GERMAN RETREAT FROM RUSSIAN POLAND

On October 19, 1914, the Germans, who apparently had accurate information concerning the immense numbers which they now faced, gave up the attack and began their retreat. The retreat was carried out with as much speed and success as the advance. By October 20 the Germans had gone back so far that the Russian advance formations could not keep up with them and lost track of them. Without losing a gun, the First German Army managed to escape the pursuing Russians as well as to evade two attempts—one from the south and one from the north—to outflank them and cut off their retreat.

During the fighting before Warsaw the total front on which the Russian armies were battling against the German and Austrian invaders of Poland was about 160 miles long, stretching from Novo Georgievsk in the north, along the Vistula, through Warsaw and Ivangorod to Sandomir at the Galician border in the south. All along this line continuous fighting went on, and the heaviest of it, besides that directly before Warsaw, took place around the fortress of Ivangorod. Two attempts of the Russians to get back to the left side of the Vistula on October 12 and 14, 1914, were frustrated under heavy losses on both sides. A German soldier states in a letter written home during the actual fighting before Ivangorod that at the end of one day, out of his company of 250, only 85 were left—the other 66 per cent having been killed or wounded.

Just as the Russians had succeeded in assembling sufficient reenforcements at Warsaw, to make it inevitable for the German forces to retreat, they had brought equally large numbers to the rescue of Ivangorod. However, these did not make themselves really felt there until October 27, 1914. Previous to that date the Germans and Austrians captured over 50,000 Russians and thirty-five guns. When, on October 23 and 24, 1904, aeroplane scouts discovered the approaching vast reenforcements, and similar reports were received from the First Army fighting around Warsaw, the German and Austrian forces were all withdrawn. The retreat of these groups of armies was accomplished much in the same way as of that in the north, except that it began later and brought with it more frequent and more desperate rear-guard actions. The Russians, who were trying desperately to inflict as much damage as possible to the retreating enemy, showed wonderful courage and heroic disregard of death. In some places, however, the Germans had prepared strong, even if temporary, intrenchments, sometimes three or more lines deep, and the storming of these cost their opponents dearly.

By October 24, 1914, the invaders had been forced back in the south as far as Radom and in the north to Skierniewice; by October 28 Radom as well as Lodz had been evacuated and were again in Russian hands. The lines of retreat were the same as those of advance had been, namely, the railroads from Warsaw to Thorn, Kalish, and Cracow. Much damage was done to these roads by the Germans in order to delay as much as possible the pursuit of the Russians. Considerable fighting occurred, however, whenever one of the rivers along the line of retreat was reached; so along the Pilitza, the Rawka, the Bzura, and finally the Warta. By the end of the first week of November the German-Austrian armies had been thrown back across their frontiers, and all of Russian Poland was once more in the undisputed possession of Russia.

In a measure Von Hindenburg followed the example of his Russian adversaries when he withdrew his forces from Poland into Upper Silesia in November, 1914, after the unsuccessful first drive against Warsaw, of which we have just read the details. His reasons for taking this step were evident enough. When it had been established definitely that the reenforcements which Russia had been able to gather made futile any further hope of taking Warsaw with the forces at his command, only two possibilities remained to the German general: To make a stand to the west of the Vistula until reenforcements could be brought up, or to fall back to his bases and there concentrate enough additional forces to make a new drive for Poland. He chose the latter, undoubtedly because it was the safer and less costly in lives.

How quickly the German retreat was accomplished we have already seen. In spite of their rapidity, however, the Germans found time to hold up the Russians, not only by severe rear-guard actions, but also by destroying in the most thorough manner the few railroad lines that led out of Poland. In this connection they proved themselves to be as much past masters in the art of disorganization as they had hitherto shown themselves to be capable of the highest forms of organization.

About November 10, 1914, Von Hindenburg had completed his regrouping. The line along which the Russians were massed against him stretched from the point where the Niemen enters East Prussia, slightly east of Tilsit, along the eastern and southern border of East Prussia to the Vistula at Wloclawek, from there to the Warta at Kola, where it turns to the west, along and slightly to the east of this river through Uniejow-Zdouska-Wola to Novo Radowsk. From there it passed to the north of Cracow in a curve toward Galicia, where strong Russian armies were forcing back the Austrians on and beyond the Carpathians. Along this vast front—considerably over 500 miles long—the Russians had drawn up forces which must have amounted very nearly to forty-five army corps, or over 2,000,000 men. These were distributed as follows: The Tenth Army faced the eastern border of East Prussia west of the Niemen; the First Army the southern border of this province, north of the Narew and both north and south of the Vistula; the Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Armies, forming the main forces of the Russians, fronted along the Warta against lower Posen and Upper Silesia, while the balance of the Russian armies had been thrown against the Austro-Hungarian forces in Galicia.

Against these Von Hindenburg had three distinct armies which were available for offensive purposes. The central army under General von Mackensen was concentrated between Thorn and the Warta River; a southern army had been formed north of Cracow and along the Upper Silesian border, and was made up chiefly of Austro-Hungarian forces with a comparatively slight mingling of German troops. North of the Vistula, between Thorn and Soldau, a third and weaker army had been collected for the protection of West Prussia. In Galicia, of course, stood the main body of the Austro-Hungarian forces, and in East Prussia defenses had been prepared which made it possible to leave there weaker formations for defensive purposes only.

The Germans fully appreciated the danger of the Russian numerical superiority. If these mighty forces were once allowed to get fully under way and develop a general offensive along the entire front, the German cause would be as good as lost. The main object of Von Hindenburg, therefore, was to break this vast offensive power, and he decided to do so by an offensive of his own which, if possible, was to set in ahead of that of the Russians. Though the latter most likely had at least one-third more men at their disposal than he, he had one advantage over them, a wonderfully developed network of railroads, running practically parallel to this entire line. The Russians, on the other hand, had nothing but roads running from east to west or from north to south, which could be used as feeders only from a central point to a number of points along their semicircular line. Troops having once been concentrated could be thrown to another point if it was at any distance at all only by sending them back to the central point and then sending them out again on another feeder, or else by long and difficult marches which practically almost took too much time to be of any value. Von Hindenburg could, if need be, concentrate any number of his forces at a given point, deliver there an attack in force and then concentrate again at another point for a similar purpose, almost before his adversary could suspect his purpose. His plan was to attack with his strongest forces under Von Mackensen the weakest point of the Russian line between the Vistula and the Warta, beat them there and then march from the north against the right wing of the main forces of the Russians, which latter was to be kept from advancing too far by the mixed Austrian and German army. On his two outmost flanks, in East Prussia and East Galicia, nothing but defensive actions were contemplated.

The Russian plan was somewhat similar, except that their main attack apparently was to be directed in the south against Cracow, and from there against the immensely important industrial center of Silesia. At the same time, they intended to press as hard as possible their attacks in East Prussia and Galicia in order to force a weakening of the German center.[Back to Contents]