II.
THE EASTERN CAMPAIGN
While, in the early days of August, the bulk of the German Army was moving westward, not more than ten army corps were available for the campaign against Russia. To them and to the Austrian armies fell the task of laying the basis for the offensive contemplated for a later date. The plan of campaign was to draw the Russians into the Polish bag and tie it up. It was based on the knowledge that Russia's principal strategic aim must, under all circumstances, be Cracow, the gateway to Vienna and Berlin.
The enemy was to be allowed to reach it through Poland, while the Germans should hold on to East Prussia and the Austrians to Galicia, to flank the Russian advance from the north and south in preparation for a campaign against the Russian lines of communication. This scheme of bagging the enemy has governed all strategic moves of the campaign against Russia to this day.
But the Muscovites were on their guard. They paid little attention to the few German divisions that were thrown into Poland in August, in order to attract a Russian offensive, and began hammering at the Teutonic flanking positions along the East Prussian frontier in the north and the line Lublin-Tarnopol in the south.
While the Russian offensive in East Prussia came to grief at Tannenberg, it was most successful against Galicia, and the eighth week of the war already found the Russian invasion west of the San, Przemysl besieged, and the Austrian right wing flanked by vast bodies of cavalry, which had penetrated the Carpathian passes and reached the region of Munkacs.
To relieve the pressure exerted on their Allies and give them a chance once more to establish themselves in north-eastern Galicia, four German army corps invaded Poland and advanced toward Radom and Ivangorod. This counter move was successful. Menaced in their right flank, the Russians quickly took back their army beyond the San. The Austrians followed, raised the siege of Przemysl, and drove the invaders from Hungary and straightened out their line from Sandomir to Czernowitz.
Meanwhile heavy Russian reinforcements had been brought up from Ivangorod and were gradually put in action against the Germans east of Radom. On Oct. 24, as soon as the Russian superiority became alarming, the four German army corps, having, temporarily at least, accomplished their purpose of re-establishing the Austrian campaign, beat a hasty retreat toward Silesia, during which the second purpose of their invasion, to draw into the Polish bag great masses of Russian troops, was successfully achieved, the Russians having been led to believe that they were pursuing a great German army.
Simultaneously, though, with their advance in the path of the German retreat in Poland, the Russians once more concentrated vast forces against the menacing projection of the Austrian battleline in Galicia, and the early days of November witnessed the second invasion of the Austrian province. At the same time a new drive was made on East Prussia, and the Germans were forced back into the region of the Masurian Lakes.
The retirement of the entire Teutonic battleline before the Russians, who toward the end of October had reached the maximum of their strength, marks the end of the first phase of the eastern campaign. It had not accomplished all that had been expected of it. The enemy had been drawn far into South Poland, but the base of operations for the general offensive against his communications in the north had not been established just where it should have been, and the Russian frontier fortifications had been found better prepared for resistance than those of Belgium, while in the south the Austrian base of operations was entirely in the hands of the enemy.