RESULTS OF FIRST SIX MONTHS OF RUSSO-GERMAN CAMPAIGN

This brings us approximately to the end of the first six months' fighting at the eastern front. It will be well now to pause for a short space of time and to sum up the results of the tremendous conflict which has been narrated. However, before we consider these results from a military point of view and strike the balance of successes achieved and failures suffered, let us see how they affected those who were the actors in this terrible tragedy of mankind—the men who fought these battles and their leaders, and the poor, unfortunate men, women, and children whose habitations had been thrown by an unkind fate into the path of this vortex of death and destruction.

In determining the total losses which the Russian and German forces suffered during the first six months of the war, it is next to impossible to arrive at this time at absolutely correct figures. This is especially true in regard to the German troops. In a way this sounds strange, for the German war organization made itself felt in this respect, just as much as along other lines, and in none of the countries involved were the official lists of losses published as rapidly, frequently, and accurately as in Germany, especially in the early stages of the conflict. However, these lists included the German losses on all fronts as well as on the seas, and therefore are available for our purposes only as a basis for a computation of average losses. But by taking these totals and comparing them with other figures from various sources—newspapers, official Russian reports, English and French computations (non-official), statistics of the International Red Cross, etc.—it is possible to determine a total per month of German losses of all kinds—killed, wounded, missing, and captured—for all fronts on which German forces were fighting during the first six and a half months of the war. This total is 145,000 men per month. Assuming that all in all the losses were about evenly divided on the western and eastern fronts, and disregarding the comparatively small losses of the navy, we get a monthly average of German losses at the eastern front of 72,500 men, or a total for the entire period of 471,250 men. This does not include those wounded who after a varying period of time were again able to return to the fighting, and whose number of course was very large, but represents the number of those whose services had been lost to the German forces for all time.

In the case of the Russian losses it is somewhat easier to arrive at fairly accurate figures, at least as far as their losses through capture are concerned. For the official German figures in this respect go into great detail and undoubtedly may be accepted as generally correct. During the early part of the war when the Russians were fighting along the border and on East Prussian territory they lost 15,000 officers and men by capture, at Tannenberg 90,000, and immediately afterward in the Lake district 30,000 more. In October, 1914, fighting in the province of Suwalki, during Hindenburg's advance to the Niemen and his retreat, he captured 10,000, and by November 1, 1914, there were according to the official German count 3,121 officers and 186,797 men in German prison camps. By January 1, 1915, this number had increased to 3,575 and 306,294 respectively, and by the middle of February the total in round numbers must have been at least 400,000. That this is approximately correct is proven by the statement of the Geneva Red Cross published in the "Journal de GenÈve," which gives the total of Russian prisoners in the hands of the Central Powers by the end of February as 769,500. According to the same source the Russians had lost by that time in killed 743,000 and in totally disabled 421,500, while their slightly wounded—those who finally returned again to the active forces—reached the huge total of 1,490,000. These figures again are for the entire Russian forces, those fighting against German as well as Austro-Hungarian forces. Just what proportion should be assigned to the Russian forces fighting against the Germans is rather problematical. For while these were fighting on a much larger front than those who had been thrown against Galicia and the Bukowina, the latter were comparatively much more numerous and, therefore, probably suffered proportionately larger losses. Some of the losses also occurred in the fighting against Turkey. However, we will be fairly safe—most likely shooting below rather than above the mark—in estimating one-half of all these losses as having been incurred on the Russo-German front. This, then, would give us for the period of August 1, 1914, to February 15, 1915, the following total Russian losses in their fighting against the German forces: Killed, 371,500; totally disabled, 210,750; captured, 384,750, a grand total of 967,000, or about twice as much as the German losses.

Even these figures, without any further comment, are sufficient to indicate the terrible carnage and suffering that was inflicted on the manhood of the countries involved. But if we consider that every man killed, wounded or captured, after all, was only a small part of a very large circle made up of his family—in most cases dependent on him for support—and of his friends, even the most vivid imagination fails to give proper expression in words of the sum total of unfathomable misery, broken hearts, spoiled lives, and destroyed hopes that are represented in these cold figures.

At various points in this history we have had occasion to speak of the various generals, both Russian and German, who were directing these vast armies, the greatest numerically and the most advanced technically which mankind has ever seen assembled in its entire history. To go into details concerning the hundreds of military geniuses which found occasion to display the fruits of their training and talent would be impossible. But on each side there was among all these leaders one supreme leader on whose ability and decision depended not only the results of certain battles, but the lives of their millions of soldiers—yes, even the fate of millions upon millions of men, women and children. The Russians had intrusted their destiny to a member of their reigning family, an uncle of the czar, Grand Duke Nicholas, while the Germans had found their savior in the person of a retired general, practically unknown previous to the outbreak of the war, Paul von Hindenburg. Each had been put in supreme command, although the former's burden was even greater than that of the latter, including not only the Russian forces fighting against the Germans, but also those fighting against the Austro-Hungarians. On both, however, depended so much that it will be well worth while to devote a short space of time to gain a more intimate knowledge of their appearance, character and surroundings. We will spend, therefore, a day each at the headquarters of these two men by following the observations which some well-known war correspondents made during their visits at these places.

The war correspondent of the London "Times" had occasion during his travels with the Russian armies to make the following observations: "Modern war has lost all romance. The picturesque sights, formerly so dear to the heart of the journalist, have disappeared. War now has become an immense business enterprise, and the guiding genius is not to be found on the firing line, any more than the president of a great railroad would put on overalls and take his place in an engine cab. Here in Russia the greatest army which ever met on a battle field has been assembled under the command of one individual, and the entire complicated mechanism of this huge organization has its center in a hidden spot on the plains of West Russia. It is a lovely region which shows few signs of war. In a small forest of poplars and pines a number of tracks has been laid which connect with the main line, and here live quietly and peacefully some hundreds of men who form the Russian General Staff. A few throbbing autos rushing hither and thither and a troop of about 100 Cossacks are apparently the only features which do not belong to the everyday life of the small village which is the nearest regular railroad station. Many hundreds of miles away from this picture of tranquillity is stretched out the tremendous chain of the Russian front, each point of which is connected with this string of railroad cars by telegraph. Here, separated from the chaos of battle, uninfluenced by the confusion of armed masses, the brain of the army is able to gain a clear and free view of the entire theatre of war which would only be obscured by closer proximity." Another, a French correspondent, says: "Whatever happens anywhere, from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathian Mountains, is known immediately in the big blue railroad cars whose walls are covered with maps. Telegraph and telephone report the most minute occurrence. Should the commander in chief desire to inspect a position or to consult personally with one of the commanding generals there is always an engine ready with steam up. Headquarters suddenly rolls off; and, after two or three days, it returns noiselessly, with its archives, its general staff, its restaurant, and its electric plant. The Grand Duke rules with an iron fist. Champagne and liquor is taboo throughout the war zone, and even the officers of the general staff get nothing except a little red wine. Woe to anyone who sins against this order, here or anywhere else at the front. The iron fist of the Grand Duke hits, if necessary, even the greatest, the most famous. At a near-by table I recognize an officer in plain khaki, Grand Duke Cyril. The proud face and the powerful figure of the commander in chief, Grand Duke Nicholas, is sometimes to be seen in this severe room. Shyly one approaches the chief commander upon whose shoulders rests all the responsibility; and the attitude of the man who has been chosen to lead the Russian armies to victory does not encourage familiarity. Next to him I notice Janushkewitch, the Chief of the Great General Staff, with the gentle, almost youthful face of a thinker. But everything is ruled by the personality of the Grand Duke, which, with its mixture of will power and of gracious majesty, is most captivating."

Let us now rush across space and follow still another war correspondent, this time a representative of the German press, to the headquarters of the German armies: "Field Marshal von Hindenburg has an impressive appearance. With his erect, truly military carriage he makes a picture of strength and health. With him appears a very young-looking general who cannot be older than fifty years. A high forehead, clear blue eyes, a powerful aquiline nose, an energetic mouth, a face—in one word—which would be striking even if the man, to whom it belongs, would not be wearing a general's uniform and the insignia of the order 'Pour le mÉrite'—one knows that one is face to face with the chief of the General Staff, Ludendorff. The Field Marshal greets his guest with charming friendliness, leads the way to the table and offers him the seat to his right. During the simple evening meal he rises and offers the toast: 'The German Fatherland!' Around the table are about ten officers, among them Captain Fleischmann von Theissruck of the Austrian army, who represents the Austrian General Staff. The Field Marshal mentions a letter which he received from some one entirely unknown to him in which the writer reproaches him most severely because some Cossacks had entered some small town on the border. 'That will happen again and again,' he says, 'and cannot be avoided. I cannot draw up my troops along the entire border, man by man, like a quarantine guard. To gather forces quickly again and again and to beat the Russians again and again, that is the best way to make them disgusted with their stay at the German border.' Then he relates some details about the battle of Tannenberg. He does not tire of entertaining his guest with interesting details about the fighting. He mentions the vast number of presents which have been sent to him by his numerous admirers. 'It is touching how good people are to me. A great many of their gifts are very welcome—but what shall I do with framed pictures while I am in the field? What shall I do after the war is over? Nothing. I'll go back to Hanover. There are lots of younger men [pointing to Ludendorff and the others] who want their chance, too. With my years, there is nothing more beautiful than to retire after one's work has been done and to make room for the younger generation.'"

Apparently the men at the "helm of the ship" lead a life of comparative ease and security. But if we consider the fearful responsibilities that they have to carry and the tremendous mental strain under which they are continuously, we can readily see that their lot is not to be envied. Of course, their rewards are equally great if they are successful. But what if they fail? At any rate they, as well as the troops who fight under them, have the glamour of fighting, the promise of glory, the sense of duty well done, to sustain them. But what of those others, equally or even more numerous, on whose fields and forests, in whose streets and market places, around whose houses and churches the battles rage and the guns roar? What of the women and children, the sick and the old, whose fathers, husbands and sons are doing the fighting or, perhaps, have already laid down their lives upon the altar of patriotism? What is there left for them to do when they see their houses go up in flames, their few belongings reduced to ashes, their crops destroyed and even their very lives threatened with death and sometimes—worse yet—with dishonor?

All this and more, millions upon millions of Russians and Germans, rich and poor alike, had to suffer most cruelly. And on the eastern front this suffering in a way, perhaps, was even more severe than in the west. For there the actual fighting, while extending over an equally long front, was much more concentrated, and after the first few months did not move forward and backward; and existence, except in the immediate vicinity of the firing line, was at least possible, even if dangerous and precarious. But in the east thousands upon thousands of square miles in East Prussia, in West Russia, and especially in Poland, the fighting passed in ever advancing and retreating waves as the surf rolls along the beach, and soon gunfire and marching millions of armed men had leveled the country almost as smoothly as the waves of the ocean grind the sand.

In East Prussia the devastation wrought by the Russians, some through wanton lust for destruction and in unreasoning hate for the enemy, but mostly through the pressure of military necessity, was terrible, especially east of the Mazurian Lakes and south of the Niemen. But there, at least, the poor inhabitants had the consolation of being able to return to their destroyed homes after the Russians had been finally driven out and to begin to build up again what war had destroyed, and in this they had the help and support of their highly organized government and their more fortunate compatriots from the interior.

In Poland, however, especially in the rural districts, even that consolation was lacking. For after German and Russian armies alike had passed over the country again and again, not only destroying values that it had taken centuries to build up, but on account of the huge masses concerned frequently denuding the entire countryside of absolutely every means of sustenance, the final result was occupation by the enemy. And even if that enemy, true to his inherent love of order and to his talent for organization, immediately proceeded to establish a well-regulated temporary government, at the best his efforts would have to be restricted; for he had not much to spare, neither in men to do the work needed, nor in means to finance it, nor even in food to give sustenance to those who had lost everything.

And the worst of it was that for years previous to the outbreak of the war the two principal races inhabiting Poland—the Poles and the Jews—had been fighting each other, with the Russian sympathies strongly on the side of the Poles. Now when war overtook this unfortunate country, both the Poles and the Russians threw themselves like hungry wolves upon the unfortunate Jews. They were driven out from their villages, often the entire population irrespective of age, sex, or condition. They were made to wander from one place to another, like so many herds of cattle, except that no herd of cattle had ever been treated as cruelly as these poor helpless droves of women, children, and old and sick people whose men folk were fighting for their country while this very country did its best to kill their families. This is not the place or time to go into this horrible catastrophe, beyond stating this fact: In July, 1914, Poland had been inhabited by millions of hard-toiling people who, though neither overly blessed with wealth or opportunities, nor enjoying conditions of life that were particularly conducive to happiness, were at least able to found and raise families and to sustain an existence which was bearable chiefly because of the hope for something better to come. Six months later—January, 1915—these millions had stopped toil, for their fields were devastated, their cattle had been killed or driven away, their houses had been burned down. Hundreds of thousands of them had been forced to flee to the interior, other hundreds of thousands had died, some through want and illness, some during the fighting around their homes, some through murder and worse. Families had been broken up and others wiped out entirely, and thousands of mothers had been separated from their children, perhaps never to see them again. Even if, in isolated cases, destruction, and even death, was merited or made inevitably necessary, in the greatest number of cases the suffering was as undeserved as it was severe.

From a military point of view the net result of the fighting during the first six months of the war most decidedly was in favor of the Germans. February, 1915, found them conquerors along the entire extent of the Russo-German front, and the Russians those who had been conquered. In spite of the successful campaigns which German arms had won, however, they had fallen far short of what they had apparently set out to do, and in that wider sense their successes came dangerously near to being failures. But even at that they were still ahead of their adversaries; for though they had not gained the two objects for which they had striven most furiously—the possession of Warsaw and the final destruction of the offensive power of the Russian armies—they held large and important sections of the Russian Empire, they had driven the Russians completely out of Germany and forced them to do their further fighting on their own ground, and they had reduced the effectiveness of their armies by vast numbers, killing, disabling, or capturing, at a most conservative estimate, at least twice as many men as they themselves had lost.

During the first three weeks of August, 1914, the Russian armies had invaded East Prussia and laid waste a large section of it. Then came the dÉbÂcle at Tannenberg, and by the middle of September, Germany was freed of the invader, who had lost tens of thousands in his attempt to force his way into the heart of the German Empire. Not satisfied with these results, the Germans on their part now attempted an invasion of large sections of West Russia, pursuing their defeated foes until they reached the Niemen and its chain of fortresses which they found insurmountable obstacles. It was once more the turn of the Russians, who now not only drove back the invading Germans to the border, but who by the beginning of October, 1914, faced again an invasion of their East Prussian province. However, less than two weeks sufficed this time to clear German soil once more, and by October 15, 1914, the Russians had again been forced back across the border. By this time the German Commander in Chief, Von Hindenburg, had learned the lesson of the Niemen. Instead of battering in vain against this iron line of natural defenses, he threw the majority of his forces against Poland, and especially against its choicest prize—historic Warsaw. October 11, 1914, may be considered the approximate beginning of the first drive against the Polish capital. During about two weeks of fighting the German armies advanced to the very gates of Warsaw, which then seemed to be theirs for the mere taking. But suddenly the Russian bear recovered his self-control, and with renewed vigor and replenished strength he turned once again against the threatening foe. By October 28, 1914, the Germans in North and Central Poland and the Austro-Hungarians in South Poland had to retreat.

November 7, 1914, became the starting date for the third Russian invasion of East Prussia. The Germans now changed their tactics. Instead of meeting the enemy's challenge and attempting to repeat their previous performances of throwing him back and then invading his territory, they restricted themselves, for the time being, to defensive measures in East Prussia, and launched a powerful drive of their own against Russian territory. For the second time Warsaw was made their goal. By this time, to a certain extent at least, the offensive momentum of both sides had been reduced in speed. Where it had taken days in the earlier campaigns to accomplish a given object, it now took weeks. Of course the rigors of the eastern winter which had set in by then played an important part in this slowing-up process, which, however, affected the speed only of the armies, but not the furor of their battling. December 6, 1914, brought the possession of Lodz to the Germans, and on the next day the Russians were taught the same lesson before the Mazurian Lakes that they had taught to the Germans a few months before when they faced the Niemen. East Prussia up to the Lakes was in the hands of Russia, but beyond that impregnable line of lakes and swamps and rivers they could not go. In the meanwhile the drive against Warsaw was making small progress in spite of the most furious onslaughts. There, too, a series of rivers and swamps—less formidable, it is true, than in East Prussia, but hardly less effective—stemmed the tide of the invaders. For more than two weeks, beginning about December 20 and lasting well into January, the Russians made a most stubborn stand along the Bzura and Rawka line, and successfully, though with terrible losses, kept the Germans from taking Warsaw. However, in order to accomplish this they had to weaken their line at other points and thus bring about the collapse of their drive against Cracow, by means of which they expected to gain from the south the road into Germany which had been denied to them again and again in the north.

The end of January, 1915, found the Germans practically as far in Poland as the beginning of the month. It is true that they had made little progress in four weeks, but it is also true that they had given up none of the ground they had gained. And with the coming of February, 1915, they reduced their offensive activities at that part of the front and turned their attention once more to East Prussia. The second week of February, 1915, brought to the Russians their second great defeat on the shores of the Mazurian Lakes. By February 15 East Prussia again had been cleared of the enemy, and parts of the Russian provinces between the border and the Niemen were in the hands of the Germans who apparently had made up their minds that they were not going to permit any further Russian invasions of East Prussia if they could help it. They now held a quarter of Poland and a small part of West Russia, while the Russians held nothing except a long battle front, stretching almost from the Baltic to the Carpathian Mountains and threatened everywhere by an enemy who daily seemed to grow stronger rather than weaker.[Back to Contents]