The German advance clearly suggested an attempt on their part to force a crossing of the Niemen. This in itself was a very difficult undertaking. The river is more than 600 feet wide, too deep to ford, and naturally none of the few bridges over it were available for the Germans. Furthermore its right bank, which was held by the Russians, is very high, commanding absolutely and practically everywhere the low left bank which in many places is almost as swampy as the worst parts of the Mazurian lakes. West of the Niemen and between it and the frontier the country is full of lakes, much as in the Mazurian region. The Germans, of course, were under the same disadvantages there as the Russians had suffered from in East Prussia. Of railroads there were none except one, running in the shape of a semicircle from Grodno through Augustovo and Suwalki to Olita.
On September 25, 1914, in spite of these conditions and disregarding the weakened state of their forces, the Germans attempted to cross the Niemen simultaneously at two places. About thirty miles north of Grodno they had constructed a pontoon bridge and began to send across their infantry. It was only then that the Russians opened up their murderous fire from well-protected positions. Against it the Germans were practically helpless. In spite of large numbers of guns that they brought up, and in spite of repeated efforts of crossing in massed formations, the result was the same: immense losses on the part of the Germans and comparatively slight ones on the part of the Russians. Indeed, the last attempt was not only frustrated, but the Russians even forced back the Germans some miles.
Somewhat farther south the other attempt met with a similar fate. There not only had the Russians posted their heavy guns on the right bank, but infantry had been strongly intrenched on the left. Their combined opposition forced back the Germans under heavy losses after they had fought all day and all night. During the last week of September, 1914, the Germans were gradually forced back along their entire front. Much of the fighting was done in the dense forests east of Augustovo and was hand-to-hand fighting. In the afternoon of October 1, 1914, the Russians recaptured Augustovo after the Germans had made a determined stand, yielding only when heavy guns bombarded their positions from the west and northwest. On the next day the Germans had to retreat from Suwalki and withdraw the lines that they had extended northward, and fall back behind their frontier. This meant the end of the German attempt to cross the Niemen and the beginning of the second invasion of East Prussia.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER LXXVI
SECOND RUSSIAN INVASION OF EAST PRUSSIA
Wonderful as had been Von Hindenburg's accomplishment in defeating the Russians and practically destroying one of their first-line armies, the latter's recuperative power was almost as surprising. Deprived of the prize of three weeks' fighting, defeated, and driven by the enemy on their entire front for a depth of fifty miles into their own country, they were nevertheless ready in a few days for a new offensive. Undoubtedly this was partly due to the talent of their new commander, General Russky, who had been sent up from Galicia, where he had gathered experience as well as honors. But more so was it due to the protecting defenses of the Niemen and the opportunities they offered for reorganization, rest, and the collection of new forces.
The situation which was faced on the first week of October, 1914, was perilous to all the armies engaged. Russia's fortresses on its eastern front were concerned for a twofold purpose. In the first place, they were to lend increased power of resistance to whatever means of defense nature had provided, and this function, of course, determined their location. Wherever rivers or other natural obstacles would offer themselves to an invading enemy, there Russia had added especially strong artificial defenses.
Any army invading Russia from East Prussia in a southerly direction would have to cross the Narew River and its principal tributary on the right, the Bober. These two run, roughly speaking, parallel to the Russo-German border at a distance of about thirty to thirty-five miles, and no army attempting an invasion east of the Vistula and south of the Niemen could advance farther than this short distance without first crossing the Narew and Bober.
The group of fortresses along this natural line of defense begins opposite the southwestern corner of East Prussia with Osowiec, situated on the railroad that runs from Lyck Bialistock. Thence it stretches in a southwesterly direction through Lomsha, Ostrolenka, Rozan, Pultusk to Novo Georgievsk, which latter is the most important of these, commanding as it does the conflux of the Narew, Wkra, and Vistula rivers.
This series of fortified places forms the center of the system of fortifications against Germany. In a southeasterly direction from it the Vistula offers another strong natural line of defense strengthened still more by the two big fortresses of Warsaw and Ivangorod, behind which, on a bend of the Bug River and almost equally distant from both, Brest-Litovsk, at the very western end of the vast Pripet swamps, defends the entrance to central Russia, to Smolensk and Moscow.