THE FALL OF THE NIEMEN AND NAREFF FORTRESSES

The 5th of August, 1915, was a fateful day for the Russian armies. The fall of Warsaw, on that date, was confirmed by the occupation of Poland's ancient capital by German forces under the command of Prince Leopold of Bavaria, brother of King Ludwig III of Bavaria and son-in-law of Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria-Hungary. This in itself would have been a severe setback to the Russian arms. But the consequences which this event was bound to have were of even greater importance.

In an earlier part of this work we heard at some length of the arrangement of Russia's girdle of fortresses which—to repeat only the most important—stretched from Kovno in the north through Oliha, Grodno, Ossovetz, Lomza, Osholenka, and Novo Georgievsk to powerful Warsaw and from there to the south and east to Ivangorod and Brest-Litovsk. These permanent fortifications were supported by strong natural barriers or obstacles in the form of rivers. The Niemen, Bobr, Nareff, Vistula and Bug, with their interminable windings, made more difficult to cross in some places by extensive swamp lands, had, together with the fortified places, offered ideal means for strong defense. Again and again, throughout the first thirteen months of the war, German and Austrian troops had driven the Russian forces back to these defensive lines—but no farther. Behind this shelter the Russians were able to recuperate from the severest reverses and, thanks to a very extensive and comparatively scientific network of railways, reserves and reenforcements could be brought up from interior points until armies which apparently had been beaten to a standstill emerged again, stronger than ever in number and equipment, to undertake a new offensive against the German masses.

Just previous to the fall of Warsaw the eastern front, roughly speaking, was formed by the two sides of an equilateral triangle, with the northern side starting from a point on the Gulf of Riga, about forty miles northwest of Riga, and with the southern side starting from Chotin on the River Dniester in Russian Bessarabia, very close to the point where that Russian province touches Rumania and Galicia. The apex was at Warsaw. When this apex caved in with the withdrawal of the Russians, it followed logically that something had to happen to the two lines that met there. That the Russians retreated from Warsaw on account of some insurmountable difficulties which made the further holding of this most important center impossible, is quite clear. It has been established by now, almost beyond all doubt, that this step became necessary because of insufficient munitions. But whether this is so or not, it still remained true that whatever caused their retreat from Warsaw would exert a similar influence on their capacity to hold their second line of permanent fortifications. And events immediately following the fall of Warsaw proved this contention. Backward and backward fell the Russian lines during the following weeks until by the end of October, 1915, the two sides of the erstwhile triangle had disappeared entirely, and the Russian front was found now along the base of the triangle stretching from Riga through Friedrichstadt, through a point somewhat west of Dvinsk, thence almost due south, skirting Pinsk slightly to the east, and again running south in front of Rovno, entering Galicia at a point about halfway between Zlochoff and Tarnopol, and following, slightly to the west, the River Sereth to a point on the Dniester only a few miles west from where it had ended in August, 1915. How immense a loss this involved for the Russians can be easily seen by a glance at a map. The territory that fell into German hands exceeded 50,000 square miles, with millions of inhabitants, containing some of the most valuable railway lines from a strategic point of view, and including besides Warsaw such important places as Mitau, Kovno, Vilna, Grodno, Bialystok, Brest-Litovsk, Ivangorod, Cholm, Kovel, Pinsk. Though the Russians destroyed many of the railways, drove off men and cattle alike, and moved vast quantities of supplies, equipment, and valuables of all kinds, the time and the facilities at their disposal were so insufficient that the victorious German armies were bound to find still untold quantities of all these. The outbreak of winter, it is true, finally halted the German advance, the force of which gradually would have spent itself anyhow on account of the ever-lengthening lines of communication with its bases. In spite of this, however, it is next to miraculous that the Russians were at all able to form a new line and to withdraw beyond this line, after all, the largest part of their forces. This accomplishment was only a renewed proof of the remarkable ability of the Russian leaders at least along one line—the orderly withdrawal of immense masses. It also showed once more the wonderful resiliency of the Russian armies and the immense advantages which are to be derived from a practically inexhaustible supply of men.

Almost as remarkable as the compactness and efficiency of the Russian retreat was the swiftness and insistency of the German advance. Throughout the German offensive leading up to and following the fall of Warsaw the German armies in the north and center of the eastern front cooperated closely with the Austrian forces in the south. This must be borne in mind as well as the fact that for this entire campaign the General Staffs of the Central Powers had conceived one plan, according to which all their armies proceeded. This frequently necessitated the halting of the advance on one or more points in order to enable some other army at some other point to overcome obstacles which had proved more difficult. Considering the immense extent of the eastern front—which from considerably over 700 miles at the beginning of August, 1915, gradually shortened to about 600 miles by the end of October, 1915—it is little short of marvelous that the German-Austrian offensive should at no time have lost its cohesion. In order to get a clearer perspective of the somewhat complicated operations of a large number of separate army units, we will divide the entire eastern front into three sections and follow separately the operations of each.

In the north—from the Gulf of Riga to Novo Georgievsk—Marshal von Hindenburg was in command. Under him there were four armies, each under a German general: that under Von BÜlow in the extreme north; that under Von Eichhorn to the south of the former and facing the Niemen River and the fortress of Kovno; the two other armies under Von Scholtz and Von Gallwitz—the latter the farthest south—were to attack the Nareff-Bobr line between Novo Georgievsk and Lomza.

The central group was under the command of Field Marshal Prince Leopold of Bavaria and was reenforced by another army under General von Woyrsch, which previous to the fall of Warsaw had been fighting more independently somewhat to the south and, a day before the fall of Warsaw, had forced the strong fortress of Ivangorod on August 4, 1915.

The southern group was originally exclusively Austro-Hungarian. But during the early summer of 1915 a German army under General von Mackensen had been sent into Galicia to cooperate with the Austrian forces in freeing Przemysl and Lemberg after they had assisted in throwing back the left wing of the Russian forces then fighting in Galicia and in forcing them to relinquish their hold on the mountain passes of the Carpathians. This problem having been solved, these mixed Austro-Hungarian-German forces were rearranged and reenforced, and, under the command of Von Mackensen, were to attack the retreating Russians around Brest-Litovsk. The left wing of this group was under the command of Archduke Joseph Ferdinand. To the southeast of this entire group was another army under the Austrian General Pflanzer-Baltin, which in the early summer (1915) had driven the Russians out of the Bukowina.

On August 8, 1915, the attack on Kovno was begun. At the same time the German forces advanced against Lomza and still farther south advanced nearer and nearer to the Warsaw-Bialystok-Vilna-Petrograd railroad, their main objective for the present. All these advances found serious opposition at the hands of the Russians, who successfully attempted to hold up the enemy everywhere in order to insure the safety of their retreating armies. On August 10, 1915, the Russians attempted an unsuccessful sortie from Kovno. Farther south, as far as Lomza, the Russian forces continued their retreat, fighting continuous rear-guard actions for the purpose of delaying the hard-pressing enemy, who, however, gradually came closer and closer to the Nareff-Bobr line. Of course the losses on both sides throughout this continuous fighting were severe. The Russians lost thousands of men by capture, for although they succeeded in withdrawing, practically intact, the principal parts of their armies before the Germans could come up in strong enough numbers to risk attacks, smaller detachments here and there lost contact with the main body and fell in the hands of the Germans and Austrians, so that there passed hardly a day when the official reports did not contain some claims about a few thousand men having been captured.

South of the Niemen the Russians attacked Von Eichhorn's army along the Dvina River, but were thrown back with severe losses. On August 11, 1915, Von Scholtz's group occupied the bridgehead at Vilna, which had been stubbornly defended until the Russian retreat had progressed far enough to make its further possession unessential. The same forces succeeded in crossing the Gac River, south of the Nareff, capturing during three days' fighting almost 5,000 men. Von Gallwitz with his army stormed on the same day Zambroff and then pressed on through Andrzejow toward the east. South of the Nareff, toward the Bug and Brest-Litovsk, the fighting continued throughout the following days. Wherever possible the Russians resisted, and every little stream was used by them to its utmost possibilities in delaying the advance of the enemy. On August 13, 1915, a strongly fortified position in the Forest of Dominikanka fell into German hands. On the same day an outlying fortified position north of Novo Georgievsk had to surrender and other forces fighting between the Nareff and Bug reached the Slina and Nurzets Rivers. The latter was crossed late on August 15, 1915, after the most severe kind of fighting.

Kovno's garrison attempted on that day another unsuccessful sortie, resulting in the capture of 100 men and in slight gains on the part of the besieging forces. The latter success was also repeated before Novo Georgievsk. By this time the general retreat, and the ever-increasing pressure on the part of the advancing enemy made itself felt even in the most northern part of the Russian line. There, as well as in the farthest south of the line, the least changes took place. But on August 15, 1915, German troops attacked the Russians near Kupishky, at the point where the original Russian front turned toward the southwest, and threw them back successfully in a northeasterly direction, capturing at the same time some 2,000 officers and men.

August 17, 1915, marks the beginning of the end for Kovno and Novo Georgievsk. On that day both of these fortresses lost some of their outlying forts, and before Kovno alone 4,500 Russians and over 200 guns fell into the hands of the Germans. During the night of August 18, 1915, Kovno fell, after having been defended most valiantly against the ever-repeated attacks on the part of the Germans under General von Eichhorn. It was one of the strongest Russian fortresses, with eleven outlying forts on both sides of the Niemen, commanding this river at the point where it turns from its northerly course toward the west and defending the approach to Vilna from the west. Over 400 guns and vast quantities of supplies and equipment as well as about 4,000 officers and men made up the booty. On the same day additional forts of Novo Georgievsk fell, although the fortress itself still held out. The fall of Kovno, expected and discounted as it undoubtedly was by the Russians, was a serious blow. It now became absolutely necessary to withdraw all their forces in that sector beyond the Niemen, in order to avoid their being cut off by German columns advancing from Kovno to the south along the east bank of the Niemen. This need found expression in the immediate withdrawal of the Russians from the line Kalvarya-Suvalki. For the Germans an additional advantage arose in their ability to establish contact between Von Hindenburg's forces in Poland and Von BÜlow's army in Courland and thereby remove all possibility of having the latter's right wing enveloped.

As if the fall of Kovno had given a new impetus to the Germans, their attacks on Novo Georgievsk were now renewed with redoubled vigor. On August 20, 1915, this last of the important strongholds of the Niemen-Nareff-Vistula line fell, although the less important fortresses of Olita, Grodno, and Ossovetz were still in Russian hands. There, too, large numbers of men and guns and immense amounts of equipment and supplies were the rewards of the victor. It is said that the total number of men taken before and in Novo Georgievsk aggregated 85,000, while the number of guns exceeded 700. While the town was still burning from the final bombardment—in which some of the famous Austrian mortars of heavy caliber participated—the German Emperor, accompanied by Field Marshal von Hindenburg, General von Falkenhayn, Chief of the German General Staff, General von Beseler and many other high officers, entered this latest conquest of his victorious armies, over which he later held a review.

The continued retreat of the Russian army and the menacing and ever-increasing pressure of the advancing Germans, of course, could have only one result on the fate of the few positions which were still held by the Russians by now west of the Vilna-Grodno-Bialystok line. Unless they were willing to risk the loss of large numbers of troops by having their lines of retreat cut off, it became necessary to withdraw as many as their means of transportation and their efforts to delay the Germans permitted. As a result the fortified town of Ossovetz on the Bobr was evacuated and occupied by the Germans on August 23, 1915. A few miles south, beyond the Nareff, Tykotsyn suffered the same fate. In the latter instance the Russians lost over 1,200 men and 70 machine guns. Still farther south, near Bielsk, Russian resistance was not any more successful. East of Kovno the German advance was not as successful; at least the Russians were able in that region to delay the enemy to a greater extent, although the delay had to be bought dearly. But considering the short distance at which Vilna was located and the great importance of that city as a railroad center for the safe withdrawal of the Russian main forces, any effort that promised success was well worth even heavy losses. Throughout the following days the forces of the northern group pressed on relentlessly to the east and south, delayed here and there, but succeeding in forcing back the Russian troops step by step.[Back to Contents]