"During the coming struggle the Kingdom of Poland will be the marching ground of various armies; we shall see temporary victors assuming lordship for a while; but change of authority will follow, and inevitable retaliation; this several times, perhaps, in the course of the campaign. Therefore every improvident step will meet with terrible revenge. By holding firm through the present conflict you best can serve the Polish cause. In the name of the love you bear your country, of your solicitude for the nation's future, we entreat you, fellow countrymen, to remain deaf to evil inspirations, unshakable in your determination not to expose our land to yet greater calamities, and Poland's whole future to incalculable perils."
This, of course, was far from being a rousing appeal to support Russia's cause, but it was even further from being a suggestion to support that of the Central Powers and revolt against Russia. Polish newspapers of the next day printed a proclamation signed by the Commander in Chief Grand Duke Nicholas prophesying the fulfillment of the Polish dream of unity, at least, even if under the Russian scepter, and promising a rebirth of Poland "free in faith, in language, in self-government."
On August 17, 1914, four of the Polish political parties published a manifesto in which they welcomed this proclamation and expressed their belief in the ultimate fulfillment of the promises made. The net result of the sudden three-cornered bid for Polish friendship and support, then, seems to have been that the leaders of Polish nationalism had decided to abstain from embarrassing Russia, even though their resistance against Germany and Austria with both of which other Poles were fighting was not always very deep-seated.
During the first month of the war practically nothing of importance happened in the Polish territory. German detachments occupied some of the towns right across the border, in many instances for a short time only. Mlawa, Kalish, and Czestochowa were the most important places involved.
On August 31, 1914, however, the occupation of Radom, about 130 miles from the German frontier, was reported, and a few days later that of Lodz, next to Warsaw the biggest city of Russian Poland and an important manufacturing center. At about the same time all of the places along two of the railroads running from Germany to Warsaw, Thorn to Warsaw, and Kalish to Warsaw, as far as Lowitz, where they meet, were occupied. In this territory the Germans immediately proceeded to repair the railroad bridges destroyed by the retreating Russians, who, apparently, had decided to fall back to their defenses on the Vistula. The Germans must have felt themselves fairly secure in their possession of this territory, for on September 15, 1914, Count Meerveldt, then governor of the Prussian Province of Münster, was appointed its civil governor. A day later the commanding general (Von Morgen) published a proclamation, addressed to the inhabitants of the two provinces of Lomza and Warsaw. In it he announced the defeat of the Russian Narew Army and Rennenkampf's retreat and stated that larger forces were following his own army corps, which latter considered them as its friends and had been ordered to treat them accordingly. He called upon them to rise against their Russian oppressors and to assist him in driving them out of beautiful Poland which afterward was to receive at the hands of the German Emperor political and religious liberty.
About ten days later the "additional stronger forces," which General von Morgen had prophesied, put in an appearance. They consisted of four separate armies, one advancing along the Thorn-Warsaw railroad, another along the Kalish-Warsaw line, a third along the Breslau-Czestochowa-Kielce-Radom-Ivangorod railroad, and the fourth from Cracow in the same direction. Just how large these four armies were is not absolutely known. Estimates range all the way from 500,000 to 1,500,000 which makes it most likely that the real strength was about 1,000,000. Of these all but the Fourth Army were made up of German soldiers, whereas the Cracow Army consisted of Austrians, forming the left wing of their main forces which about that time had been rearranged in western Galicia.
By the time all of these armies were ready to advance, the victor of Tannenberg, Von Hindenburg—who meanwhile had been raised to the rank of field marshal—had been put in supreme command of the combined German and Austro-Hungarian armies in Poland. Though he was fighting now on territory concerning which he had at least no superior knowledge than his adversaries, his energy made itself felt immediately. He pushed the advance of his four armies at an overpowering rate of speed and forced the Russians, who apparently were not any too sure, either about the strength of the opposing forces or their ultimate plans, to fall back everywhere. By October 5 the Russians, attempting to make a desperate stand near Radom, had been forced back almost as far as Ivangorod, and within the week following the Austro-German army, still further south, had reached the Vistula between the Galician border and Ivangorod. The advance of the Germans as well as the retreat of the Russians took place under terrific difficulties, caused by torrential rains which poured down incessantly. Some interesting details may be learned from a letter written about that time by a German officer in charge of a heavy munition train: "From Czestochowa we advanced in forced marches. During the first two days roads were passable, but after that they became terrible, as it rained every day. In some places there were no roads left, nothing but mud and swamps. Once it took us a full hour to move one wagon, loaded with munitions and drawn by fifteen horses, a distance of only fifteen yards.... Horses sank into the mud up to their bodies and wagons up to their axles.... One night we reached a spot which was absolutely impassable. The only way to get around it was through a dense forest, but before we could get through there it was necessary to cut an opening through the trees. For the next few hours we felled trees for a distance of over five hundred yards.... For the past eight days we have been on the go almost every night, and once I stayed in my saddle for thirty consecutive hours. During all that time we had no real rest. Either we did not reach our quarters until early in the morning or late at night. What a bed feels like we've forgotten long ago. We consider ourselves lucky if we have one room and straw on the floor for the seven of us. For ten days I have not been out of my clothes. And when we do get a little sleep it is almost invariably necessary to start off again at once.... Even our food supplies have become more scarce day by day. Long ago we saw the last of butter, sausage, or similar delicacies. We are glad if we have bread and some lard. Only once in a great while are we fortunate enough to buy some cattle. But then a great feast is prepared.... Tea is practically all that we have to drink.... The hardships, as you can see, are somewhat plentiful; but in spite of this fact I am in tiptop condition and feeling wonderfully well. Sometimes I am astonished myself what one can stand."
Early in October, 1914, the Germans came closer and closer to Warsaw. At the end of it they were in the south, within twenty miles of the old Polish capital—at Grojec. At that time only a comparatively small force, not more than three army corps, was available, under General Scheidemann's command, for its defense. These, however—all of them made up of tried Siberian troops—fought heroically for forty-four hours, especially around the strongly fortified little town of Blonie, about ten miles west of Warsaw. The commander in chief of all the Russian armies, Grand Duke Nicholas, had retired with his staff to Grodno, and Warsaw expected as confidently a German occupation as the Germans themselves. But suddenly the Russians, who up to that time seem to have underestimated the strength of the Germans, awoke to the desperate needs of the situation. By a supreme effort they contrived to concentrate vast reenforcements to the east of Warsaw within a few days and to change the proportion of numbers before Warsaw from five to three in favor of the Germans to about three to one in their own favor.
On October 10, 1914, panic reigned supreme in Warsaw. Although the Government tried to dispel the fears of the populace by encouraging proclamations, the thunder of the cannons, which could be heard incessantly, and the very evident lack of strong Russian forces, spoke more loudly. Whoever could afford to flee and was fortunate enough to get official sanction to leave, did so. The panic was still more intensified when German aeroplanes and dirigibles began to appear in the sky. For fully ten days the fighting lasted around the immediate neighborhood of the city. Day and night, bombs thrown by the German air fleet exploded in all parts of the city, doing great damage to property and killing and wounding hundreds of innocent noncombatants. Day and night could be heard the roar of the artillery fire, and nightfall brought the additional terror of the fiery reflection from bursting shrapnel. The peasants from the villages to the west and south streamed into the city in vast numbers. Thousands of wounded coming from all directions added still more to the horror and excitement.
The hardest fighting around Blonie occurred from October 13 to 17, 1914. On the 13th the Germans were forced to evacuate Blonie, and on October 14 Pruszkow, a little farther south and still nearer to Warsaw. On October 15 the Russians made a wonderful and successful bayonet attack on another near-by village, Nadarzyn. The next day, the 16th, saw almost all of this territory again in the hands of the Germans, and on the 17th they succeeded even in crossing the Vistula over a pontoon bridge slightly south of Warsaw. However, even then the arrival of Russian reenforcements made itself felt, for after a short stay on the right bank of the Vistula the Germans were thrown back by superior Russian forces. All that day the fighting went on most furiously and lasted deep into the night. The next day at last the Russian armies had all been assembled.[Back to Contents]