In an official announcement of the 18th of March, 1915, the German Government sketched the line held in the east by the German troops northward of the front covered by joint German and Austrian forces. It read: "The line occupied by us in the east runs from the Pilica, along the Rawka and Bzura to the Vistula. North of the Vistula the line of our troops is continued from the region to the east of Plozkz by way of Zurominek-Stupsk (both south of Mlawa). From there it runs in an easterly direction through the region to the north of Przasnysz—south of Mystinez, south of Kolno—to the north of Lomza, and strikes the Bobr at Mocarce. From here it follows the line of the Bobr to northwest of Ossowetz, which is under our fire, and runs by way of the region to east of Augustowo, by Krasnopol, Mariempol, Pilwiszki, Szaki, along the border through Tauroggen to the northwest. This is from beginning to end entirely on hostile soil." This long line, it appears, was under the supreme command of Von Hindenburg, while Von Mackensen had charge of the great drive to the south.
The statement here quoted was issued as reassurance to Germans who had been made nervous by reports of a Russian invasion of East Prussia, and was connected with the Russian raid on Memel.
Until June there was practically no change in this great line, except that on its northern end it was swung outward into Russian territory to include a large part of Courland, the River Dubissa roughly forming the dividing line until the front swung eastward toward Libau, in the line of the Libau-Dunaburg Railway.
The tasks of both German and Russian troops were similar. Comparatively weak German forces held the front in the region of the Niemen, the Bobr, and the Narew, safeguarding such Russian territory as had been seized by the Germans, and protecting East Prussia against invasion. Opposed to them lay considerable Russian forces whose task it was, supported by the fortresses of the Narew and the Niemen, especially Grodno, to protect the flank and rear of the Russians standing in Warsaw and southward in the bend of the Vistula, with the Warsaw-Vilna Railway behind them, while great decisions were fought for in the Carpathians and Galicia.
In Poland, between the lower and the upper courses of the Vistula, the Germans about the middle of February, 1915, having occupied the Rawka-Sucha ridge of upland, had developed fortified positions along the rivers Bzura, Rawka, Pilica, and Nida. The bad weather of the winter and early spring, which had turned the roads of Poland into pathless morasses, made against extensive operations, and the momentous undertakings carried out on the wings of the eastern front led the German General Staff to refrain from important movements in this section, where the Russians had strongly fortified themselves for the protection of Warsaw. It was not until the Teutonic allies had gone over to the offensive in the Carpathians and in western Galicia, and the Russians had withdrawn to the Polish hills of Lysa-Gora early in May, that, favored by improved weather conditions, operations in this part of Poland again took on larger scope. Especially along the Bzura the German attacks again became violent in an effort to hold the Russian forces in the district to the west of Warsaw while thrusting at their wings from the south and north. However, fighting was not of great consequence in this middle sector until the middle of June, 1915.
CHAPTER XLIV
CAMPAIGN IN SOUTHERN POLAND—MOVEMENT UPON WARSAW
By the 1st of July, 1915, the stupendous enveloping campaign of the Teuton armies on the eastern front had advanced to a point where the Allies were forced to recognize the imminence of a catastrophe, which could be averted only by the most decisive action of the Russian armies.
Far in the north, on the extreme right wing of the Russians, the army of General von Bülow was hammering at the defenses of the Dubissa line. Off and on fighting was taking place in the neighborhood of Shavli. Russian counterattacks, reported from day to day through June, with difficulty had held in check this army, which evidently was aiming at the Warsaw-Petrograd Railway on the sector between Vilna and Dvinsk. On the right flank of these forces operated the troops of General von Eichhorn, with the line of the Niemen for their objective. Next to these on the south, aiming at the Bobr River and the Upper Narew, were the forces of General von Scholtz, and on their right the army of Von Gallwitz, based on Mlawa with Przasnysz in front of it. Below the line of the Vistula, before the Bzura and down to the middle course of the Pilica, operated the Ninth German Army, commanded, at least in the later stages of the Warsaw campaign, by Prince Leopold of Bavaria. The whole group of northern and central armies was acting under the general direction of Field Marshal von Hindenburg.