But by October 13,1914, the Niemen Army's advance into East Prussia had been either forced back or delayed to such an extent that this comparatively weak Russian advance in the extreme south was out of touch with the main forces of the Niemen Army, and therefore in turn was withdrawn.
This practically finished the second Russian invasion of East Prussia. The German forces gradually cleared all of their country of the enemy and followed him even into his own territory. But although continuous fighting went on during the last week of October, again chiefly around Augustovo and Bakalartshev, the Russians for the time being contented themselves with a defensive policy, just as the Germans were satisfied with their success in preventing the Russian advance without going over to a clean offensive.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER LXXVII
FIRST GERMAN DRIVE AGAINST WARSAW
We have already spoken of the strategic position of Russian Poland, of its vulnerability, exposed as it is to attack from the Central Powers on three sides, and finally what Russia had done to strengthen Poland's natural line of defense, the Vistula River, by building fortresses on its most important points. It may be well to recall here that the lower part of this river flows through West Prussia, from Thorn to the Gulf of Danzig. For almost a hundred miles, from Thorn to Novo Georgievsk, it cannot actually be considered of defensive value to Russia; flowing slightly northwest from the latter fortress to the border it is open to German use on either side. But at that point, about twenty miles northwest of Warsaw, any army coming along its valley would have to take first this important fortress before it could continue farther into central Poland. Should it fail in this it would have to withdraw its forces from the right bank and then force a crossing at some point between Novo Georgievsk and the point where the Vistula enters Russian Poland from Austrian Poland, a few miles east of Cracow. It is at this point also that the Vistula is swelled by its most important contributary, the Bug River, which, roughly speaking, flows parallel to the Vistula at a distance of about seventy miles from the Galician border to a point on the Vilna-Warsaw railroad, about fifty miles east of Warsaw, where it bends toward the west to join the Vistula. The Bug River thus forms a strong secondary natural line of defense. In the north the Narew—a tributary of the Bug—forms an equally strong barrier against an army advancing from East Prussia.
There cannot be much doubt that the plan of the Central Powers originally was to take Poland without having to overcome these very formidable obstacles. If Von Hindenburg had succeeded after the battle of Tannenberg in crossing the Niemen, and if, at about the same time the Austro-Hungarians had also succeeded in defeating their Russian adversaries in Galicia, described in another chapter, this object could have been accomplished very easily by a concerted advance of both along the east bank of the Bug, with Brest-Litovsk as the most likely point of junction. The result would have been twofold: in the first place all of Poland would have been in the hands of the Central Powers; for Russia either would have had to withdraw its forces from there before their three main lines of retreat—the railroads from Warsaw to Petrograd, Moscow, Kiev—had been cut by the invaders, or else the latter would have been in a position to destroy them leisurely, having surrounded them completely. In the second place it would have meant the shortening of the eastern front by hundreds of miles, making it practically a straight line from the Baltic Sea to some point on the Russo-Galician frontier.
In the preceding chapters, however, we have seen that up to the beginning of October, 1914, neither the Germans nor the Austrians had accomplished this object. The former had to satisfy themselves with having cleared their own soil in East Prussia of the Russian invaders and with keeping it free from further invasions, while the latter were being pressed harder and harder every day and had to figure with a possible invasion of Hungary. It was then that the Central Powers decided to invade Poland from the west, and thus gradually drove out the Russians. Why they persisted in their efforts to gain possession of Russian Poland is clear enough. For in addition to the above-mentioned advantage of shortening and straightening their front, they would also deprive Russia of one of its most important and populous centers of industry, in which the czar's domain was not overrich, and it would remove forever this dangerous indentation in the back of the German Empire.
Before we consider in detail the first German drive for Warsaw, it is also necessary to consider briefly political conditions in Russian Poland.
Ever since the partition of the old Kingdom of Poland among Germany, Austria, and Russia, the Polish provinces created thereby for these three empires had been a continuous source of trouble and worry to each. The Poles are well known for their intense patriotism, which perhaps is only a particular manifestation of one of their general racial characteristics—temperament. At any rate the true Pole has never forgotten the splendid past of his race, nor has he ever given up hope for a reestablishment of its unity and independence. It is a rather difficult question to answer whether Russia, Germany, or Austria have sinned most against their Polish subjects. The fact remains, however, that all three most ruthlessly suppressed all Polish attempts to realize their national ideals. It is equally true that Russia went further along that line than either Germany or Austria, and on the other hand did less for its Polish subjects than the other two countries. Both in Germany and Austria there existed therefore a more or less well-defined idea that the Russian Poles would welcome German and Austrian troops with open arms as their saviors from the Russian yoke. In Russia a certain amount of anxiety existed about what the Poles would do. The latter, in a way, at the beginning of the war found themselves facing a most difficult alternative. That their country would at some time or other become a battling ground of the contending armies was quite evident. Whether Russia or the Central Powers would emerge as the final victor was at least open to dispute. Whatever side the Poles chose, might be the wrong side and bring to them the most horrible consequences. It was undoubtedly with this danger in view that the "Gazeta Warzawska" printed on August 15, 1914, an editorial which in part read as follows:
"Remain passive, watchful, insensible to temptation.