but the Masurian Lakes of East Prussia were by this time in Russian hands. The pace was quickening.
Mr. Fortescue, writing from Petrograd in praise of the bearing and discipline of the Tsar’s millions moving ever westward, could not refrain from an expression of his appreciation of the marked improvement discernible after the lapse of a decade in the Muscovite “Tommy Atkins”:
“A draft of recruits, headed by a band, passed through the square in front of Saint Isaac’s Cathedral. I watched critically. They wore their ordinary clothes; the only uniforms seen were those of the non-commissioned officers. The astrakan cap was the distinctive head-covering, and every other man carried a tea-kettle. If I were a battalion commander I could not ask for a better-looking batch of recruits. All were over 5 ft. 6 in. in height. In carriage and a certain indefinable air they reminded me of the Guides from Manitoba. The more I see of these troops the more apparent the vast improvement of the Russian forces since the Russo-Japanese War becomes. That war was a liberal education for this Army, and as teachers of the art of war the Japanese are not to be despised. It is curious to note how this erstwhile enemy is now welcomed as an Ally. Japanese flags are always prominent in the colours of the nations fighting Germany. At all public occasions when the hymns of the different nations are played the solemn notes of the Japanese Anthem are loudly applauded. In the cause of humanity it may be said that Japan stands shoulder to shoulder with Russia. Russia need fear no enemy in her rear while Japan is her Ally.”
There is no doubt that the Russian Army had been in many ways improved since the war with Japan. The greatest advance had been in the matter of the working of the General Staff. The most remarkable feature of this Polish campaign was the methodical way in which the huge armies engaged on the Russian side had been concentrated and were now moved and supplied in a difficult country and on a front of many hundred miles. It was evident that the Grand-duke Nicholas and his subordinates were so confident in the reorganised army that they were even venturing to take very serious risks. It is possible that they did this with complete knowledge of the peril they were incurring. It is remarkable that at this stage of the campaign, instead of concentrating their efforts on any one point, they were using the enormous numbers at their disposal to operate in at least five different directions—in East Prussia, on the Vistula towards Thorn, in the centre towards Posen, on the left centre by Lodz towards Silesia, and on the left in Galicia. These Galician operations were again being carried on on three subordinate lines. There was an attack on the line of the Carpathians from Eastern Galicia menacing Hungary, the siege of Przemysl, and the advance on Cracow; and, besides all this, subsequent events showed that two additional armies were concentrated in Southern Russia, in view of a possible rupture with Turkey. One of these armies was in the Caucasus, the other was kept waiting about Odessa as a reserve that might be used for a descent upon the Turkish coasts. There were further large garrisons kept about Petrograd, and as a reserve for the Polish campaign in the triangle of fortresses on the Central Vistula.
This division of force between so many different objectives certainly implied some risk of the German and Austrian Allies using their elaborately organised railway system to concentrate a superior force against some part of the far-extended line. The risk was taken in order, by menacing the whole of the eastern frontiers of Germany, to create such a state of alarm as would lead to German troops being withdrawn from the western theatre of war. There is evidence that movements of this kind actually took place, though perhaps not to the extent that was reported in the French and English Press. The movements in the end of October and during November would seem to have been chiefly the transfer by rail of cavalry divisions with their batteries of artillery from west to east. The war of entrenched positions then in progress all along the western front made mounted troops, comparatively speaking, useless. They were therefore sent eastward. Cavalry and horse artillery require a large number of trains for even a force of very moderate numbers, and the movement of these trains would easily give the impression that immense numbers of men were being sent eastward.
In the second week of November there were the first signs that the Germans, instead of standing passively upon the defensive, were once more venturing upon a counter-attack based upon their eastern fortress line. This led to a second invasion of Poland from Germany, but its story belongs to a new phase of the war. The first campaign in Poland had closed with success for the Russian arms all along the enormous frontier of nearly fifteen hundred miles in length, and after more than three months of war there were no enemies on Russian territory. The concentration of the armies of the Tsar had been completed, and the Grand-duke Nicholas had under his command the greatest array of combatants that had ever been assembled by any State since the history of warfare began.
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Transcriber’s Note:
The one footnote has been moved to the end of its chapter.