WARSAW FALLS

The retreat from Warsaw began during the night of August 3 and 4, 1915. Already the city had been stripped as far as possible, to judge by reports from Petrograd, of metals, such as church bells and machinery that might possibly be of use to the Germans. A portion of the civilian population left the city. The Blonie line just to the west of the capital was given up under pressure from the Teutons on the 3d. While the retreat was taking place the Russians gave all possible support to their forces defending the Narew lines, so far as they still were maintained.

Desperate charges were hurled by the Russians against the Germans moving forward all along the front Lowza-Ostrow-Wyszkow. The bravery of the Russians, especially in their counterattacks on both sides of the road from Rozan to Ostrow on the 4th of August, won the admiration of the Germans.

The correspondent of the London "Times" reports that on August 4, 1915, there was probably not over one Russian corps on the west side of the Vistula. "Half of that crossed south of Warsaw before 6 p. m.," he writes, "and probably the last division left about midnight, and at 3 a. m. on August 5 the bridges were blown up. The Germans arrived at 6 a. m." The formal entry of the Polish capital was made by Prince Leopold of Bavaria as Commander in Chief of the army which took the city.

The formal announcement issued by the German Great Headquarters on the 5th of August read: "The army of Prince Leopold of Bavaria pierced and took yesterday and last night the outer and inner lines of forts of Warsaw in which Russian rear guards still offered stubborn resistance. The city was occupied to-day by our troops."

In the capture of Warsaw seven huge armies had been employed. The German northern army, operating against the double-track line which runs from Warsaw to Petrograd, 1,000 miles in the northeast, via Bielostok and Grodno; the army operating in the Suwalki district, threatening the same line farther west; the army aimed at the Narew based on Mearva; the army directly aimed at Warsaw, north of the Vistula; the (Ninth) army directly aimed at Warsaw, south of the Vistula; ten or twelve Austrian army corps attempting to reach the single-and double-track railway from Ivangorod to Brest-Litovsk and Moscow, and the line from Warsaw to Kiev via Lublin and Cholm, which is for the most part a single track, and, finally, the army of Von Linsingen, operating on the Lipa east of Lemberg.

The campaign for Warsaw had been fought along a front of 1,000 miles, extending from the Baltic to the frontier of Rumania. An estimate which lays claim to being based upon authoritative figures placed the number of men engaged in almost daily conflict on this long line at between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000. The attacks upon the sides of the lines on which the defense of Warsaw depended had been the most furious in the course of the war on the eastern front. The losses on both sides undoubtedly were enormous, though they can be ascertained only with difficulty, if at all.

The following summary of captures was issued by the German Great Headquarters on August 1, 1915: "Captured in July between the Baltic and the Pilica, 95,023 Russians; 41 guns, including two heavy ones; 4 mine throwers; 230 machine guns. Taken in July in the southeastern theatre of war (apparently between Pilica and the Rumanian frontier): 323 officers; 75,719 men; 10 guns; 126 machine guns."[Back to Contents]