BEGINNING OF THE END

So uncertain had grown the positions of Lublin on the southern railway line leading to Warsaw that the Russian commander in chief had issued an order that in case of a retreat the male population of the town was to attach itself to the retiring troops.

On July 21, 1915, the Russians throughout the empire were reported to be joining in prayer. "Yesterday evening," telegraphed the London "Daily Mail's" Petrograd correspondent on the 21st, "the bells in all the churches throughout Russia clanged a call to prayer for a twenty-four hours' continual service of intercession for victory.

"To-day, in spite of the heat, the churches were packed. Hour after hour the people stand wedged together while the priests and choirs chant interminable litanies. Outside the Kamian Cathedral here an open-air Mass is being celebrated in the presence of an enormous crowd."

The chronicle of the closing days of July, 1915, is an unbroken narrative of forward movements of German armies on all parts of the great semicircle. The movement now, however, was slow. The Russians were fighting desperately, and the Germans had to win their way inch by inch. By the 21st the Russians were withdrawing in Courland to the east of the line Popeljany-Kurtschany, and the last Russian trenches westward of Shavly had been taken by assault. To the north of Novgorod the capture of Russian positions had yielded 2,000 prisoners and two machine guns to the Germans on the 20th.

Farther south on the Narew a strong work of the fortress Rozan defending an important crossing was stormed by the Germans, and desperate fighting was going on at Pultusk and near Georgievsk. Already the Russians were beginning to yield their positions to the west of Grojec, which meant that the Teuton armies were about to push into the opening between Warsaw and Ivangorod and divide the Russian forces. The armies of Von Woyrsch on July 20, 1915, seized a projecting bridgehead to the south of Ivangorod, and captured the lines that had been held by the Russians near Wladislavow.

In the positions defending the railway between Cholm and Lublin, Russian resistance was once more marked, and was checking the progress of the armies of Von Mackensen and Archduke Joseph Ferdinand.

By noon of July 21, 1915, the Silesian troops of Von Woyrsch had stormed the bridgehead on the Vistula between Lagow and Lugawa-Wola, with the result that Ivangorod was now inclosed from the south, while to northwest of the fortress Austro-Hungarian troops were fighting on the west bank of the Vistula. Austro-Hungarian troops too were battling their way close up to the fortress directly from the west. Line after line was giving way before the Teutons. The Russian retreat over the bridge at Novo Alexandria to the south of Ivangorod was carried on under the fire of German artillery. Numerous villages set afire by the Russians were now sending great clouds of smoke into the sky over all this region.

The troops of the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, after a stubborn resistance on the part of the Russians, seized enemy positions on July 21, 1915, near Chodel and Borzechow, advancing another step toward Lublin. Eight thousand Russian prisoners, 15 machine guns, and 4 ammunition wagons were taken.

By the 23d of July, 1915, the Teutonic troops were close up to the encircling forts of Ivangorod and stood on the Vistula all the way between the fortress and the mouth of the Pilica. On the 24th the Teutons announced a victory over the Fifth Russian Army by General von BÜlow at Shavli. The report read: "After ten days of continuous fighting, marching, and pursuit, the German troops yesterday succeeded in bringing the Russians to a stand in the regions of Rozalin and Szadow and in defeating them and scattering their forces. The booty since the beginning of this operation on the 14th of July consists of 27,000 prisoners, 25 cannon, 40 machine guns, more than 100 loaded ammunition wagons with their draft animals, numerous baggage wagons and other material."

This day brought the announcement also of the capture of the fortresses of Rozan and Pultusk on the Narew, after violent charges by troops of General von Gallwitz. The crossing of the Narew between these places was now in German hands, and strong forces were advancing on the southern shore. The Russians had been resisting obstinately in this quarter, and the Germans had made their way only by the most heroic efforts. German headquarters announced at this time that in the battles between the Niemen and the Vistula covering the ten days since July 14, 1915, more than 41,000 prisoners, 14 cannon, and 19 machine guns had been captured. The German troops now also attained the Vistula to the north of the Pilica. In their summing up of results since the 14th of July the Teutons recounted further on this day, the 24th, that some 50,000 prisoners had been taken by the armies of General von Woyrsch and Field Marshal von Mackensen during the period.

The army of Archduke Joseph Ferdinand had been making rapid progress. On July 24, 1915, under the attacks of these troops the Russians retreated on a front of forty kilometers, between the Vistula and the Bistritza, from eight to ten kilometers northward to prepared lines, their attempts to halt in intermediate positions being frustrated by the onrush of the victorious Teutonic forces in pursuit.

By July 25, 1915, the Narew had been crossed by the Germans along its whole front, southward from Ostrolenka to Pultusk, and by the 26th they had gained the farther side of the Narew above Ostrolenka likewise. The troops moving southeast from Pultusk now approached the Bug, getting toward the rear of Novo Georgievsk and Warsaw, and threatening to close the Russians' line of escape, the Warsaw-Bielostok railway.

On July 26, 1915, the Russians made a determined counteroffensive from the line of Goworowo-Wyszkow-Serock in an effort to remove the threat to the rear of Warsaw. This, however, had little success, the Russians losing 3,319 men to the Germans in prisoners. To the south of Warsaw the Germans had seized the villages of Ustanov, Lbiska, and Jazarzew, which brought them nearly to the Vistula, just below the capital.

The great attacks of the Germans on the troops defending Warsaw were being hampered to some extent by the laying waste of the country by the retiring Russians. Difficulty in moving heavy artillery on roads had also interfered with their progress, but on the morning of July 28, 1915, Von Woyrsch crossed to the eastern shore of the Vistula between the mouth of the Pilica and Kozienice at several places, and was threatening the Warsaw-Ivangorod railway.

Novo Georgievsk was steadily being inclosed. The Russian counterthrusts in the neighborhood of Warsaw both on the north and the south of the city were repelled by night and day. To the south near Gora-Kalvaria a desperate attempt of the Russians to push forward toward the west on the night from July 27th to the 28th, 1915, was shattered.

The armies of Field Marshal von Mackensen, breaking through Russian positions to the west of the Wieprz, captured thousands of prisoners and many guns, and once more thrust back the Russian front between the Vistula and the Bug. On the evening of the 29th they attained the Warsaw-Kiev railway at Biskupice, about halfway between Lublin and Cholm, thus crowning their efforts to get astride their important line of communications. The Russians were destroying everything of value in the country as they retired, even burning grain in the fields.

On the afternoon of July 30, 1915, Lublin at last was occupied by the army of the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, and on the 31st the Germans of Von Mackensen passed through Cholm. Thus the Teutonic armies were now across the important railway from Warsaw and Ivangorod to Kiev, on a broad front, running all the way down to the Vistula at Novo Alexandria. In Courland the Germans continued to push forward, so that on the 12th of August they were enabled to seize the important railway center Mistan.

Hope in Russia died hard. Press correspondents up to July 29, 1915, still spoke of the possibility of the Russians standing a siege in their principal fortress on the Warsaw salient. On the 29th, however, reports came from Petrograd that the fortresses of the Warsaw defense were to be abandoned and the capital of Poland given up to the army.

The correspondent of the New York "Times" on July 29, 1915, in a special cable summed up the situation in an announcement that the fate of Europe hung on the decision that Russia might make on the question: "Shall Russia settle down to a war of position in her vast fortifications around Warsaw, or shall she continue to barter space against time, withdrawing from the line of the Vistula and points on it of both strategic and political importance, in order to gain the time which Germany has already stored in the form of inexhaustible gun munitions?" The reply was the evacuation of Warsaw.

The decisive blow to Russia's hopes came with the crossing of the Vistula about twenty miles north of Ivangorod on July 28, 1915, already noted. It showed that Warsaw was being rapidly surrounded. The Russian communiquÉ of the 30th of July told of the crossing over of the Teutons on both sides of the Radomka, a tributary of the Vistula, to the right bank of the Vistula on pontoons, and of attempts to throw bridges across the great rivers. Von Woyrsch's troops that had crossed over were irresistibly pursuing still farther east on the 30th, defeating troops hastily brought up to stop their advance. By August 1 two entire German army corps reached the right bank of the Vistula. Ivangorod, now threatened from all directions, could evidently not be held much longer.

The fortress surrendered on August 4, 1915, after a violent bombardment of the outer forts had taken place, beginning on the first of the month. Austro-Hungarian troops under General von Koevess especially distinguished themselves in the attack on the west front.[Back to Contents]