FIGHTING ON THE DVINA AND IN THE DVINA-VILNA SECTOR

At the time Warsaw fell, in the beginning of August, 1915, the eastern front north of the Niemen extended as follows: Starting on the western shore of the Gulf of Riga, at a point about twenty miles west of Riga and about thirty miles northwest of Mitau it ran in a slightly curved line in a southeasterly direction to the town of Posvol on the Musha River, passing just west of Mitau and the River Aa, about ten miles west of Bausk. From Posvol a salient with a diameter of about twenty miles extended around Ponevesh on the Libau-Dvinsk railroad, with its most eastern point a few miles west of Kupishki on the same railroad line. From there the southern side of the salient passed through Suboch and Rogoff to Keydany on the Nievraza, and along the banks of that stream to its junction with the Niemen, about five miles west of Kovno.

In a preceding chapter we have learned how this line was pushed back by the Germans during and following the drive on Kovno and Vilna. After Vilna's fall on September 18, 1915, the Germans had advanced along the western shore of the Gulf of Riga to Dubbeln, about ten miles west of Riga, at the Aa's delta. But, although the Germans succeeded in crossing the Aa at Mitau and establishing their positions to the east of that city, they were unable then, and in fact during the following months, to approach closer to Riga at that point, so that a salient was formed west of Riga, which at its widest point was over twenty miles distant from this point. Just south of Mitau, the south side of this salient bent almost straight to the east for a distance of thirty miles until it reached Uexkuell on the Dvina, about twenty miles southeast of Riga. From there the line followed almost exactly the east bank of the Dvina, passing through the important towns of Friedrichstadt and Jacobstadt, from where it bent due south, gradually drawing away to the west of the Dvina River and passing west and southwest of Dvinsk at a distance of about ten miles. All along this line considerable fighting took place throughout September, 1915, as has already been narrated.

During September 21-22, 1915, this fighting was especially severe west and southwest of Dvinsk, where the Germans were making unsuccessfully desperate efforts to break the Russian lines and get within striking distance of Dvinsk. However, although they managed to maintain their own lines against all Russian attacks and to gather in some 5,000 prisoners, they could not break the Russian defensive. The Russian forces at this point were led by General Russky, among whose commanders was Radko Dmitrieff, of Balkan War fame. Both of these generals are to be counted among the greatest Russian leaders and they were especially expert in everything that pertained to fortresses and their defense. As wonderful as the German military machine had proven itself, as severe as their often repeated offensives were, as superior as their supply of artillery and munitions was both in quality and quantity, Russky and Dmitrieff proved a good match for them all. The possession of Dvinsk at that particular moment would have meant an almost inestimable advantage to the Germans, just as its loss would have been apt to mean the complete rout of the Russians. For once the line broken to a sufficiently great width at that point, all the Russian forces having their basis on Petrograd, Smolensk, and Moscow might have been turned completely.

This supreme importance of Dvinsk was understood equally well by both sides. On the part of the Germans this understanding resulted in unceasing attacks by all available means and forces, while the Russians on their part were prepared to defend their positions with a stubbornness and determination unequaled by the case of any other fortress with the possible exception of Riga and Rovno. The harder the Germans drove their armies against Dvinsk the harder the Russians fought to repulse them. The latter were greatly assisted in this by the fact that strong reenforcements had been sent to this crucial point from Petrograd and from other interior points. Still more important was the beginning of considerable improvement in the Russian supply of guns and shells. Even though, in that respect, Russky was undoubtedly still far behind his German opponent, Von Hindenburg, yet he was at that moment in a much better position than any other Russian general. Dvinsk had to be held at all costs—the Russian General Staff apparently had decided—and to Dvinsk, therefore, were sent all available guns and munitions.

Originally the fortress of Dvinsk was far from being up to date or particularly effective and imposing. It consisted of an old citadel which, it is true, had been improved considerably; but even then its outworks extended hardly farther than a mile beyond its own range. As soon as General Russky assumed command he began feverishly to improve these conditions. In this undertaking he was greatly assisted by the nature of the countryside surrounding Dvinsk. Immediately to the northwest, west, south, and southeast the River Dvina formed a strong line of natural defense. Beyond that was a region thickly covered with small and big lakes, which swung around Dvinsk as a center, in the form of an immense three-quarters circle, starting to the south of the Libau-Ponevesh-Dvinsk railroad and stopping just west of the Dvinsk-Pskoff-Petrograd railroad. The diameter of this circle varies from thirty miles to sixty. The ground between these lakes is swampy in many places, difficult of approach, and comparatively easy to defend even against superior forces, especially because most of it is not entirely flat, but interspersed with hills and woodlands.

Throughout this entire district the Russians built a dense network of trenches, and it was especially by means of these that the Germans were repulsed not only successfully but with great losses to their attacking forces. The more important of these earth fortifications were built in a novel fashion. The main part of each had the form of a crescent with its horns turned toward the enemy. Every attack from the latter, in order to find a point big enough for an effective attack, had to be frontal in nature; that means, it had to be directed against the main part of the crescent-shaped trench. But, whenever such a frontal attack would be executed and just as soon as the attackers would be inside of the sides of the crescent, machine guns and rifle fire from its two horns would hit them on both flanks and frequently destroy them utterly. In order to make the Germans advance far enough into the crescent, advanced trenches had been built in front of its horns, which were connected with the main part of the crescent by communicating trenches.

These advanced trenches were manned by comparatively small forces, whose duty it was to offer a sufficiently strong resistance to draw a fairly good-sized number of Germans. This purpose having been accomplished the troops in the advanced trenches would give way and retire by means of the communicating trenches into their main positions. Again and again the Germans followed them into the death-dealing hollow, to be decimated unmercifully in the manner described above. At the same time Russian guns would open fire and direct a sheet of shells toward the back of the attacker, thus cutting off most effectively any reenforcements which might have made it possible for the Germans to either storm the main trench or withdraw at least that part of their attacking party which had not yet fallen prey to Russian ingenuity. It is said that General Russky contrived to throw out fortifications of this nature around Dvinsk in an immense circle which had a diameter of twenty miles and with its circumference formed a front of almost two hundred miles. Of course, this front was not in the form of an unbroken line. There were any number of places along it that could be occupied by the Germans practically at will. But once there the next advance would invariably bring them face to face with a new obstacle, kill hundreds of them, and frequently result in the withdrawal of the remnant to its main line, from where another advance would be attempted promptly on the next day.

One other feature of these fortifications contributed a great deal to their becoming practically impregnable. The Russian engineering troops saw to it that all these works were built as narrow as possible and were dug as deep as the ground permitted. It was this fact which made the German artillery fire so surprisingly ineffective at this point. In spite of its unceasing fierceness the results it accomplished were as nothing compared with the effort and expense it involved. For, of course, no matter how brilliant the gunnery, how wonderful the cannon, how devastating the shells, if the target at which they are aimed is sufficiently far away and sufficiently small, the result will be disappointing; and the Russians at Dvinsk saw to it that the Germans experienced a long series of costly and heartbreaking disappointments of that nature.

A Hungarian staff correspondent, who was with Von Hindenburg's army, had this to say about the siege of Dvinsk, or rather about the attacks on its outlying fortifications: "The German army could not make use of its heavy artillery, for it proved quite useless, owing to the extreme narrowness of the Russian trenches. In the lake district south of Dvinsk the Russians made the utmost of their natural defenses, and even the advanced trenches there were only occupied after very heavy losses, and then retained under the most trying circumstances. In taking Novo Alexandrovsk—a village about fifteen miles southwest of Dvinsk on the Dvinsk-Kovno post road—the losses incurred on our part were unprecedented in severity."

Another correspondent in writing to his paper, the "Vossische Zeitung," describes the fortifications of Dvinsk as follows: "Every rod of land is covered with permanent trenches, roofed securely against shrapnel and shell fragments and connected with so-called 'fox holes'—small shelters in which the garrisons are safe against the heaviest shells. Sand trenches, skillfully laid out, so that they are mutually outflanking, smother exploding projectiles. The flanking fire of the machine guns often annihilates the assailants when they are apparently successfully attacking. One company alone thus lost fifty-one dead in one day. Between September 15 and October 26, 1915, Dvinsk, in a way, was captured fifteen times, but it is still in Russian hands. The bombardment has reduced the fortress in size one-half without affecting in the least the strength of the remainder."

South of Dvinsk, however, the Germans had been able to advance their line slightly farther to the east. On September 27-28, 1915, and the following days they were fighting on the shores of Lake Drysvidly, about ten miles east of the Dvinsk-Vilna railroad, and at Postavy, ten miles south of the Disna River, a southern tributary of the Dvina. Again on October 1, 1915, the Russians attacked north of Postavy, as well as south on the shores of Lakes Narotch and Vishneff, but without success. Throughout the next day the fighting continued, although not particularly severe. But on October 6, 1915, stronger Russian forces were again thrown against the German lines. In the beginning they gained ground at Koziany, on the Disna, and south on Lakes Drysvidly and Vishneff, but the day's net results left the Germans in possession of their old positions. Russian attacks in that region during October 7-8, 1915, suffered the same fate.

On the latter day the Germans made an attack in force south of Ilukst, ten miles to the northwest of Dvinsk, and took the village of Garbunovka, capturing over 1,000 Russians and some machine guns. On the next day, October 9, 1915, the Russians attempted unsuccessfully to regain these positions and were also defeated to the west of Ilukst, north of the Ponevesh-Dvinsk railroad. On the 10th, attacks west of Dvinsk and Vidzy, north of the Disna, had no better results.

Throughout the following week, October 10 to 17, 1915, the Russian army continuously attacked along the entire line west and south of Dvinsk. In some instances they succeeded in breaking temporarily and for short distances through the German line. But in no case did this lead to a lasting success and, in some instances even, the Germans closed the line again so quickly that the Russian detachments who had broken through were cut off from their main body and fell into the hands of the Germans.

Both on October 22 and 23, 1915, the Russians launched strong attacks near Sadeve, south of Kosiany, which were repulsed in both instances. On the latter day the Germans again attacked northwest of Dvinsk, near Ilukst, and captured some Russian positions as well as over 3,500 men and twelve machine guns, maintaining their hold on the former in the face of strong Russian counterattacks on October 24, 1915. Small German detachments which had advanced toward the north of Ilukst on that day, however, had to give way promptly to superior Russian forces. In spite of this the Germans repeated the experiment on the following day with stronger forces and at that time gained their point. On October 26, 1915, the Germans broke through the Russian line south of the Ponevesh-Dvinsk railroad, between the latter city and the station of Abele, but had to give up part of the newly-gained positions during the night only to regain it again the next morning. A Russian attack against this position undertaken later on that day, October 27, 1915, broke down under German artillery fire, before it had fully developed. In a similar way the most furious kind of fighting took place throughout this period on the Riga salient. There, too, the Russians, successfully held the Germans at a safe distance. In the second half of October, 1915, when Von Hindenburg apparently had become convinced that he would not succeed in taking Dvinsk before the coming of winter, if at all, the German general began to shift the center of his operations toward the north and massed large forces against Riga. According to some reports as many as six army corps were concentrated at that point. The country there, though different from that in the vicinity of Dvinsk, was hardly less difficult for the Germans and offered almost as many opportunities for natural defenses to the Russians.

We have already described at the beginning of this chapter the exact location of the salient that ran around Riga from Dubbeln on the Gulf of Riga by way of Mitau to Uexkuell on the Dvina. The first sector of it—Dubbeln-Mitau—was approximately twenty-five miles long, and the second—Mitau-Uexkuell—about thirty miles. On its western and northwestern side it was bounded to a great extent by the River Aa and by the eastern half of Lake Babit. The latter is about ten miles long, but only a little more than one mile in width and runs almost parallel to part of the south shore of the Gulf of Riga, at a distance of about three miles.

On its southern and southeastern sides the salient followed, for some ten miles, first the post road and then the railroad from Mitau to Kreutzburg on the Dvina—about fifty miles northwest of Dvinsk—and then turned to the northeast for another twenty miles or so. On this latter stretch it crossed two tributaries of the River Aa, the Eckau and the Misse. Through the entire depth of the salient, in a southwesterly direction from Riga, runs a section about twenty-five miles long of the Riga-Mitau-Libau railroad, cutting it practically into two equal parts. Another railroad connects Riga with Dubbeln and still another with Uexkuell, so that the Russians had good railroad communications to every point of the salient. The inside of the latter, besides the rivers mentioned, contained some half dozen other smaller waterways, tributaries of the Aa and Dvina, and was covered almost entirely with dense forests. In the center of these there are located extensive swamps known as the Tirul Marshes, and smaller stretches of swamp lands are also found in various other sections of these woods.

With the exception of the Mitau-Riga railroad there are only two means of approaching Riga, a fairly good road that leads along Lake Babit from the Aa to Riga, and another that runs from Gross Eckau on the Eckau River through the woods by way of Kekkau to Riga and in its northern part parallels the Dvina. The latter stream widens considerably about ten or fifteen miles above Riga and forms many small islands, the largest of which is Dalen Island, just to the north of Kekkau. Separating it from the mainland is only a comparatively narrow arm of the Dvina. The northern tip of the island is solid, somewhat elevated ground, and commands the eastern main arm of the Dvina as well as its eastern bank. If the Germans could gain this island their chances of reaching Riga from the south would be many times increased. An attack in that direction had nothing to fear from a flanking movement on the part of the Russians, because the latter would be prevented from getting at their advancing enemy either from the west or northwest by the impassable Tirul Marshes.

On October 16, 1915, the Germans decided to attempt this maneuver and made a rather unexpected attack east of Mitau and north of Eckau and forced the Russians back of the Misse River, an eastern tributary of the River Aa, near Basui, on which occasion they claimed to have captured over 10,000 men. Some more ground was gained in that neighborhood during the next three days.

Immediately the Russians retaliated by an equally unexpected naval operation far to the north, at the western entrance to the Gulf of Riga. A Russian fleet appeared there and bombarded the ports of Domesnaes and Gipken. Detachments were landed. Although they destroyed some of the fortifications that had been erected there by the Germans and scattered the small forces which the Germans had there, they withdrew within a few days. This operation had practically no influence on the further developments along the balance of the front, except that, threatening as it was for the time being to the German rear, it resulted in a temporary reduction of the pressure that the Germans were trying to exert from the south.

One other attempt to reach Riga before the coming of winter was made toward the end of October. Apparently the German plan was to make a triple attack on the Baltic fortress. From the south another drive was made against Dalen Island. From the southwest the new offensive started from Mitau in the direction of Olai along the Mitau-Riga railroad, and from the west reenforcements that had been concentrated at Tukum advanced on both sides of Lake Babit. However, this offensive, too, was unsuccessful. Especially that started along the north shore of Lake Babit proved costly to the Germans. There the stretch of land between the gulf and the lake is nowhere more than three miles wide, and in many places not that wide. Through its entire length flows the Aa. It is only sparsely wooded. Comparatively small Russian forces successfully opposed the advancing Germans, whose narrow front was easily dominated and driven back by machine guns and field artillery; from the gulf, too, Russian war vessels trained their guns on the Germans, and the attack was quickly broken up with considerable losses to the attackers and only small losses to the defenders. Against these conditions the Germans seemed to be helpless. They fell back along the north shore of Lake Babit and along the Aa toward their base at Schlock. This, of course, necessitated a simultaneous withdrawal of the German forces on the south shore of the lake. The Russians immediately followed up their advantage, and by November 6, 1915, the Germans had withdrawn all their forces from along the north side of the Tirul Marshes. About that time the Germans withdrew beyond the Aa to its west bank, and on November 8, 1915, the Russians stormed the village of Kemmern, about five miles west of Schlock. During the next two weeks, November 8 to 22, 1915, continuous fighting took place to the north of the Schlock-Tukum railroad. This resulted in the storming by the Russians of the villages of Anting and Ragasem on the shores of Lake Kanger and the withdrawal of the Germans beyond the west shore of this lake.

As early as the beginning of November weather conditions had made fighting on a large scale impossible for a few weeks. Attacks and counterattacks, such as we have just described, were still kept up in front of Dvinsk and Riga, it is true, but they gradually lost in extent and severity and brought practically no changes of any importance. Along the rest of the front, down to the Vilia, the fighting assumed, like everywhere else on the eastern front, the form of trench warfare, interrupted occasionally by artillery duels of considerable severity, doing, however, more damage to the landscape than to the military forces. Aero attacks on a small scale, too, were the order on both sides whenever opportunity and climatic conditions permitted. This state of affairs continued throughout the months of November and December, 1915, and January and February, 1916.

Throughout this period the Russo-German lines in the Dvina-Vilia sector remained practically unchanged, although, of course, minor readjustments took place here and there. In the north, along the Aa and Dvina, and before Dvinsk, it was still in the same position that has been described in the beginning of this chapter, except that it had been pushed back from Dubbeln to Lake Kanger, Kemmern, and the River Aa. At the point where it crossed the Vilna-Dvinsk railroad, about ten miles southwest of Dvinsk, it bent still more to the southeast, passed east of Lake Drysvidly, then about ten miles east of Vidzy, crossed the Disna near Koziany, and reached its most easterly point a few miles west of the village of Dunilovichy. From there it bent back again in a westerly direction, but ran still toward the south, about ten miles east of Lake Narotch, and at the same distance to the west of the town of Vileika to the Vilia, just north of Smorgon.

In spite of all the severe fighting before Dvinsk and Riga, neither of these cities had yet been brought within the range of the majority of the German guns, even though continuous local successes had been gained on the part of the German troops. The losses which the latter suffered cannot be stated definitely, because no official figures, either Russian or German, are available. They must have been severe, however. The net result of all the fighting in the region before Dvinsk, which had then been in progress practically for fifty days, therefore, was next to nothing for the Germans and hardly more for the Russians. Neither had been able to gain any definite success over the other. Throughout all this time the Germans not only made innumerable infantry attacks, but also kept up an incessant artillery fire, throwing as many as 100,000 shells a day against the Russian positions. That they did not gain their point speaks well, not only for the valor of the Russian army, but also for the ability of its leader, General Russky.[Back to Contents]