To the north of the central group—north of the Vistula and between it and the Narew—the Germans had assembled, as we have already stated, another group which had as its bases Soldau and Thorn. Their chief task was to protect the German provinces of West and East Prussia from a Russian attack from Novo Georgievsk and Warsaw.
During November, 1914, these forces restricted themselves entirely to defensive fighting along the border. With the beginning of December, however, when the Russians had temporarily weakened their forces fighting north of the Vistula in order to send additional support to the defenders of Warsaw, the Germans attempted an advance which for a short time was successful.
On December 10, 1914, Przasnysz, about twenty-five miles southeast of Mlawa, was stormed after the latter place had been occupied some time before. By December 15, 1914, however, the Russians had again stronger forces at their command for this part of the front, and with them they not only threw the Germans again out of Przasnysz, but forced them to evacuate Mlawa and retire behind their border. A week later, about December 22, 1914, the Germans again advanced from Soldau and Neidenburg, and by December 24, 1914, Mlawa once more was in their hands. Although the fighting in this sector practically went on without intermission from the beginning of November, 1914, to the end of February, 1915, comparatively small forces were involved on both sides. This, of course, excluded any possibility of a decisive result on either side, and we can therefore dismiss this end of the campaign with the statement that, although the Germans north of the Vistula were more successful in keeping the Russians off German soil than the Russians were in keeping the Germans out of Poland, the latter did not make here any appreciable headway in the direction of Warsaw, and accomplished no more than to keep a goodly number of Russian regiments tied up in the protection of Novo Georgievsk and the northern approach to Warsaw instead of permitting them to participate in the repulse of the main attack against the Polish capital, where they would have been very useful indeed.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER LXXX
WINTER BATTLES IN EAST PRUSSIA
The most northern part of the eastern front is now the only one left for our consideration. We have already learned that when the German General Staff planned its second drive against Warsaw, it had been decided to restrict the German forces collected in East Prussia south of the Niemen and east and south of the Mazurian Lakes to defensive measures. At that time—the beginning of November, 1914—and until about the beginning of February, 1915, they consisted of two army corps under the command of General von Bülow, who at the outbreak of the war and for a few years previous to it had been in command of a division with headquarters at Insterburg, and who was therefore well qualified for his task through his intimate knowledge of the territory. About 50 per cent of his forces belonged to the Landwehr, about 25 per cent to the Landsturm and only about 25 per cent were of the first line. These faced a numerically very superior force variously estimated at five to seven army corps. The Germans therefore found it necessary to equalize this overpowering difference by withdrawing behind a strong natural line of defense. This they found once more behind the greater Mazurian Lakes to the south and behind the River Angerapp which flows out of the lakes at Angerburg to the north until it joins the river Pissa slightly to the east of Insterburg.
The town of Gerdauen, East Prussia was burned during the Russian invasion, when for a time East Prussia suffered like Belgium and Poland.
These positions apparently were prepared during the early part of November, 1914. For as late as November 15, 1914, fighting took place at Stallupoehnen on the Kovno-Königsberg railroad and some ten miles east of the Angerapp. A few days earlier, on November 9, 1914, a Russian attack, still farther east, north of the Wysztiter Lake, had resulted in considerable losses to the Russians. North of the Pissa River the Germans managed to stick closer to their border, along which there flows a small tributary of the Niemen offering natural protection. Considerable fighting took place in this territory around the town of Pillkallen, but the German line held.