Some of the most violent fighting before Warsaw occurred at this time along the upper Bzura and its southern tributary, the Rawka. The Russian line ran now almost straight from the influx of the Bzura into the Vistula, along the east bank of the former through Sochaczev, then along the east bank of Rawka through Skierniewice and Rawa, from there along some hills to the river Pilitza, crossing it at Inovolodz, through Opoczno and along the River Nida to the Vistula and beyond it through Tarnow into Galicia. In spite of their strong intrenchments and their heroic fighting the Russians were gradually, though very slowly, forced back. A great deal of this fighting was trench warfare of the most stubborn type. This necessarily meant that for weeks the line wavered. One day the Germans would force a passage across one, or perhaps all, of the rivers at one or more points, only to be thrown back the next day and to have the Russians follow their example with an offensive excursion on the west bank. These continually changing "victories" and "defeats" make it next to impossible to follow in full all the developments along this line. By December 25, 1914, the Germans held Skierniewice; by December 27, 1914, Inovolodz; by January 3, 1915, Rawa; by January 5, 1915, Bolimow.
Throughout the entire month of January, 1915, the most ferocious fighting continued around all these places, and many of them changed hands two or three times. Both sides very freely used the protecting darkness of night to make attacks, and this naturally added a great deal to the hardships which the troops had to suffer. It must also not be forgotten that by this time winter had set in in earnest. Snow covered the ground and a very low temperature called for the most heroic endurance on the part of everybody.
One of the American war correspondents, who at this time was with the Russian forces before Warsaw, gives a very vivid description of a night cannonade in the neighborhood of Blouie: "The fire of the German cannons is unbearable. Night grows darker and darker. Everywhere, in a great circle, the country is lighted up by camp fires which send their flames toward heaven in a cloud of smoke. These little red spots throw everywhere a fiery glow over the snow, and down upon this wonderful color symphony the moon pours its weak, ghostlike light through a curtain of clouds so that people seem to float away as in a dream. In the foggy twilight three battalions march to the front.... The noise of the gunfire penetrates to us in separate, spasmodic outbreaks. Flashes of fire flare up on the horizon.... Gradually we come closer and closer to the firing line. Now we are only two or three miles away from the firing batteries. We turn toward the west and there a magnificent battle panorama lies before our eyes. The moon sheds just enough light through the clouds to make it possible to recognize the shadows on the snow. The flat, white field is lined with a seam of black trees. Behind these thin woods stand the cannons. They stretch out in a long line, as far as the eye reaches, and their irregular positions are shown by the red tongues of fire which flare up again and again. The noise of the battle, which had sounded all around us, has now swollen into the roaring thunder of cannons. At a short distance, where the sky seems to touch the field, other flashes flare up, these are the German cannons. Sometimes as many as four of these flashes break forth at one time and tear the dull twilight with their glaring brightness. For a moment all the surrounding country with its phantastic shadows and its darting lights is submerged in blinding brilliancy; then another glittering light captures the eye. It is a bursting rocket which breaks up into thousands of little stars and illuminates the vast field of snow everywhere so that it glitters and glares.
"But again another light appears in the dusky sky. A spray of gold! That is an exploding shrapnel, and almost at the same point three more of these missiles burst into their reddish golden glow. Then the giant arm of a searchlight is thrust out into the midst of the foggy, swelling atmosphere and shows houses, fences and paths with an unsparing clearness. Irresolutely the mighty finger of light wanders across the plain as if it were searching for something and could not find it. At last it throws its coldling, shining ray on a defile and rests there. And suddenly out of the darkness there flares up a multitude of little flashes which look from the distance as if innumerable matches were struck and gave off sparks. The sparks run in a straight line, and these bounding lights show the position of the trenches. Another line of sparks puts in appearance, seemingly only a short distance away. That is formed by the battalions of the advancing, attacking enemy. Then suddenly a ribbon of flame cuts through the shadows, and the sharp echo of machine guns bites into the night air. But so immensely far spreads the battle panorama that the eye is able to fix only small sections at a time...."
Among the many small villages and towns in this small sector between Warsaw and Lowitz, Bolimow saw the most furious fighting. Almost step by step the Russians fought here the German advance, and when finally they gave way for a mile or less after days and nights of grueling fighting, they did so only to throw up immediately new defenses and force the invaders to repeat their onslaught again and again. At any other time of the year this part of the country would have yielded little ground for fighting; for it is covered extensively with swamps. But now the bitter cold of midwinter had covered these with ice solid enough to bear men and even guns. On January 28, 1915, the Germans at last threw the Russians out of their strong intrenchments at Bolimow. But others had already been prepared a short distance to the east, at a small village, Humin.
The attack on this particular position began in the morning of the last day of January, 1915. For three days the battle raged until, late in the afternoon of February 2, 1915, the Germans took Humin by storm. At times it is difficult to decide whether battles involving vast fronts and equally vast numbers, or those fought in a small space and by comparatively small numbers are the more heroic and ferocious. In the latter case, of course, individual valor becomes not only much more noticeable, but also much more important and details that are swallowed up by the great objects for which great battles are usually fought stand out much more clearly. It will, therefore, be interesting to hear from an eyewitness, the war correspondent of one of the greatest German dailies, the "Kölnische Zeitung," what happened during the three days' battle of Humin:
"It was seven o'clock in the morning of January 31, 1915. Punctually, in accordance the orders given out the previous evening, the first shot rang out into the snowy air of the gray morning at this hour from a battery drawn up some distance back. Like a call of awakening it roared along, and fifteen minutes later when it had called everyone to the guns—exactly to the minute the time decided on by general orders—the battle day of January 31, 1915, began with a monstrous tumult. With truly a hellish din the concert of battle started. A huge number of batteries had been drawn up and sent their iron "blessing" into the ranks of the Russians. Field batteries, 15-centimeter howitzers, 10-centimeter guns, 21-centimeter mortars, and, to complete the wealth of variety, 30-centimeter mortars of the allied Austrians joyfully shouted the morning song of artillery. A dull noise roared around Bolimow, for in back of the town, before it, to the right and to the left, stood the various guns in groups of batteries, and through the air passed a shrill whistle. But it was not only their hellish din which made one tremble and start up, but even more so the dismal, powerfully exciting howl of the gigantic missile of the great mortars, chasing up and 'way into the air almost perpendicular. It sounded each time as if a giant risen from out of the very bowels of the earth sent up great sobs. Like a wild chase of unbridled, unchained elements the powerful missile shot up high from the gun barrel.
"A shriek of the most horrible kind, a trembling and shaking started in the wildly torn air, a continual pounding, hissing whirlwind shot up like a hurricane, lasted for seconds and disappeared in the distance like some monstrous mystery. Surrounded by a glare of fire, encircled by blinding light, licked by sheaves of flames, the short barrel of the mortar drew back at the moment of firing. Clouds of dust rose; they mixed gray with brown, with the smoke of gunpowder which hid from sight for a few moments the entire gun, and then it rained down from the air, for whole minutes, the tiny pieces into which the cover of the charge had been torn. After every shot of the big mortars, the heavy howitzers and the 21-centimeter mortars—which usually are the loud talkers in an artillery battle—could hardly make themselves heard. An entire battery of them could not drown the noise of one shot from an Austrian mortar. It sounded like a hoarse but weak bark as compared with this gigantic instrument of death and destruction.
"During the morning the sky cleared; this enabled the observers to sight more accurately. Orders were sent over the telephone; the telescope controlled the effect of the gunfire, and one could see plainly how, in a distance of a few miles, the hail of shot descended on the enemy's trenches. 'Way up towered the geysers of earth when the shot struck home. Above the Russian trenches lay a long white cloud of powder forming a great wall of waves. The dull thunder of the guns was tremendous. It whistled and howled, it cried and moaned, it roared like the surf of the ocean, like the terrifying growl of a thunderstorm, and then it threw back a hundredfold clear echo. In between came the dull crack of the Russian shrapnel. They broke in the broad, swampy lowlands of the Rawka; they pierced the cover of ice which broke with a tremendous noise while dark fountains of bog water gushed up from the ground. In front and in back of the German batteries one could see the craters made by the Russian hits; they were dark holes where the hard frozen ground had been broken up into thick, slaglike pieces weighing tons and all over the white cover of snow had been strewn, dark brown and as fine as dust, the torn-up soil.
"Then the storm of the trenches set in. At a given hour the roar of the guns stopped suddenly. A few minutes later the masses of infantry, held in readiness, arose. They came up from their trenches, climbed over their walls, sought cover wherever it could be found, and were promptly received by rifle and machine-gun fire from the Russians. That, however, lasted only a moment; then they advanced in a jump; the attacking line thinned out, stretched itself out and, continually seeking cover, tried to advance. A few minutes only and the first Russian trench line was reached. In storm, with bayonet and rifle butt, they came on and broke into the trenches. They were fighting now man for man. Then the artillery fire set in again. Again in the afternoon the infantry advanced in storm formation against the head of the village and the trenches flanking it. From them roared rifle and machine-gun fire against the storming lines. Nothing could avail against these intrenchments. Again artillery was called upon to support the attack.