Germany's great summer offensive was over, but Hindenburg tried hard to secure good winter quarters in the north by a renewed advance on Dvinsk and Riga. A frontal attack was launched on Dvinsk on 3rd Oct. and was a costly failure. Ruzsky had defended Dvinsk with a semicircle of far-flung trenches on the Verdun model, against which the German shock-troops and guns could make practically no progress. After three weeks of vain endeavour Hindenburg shifted the attack to Riga, with no better success and heavy additional casualties. Thrust and counter-thrust succeeded one another with little change in the general situation until the end of November, when, after temporarily securing a crossing at Dahlend Island, south-east of Riga, in the River Dvina, Hindenburg was forced to abandon the attempt as futile. With the help of their fleet the Russians won their way back to Kemmern; and in their counter-offensive from Dvinsk in the same month recaptured Illutsk. All hope was then abandoned by the Germans of taking either Riga or Dvinsk that year. The German effort in the south, below the Pripet marshes, also slackened. Ivanoff not only maintained the ground he had won, but scored several notable victories in the Strypa sector; but both here and along the Styr, where Lechitsky was opposing Bothmer, there was both give and take and nothing decisive—apart from the fact that Roumania was saved by this evidence of Russia's recuperative powers from choosing the wrong side.
In order further to influence the dubious attitude of Roumania, a fresh Russian offensive in the Bukovina was begun in the last days of the year, with Czernowitz as the objective; but as this rightly belongs to 1916 it will be dealt with in our summary of the operations for that year. Though Russia had not succumbed as a military power under the staggering blows she had received in 1915, she had lost 2,000,000 of her best fighting men, and the moral of her army was never so high again. Falkenhayn has hinted in his Memoirs that the Germans knew that the blind faith of the Russians in their rulers was already shaken before they started Mackensen's 'drive'. It could not be expected to endure in face of the criminal neglect and corruption which every day added to their hardships and losses at the front. The Russian court at that period has been described as a mixture of folly and intrigue, with 'dark forces' at work under pro-German influence, led by the impostor Rasputin. The Grand Duke Nicholas, who was above the treacherous influences now undermining all departments of the Russian system, had been transferred to the command in the Caucasus in the most critical hours of the Austro-Germanic advance, the supreme command of the Russian armies being taken over by the Tsar himself (5th Sept.), with Alexieff as Chief of Staff. The Tsar's motives were above suspicion; but he lacked the efficiency and generalship of the Grand Duke, and stood for a system which, under the searching test of war, was proving itself unworthy of the continued sacrifices of his subjects. The sacrifices were repeated in 1916, but the seeds were already sown of the red harvest which was to lead to Russia's downfall and the end of the Romanoffs.
The Balkans, 1915
The progress of German arms in 1915 had decided Bulgaria to throw in her lot with the
Central Powers. Her price—fixed by secret treaty with Germany in July of that year—was the whole of Macedonia possessed by Serbia, and other valuable slices of territory. It was not until 12th Oct. that formal war was declared by Bulgaria against Serbia, five days after the fresh invasion of Serbia had begun under Mackensen's leadership, with two Austro-German armies, one under General Koevess, advancing west of Belgrade in a wide flanking movement along the old roads over the Save and the Drina, and the other, under General von Gallwitz, advancing east of Belgrade against the main Serbian forces. Against this new Mackensen 'drive', with fully-equipped forces larger than the whole Serbian army, organized with all the Teutonic thoroughness which marked the same leader's Galician triumph, the Serbians had no chance, though they fought, as ever, with stoic resistance, and exacted a price for every inch of ceded territory. While they were thus stubbornly retreating, Bulgaria threw in two of her armies on the Eastern front, thus threatening, with the advancing Austro-German forces, to enclose them in a wide loop. The tragedy of it was that Serbia's allies were powerless to save her; and that Greece, who by the terms of her treaty with Serbia should have gone to her assistance as soon as Bulgaria attacked her, declined through King Constantine to do so, notwithstanding the insistent advice of his Prime Minister, M. Venizelos. Convinced, like King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, that Germany was winning the war, King Constantine maintained to the end an attitude which, though he chose to call it neutral, was never friendly towards the Allies. Russia had her hands too full to go to Serbia's aid, and though a Franco-British attempt was made as the net closed round the encircled Serbians, it was too late to save the situation.
The story of the Serbian disaster of 1915, when the fall of Monastir on 2nd Dec. robbed the Serbians of their last stronghold, is that of a desperate flight across the frontier and over the mountains of Albania and Montenegro to the Adriatic. Thanks to the Serbians' heroic efforts, the Austro-German armies had not been able to close the net tight, and though the Bulgarians followed hard on their heels, they could not quite complete their victory. All told, however, the Serbians lost some 50,000 men, killed, wounded, captured, or starved, in the retreat, together with their guns and equipment. Their aged monarch shared the retreat and succeeded in reaching Brindisi.
Meanwhile the Franco-British force, which, as already related, arrived too late to prevent this final act of the Serbian tragedy, had established a strong base at Salonika, notwithstanding Greek protests on the grounds of neutrality. It was not until 14th Oct. that the combined force, under the leadership of General Sarrail—the British column being commanded by General Mahon—began to move up the Vardar valley, the British advancing on the right towards Lake Doiran, and the French towards Strumnitza. Both forces were soon in touch with the Bulgarians, and fought a number of minor engagements in their forlorn hope of effecting a junction with the hard-pressed Serbians. Besides being too late, however, the Franco-British forces were not strong enough to effect their purpose, and when the remnants of the Serbian army had been forced across the frontier towards the Adriatic, they were themselves attacked by powerful Bulgarian columns. The object of his expedition having been eliminated, General Sarrail prepared for retreat to his base. The Bulgarians did their best to harry his retirement. They launched a determined attack, which he repulsed with heavy loss; and then endeavoured to isolate the two columns by an assault on the British force at Lake Doiran. Though some 1300 casualties were sustained in defeating this attack, the British, acting as flank-guard to the French, enabled the retreat to be made jointly. By 13th Dec. the Allied troops, having administered a severe check to the pursuing Bulgarians two days previously, were across the Greek frontier in good order, and in due course had entrenched themselves about Salonika.
With the fall of Serbia came the collapse of Montenegro, in circumstances considerably less heroic than those which marked the Serbian retreat. The key position of Mont Lovtchen was abandoned to the Austrians with little if any show of resistance, and Cettinje, the capital, similarly entered by the invaders. King Nicholas of Montenegro sought refuge in Paris; Prince Mirko of Montenegro in Vienna.
The Serbian soldiers who survived the great retreat, numbering some 100,000 in all, were met on the Adriatic coast by units of the Italian fleet and transferred to Corfu—to recoup and refit for the later campaigns which were to lead to the recovery of their country.
Italy, 1915