General Rennenkampf received from the Tsar telegrams congratulating him upon his well-ordered retreat and his victorious counter-attack and resumed invasion of East Prussia. In this message the Tsar noted that, during the retreat, the Russian General had not left a single pound’s weight of supplies to the enemy.

Before passing on to the story of the larger conflict in Central Poland, we may note some interesting incidents which occurred during this ebb and flow of the war on the East Prussian borders. One of these incidents shows that, with all their elaborate war training, the Germans were liable, from lack of ordinary precautions, to fall very easily into a dangerous trap. It occurred during the fighting around Wirballen, the little frontier town well known to all travellers from Western Europe to Russia as the point at which the railway from Ostend by Berlin crosses the frontier. The place was held at the time by the Russians, and was attacked by a German column.

After about an hour and a half’s brisk fusillade, which was but weakly replied to, the Germans advanced, fearlessly and without further precautions, under the impression that their enemy had withdrawn. But on crossing the frontier-line into Russian territory, their feelings became too much for them, and, preluded by loud shouts of “Hoch!” they sang with fervour their familiar Die Wacht am Rhein. At that moment the Russians, who had remained carefully sheltered by their trenches all the time, poured in a deadly rifle-fire, backed by the immediate charge of a sotnia of Cossacks. Taken at a disadvantage and utterly surprised, it was said that not a man of the German force survived to recross the border.

The German Emperor’s beautiful hunting-box at Rominten near Insterburg, where he had been wont to sojourn every autumn for the shooting of elk and other big game, fell into Russian hands. The following humorous extract is from a letter written home by one of the officers who had the good fortune to be temporarily quartered amid such luxurious surroundings:

“After a series of terrible battles, we are reposing on William’s magnificent estate. Undreamt-of beauty is all round us. The place is splendidly equipped, so that we have at our disposal everything we could wish for, and we are riding his celebrated horses, and enjoying delicious dinners prepared by his man cook. Especially beautiful is the park, with its glorious shady avenues. It swarms with rare animals, and birds are flying free everywhere. By the way, our soldiers have caught a William parrot in the park. It speaks excellent German, but our men are teaching it their own language, and it is learning to address its Imperial master with compliments I should blush to repeat in company.”

Another isolated but interesting incident of this Prusso-Polish frontier fighting was the destruction near Mlawa, on September 5, of the Zeppelin airship Z 5,—the second Zeppelin known to have been brought down in this region since the commencement of hostilities. The Z 5 had been cruising in the neighbourhood for several days, and it was not until the date mentioned that her movements were observed to be growing very irregular and uncertain. She tried hard to shape a course for her own frontier, but finally collapsed in some fields. It was then found that her envelope had been literally riddled by Russian bullets. Her crew managed, however, to blow up the airship, whose commander, severely wounded, requested to be placed out of sight behind a haystack, so that he “might not witness the end of his dear Zeppelin.”

A possible explanation of Von Hindenburg’s advance to the Niemen was that the German General Staff hoped by a serious threat in this direction to lead the Russians to diminish the pressure upon Galicia in order to reinforce their right. At the time of the operations Colonel Shumsky, perhaps the best-known military writer in Russia, pointed this out, and at the same time suggested that the menace from East Prussia could have no serious result. “Will the Germans,” he asked, “compel us to abandon the operations in the Carpathians and throw our forces across to the Niemen, or shall we compel the Germans to restrict their activity on the Niemen, and fling themselves into Cracow and Galicia to save Austro-Hungary? The advance of the Germans from East Prussia cannot have any decisive object. A lightning-like stroke could only be delivered if the Germans were finished with France and could move all their forces against us.”

It appears that something was done to draw reinforcements from the western theatre of war for the German armies on the Polish frontier. Reserve and Landwehr troops organised since the declaration of war were moved in the same direction, and, according to Russian estimates of a subsequent date, by the end of September the Germans had concentrated twelve army corps of about 400,000 men on the frontier in the centre about Thorn and Posen. It appears, however, that at the time the Russian Staff did not realise that this formidable concentration was in progress, and thought that their opponents were putting forth their chief efforts on the two flanks of the long curved line northwards—for the struggle in East Prussia, and southwards for the defensive campaign in Galicia.

The Germans, however, were preparing for a serious stroke in the centre of the Polish theatre of war, and, despite his failure on the Niemen, the chief command of this great effort was entrusted to General Hindenburg. The fame he had acquired by his expulsion of the enemy from East Prussia had only been slightly overclouded by the defeat on the Niemen, and it was thought that the German generals in East Prussia could be safely left to defend against Rennenkampf’s farther advance through the wilderness of forest, marsh, and lake which forms the natural barrier along the frontier of the province.

The German plan was to abandon the mere passive defence of their frontiers, assume the offensive, and strike a blow directly against Warsaw and the group of fortresses beyond the Vistula that form the citadel of the Russian power in Poland. The German armies were to advance from the borders of the provinces of Posen and Silesia in a converging march upon Warsaw. The left column from Thorn was to advance along the south bank of the great bend of the Vistula which runs north-westward from Novo Gorgievsk by Plock. The central column from the Posen frontier was to march on Lowicz and the great factory town of Lodz—after Warsaw the largest place in Poland—the third column, which had already occupied Czenstochowa, just inside the Russian frontier towards Silesia, was to protect the flank of the advance and march on the Vistula in the direction of Ivangorod. A fourth column was to march on Kielce, forming the link with an Austrian advance through Northern Galicia towards the river San, which was intended to reoccupy Jaroslav and raise the siege of Przemysl.

The country through which the line of advance lay was the undulating Polish plain, a district with many clumps and belts of forest, and almost destitute of good roads. Once the weather broke, at the end of autumn, much of the ground would be reduced to a marshy condition that would make it impassable until the first frost of winter hardened it again. The German Staff hoped to carry through the campaign while the region was everywhere practicable, and, even if Warsaw were not captured, to make the Vistula their line of defence, where, having secured the railways behind them, they might hope to hold their own on a front shorter by many hundred miles than the long curving frontier of their own territory.

It was expected that the first movement into the Polish plain would have the result of forcing the enemy not only to abandon the advance already begun towards Cracow, but to evacuate a considerable part of the ground they had overrun in Galicia, and at the same time to withdraw some of their forces from the East Prussian border. German reports went to show that the enemy had no large forces in the country between the middle Vistula and the Posen-Thorn frontier. The first stage of the German advance would, therefore, not be likely to meet with any very serious opposition.

Why, it may be asked, had not the Russian military authorities taken fuller precautions, in the earlier days of the war, for safeguarding the Polish territory from invasion and spoliation? Why had not the immensely long and valuable line of the river Vistula in particular been occupied in heavy force at the time of the mobilisation in August? A semi-official statement of mid-October replied definitely to these criticisms. It was pointed out that the consideration was a purely military one. It was a fundamental rule of warfare to sacrifice everything of lesser importance to the main issue. Thus, the first “impudent invasion” from the German side had demanded a large transfer of troops. Next the Austrian concentration in Galicia, and their attack in the Lublin district, had needed a big force in that quarter. Thirdly, the invasion by way of Eastern Prussia had required substantial means to deal with and crush it. “This temporary victimisation of the Vistula district is the outcome of a praiseworthy decision of our strategy. Now the situation is different, and strategic and other aims coincide upon the Vistula until the enemy has been finally beaten.”

Intense enthusiasm was aroused throughout Russia by the announcement that the Tsar would proceed in person to the fighting area. In front of the Winter Palace at Petrograd, thousands of students and others paraded and demonstrated in honour of their “Little Father,” as well as to celebrate news of the victories in Galicia and East Prussia.

The German columns met with little resistance in their advance across the Polish plain. Lodz was occupied, and the two northern columns gained touch east of the town and advanced on a wide front between the northern bend of the Vistula and its tributary, the Pilitza, their objective being Warsaw. The right moved forward through Kielce and Radom against Ivangorod. According to German accounts, the advancing armies were joined by large numbers of the peasants, who welcomed them as deliverers; but the Russian story is that the people fled in terror before the invaders.

We have to depend during the war for our news of what is happening in Poland almost entirely upon Russian accounts official and non-official. The German wireless reports give only the briefest outline of the official view of the situation taken at Berlin, and these reports are often cut down by our own censorship. The few reports from Berlin that were allowed to be published in England contained, it is true, some references to a victorious advance of the Austro-German armies into Poland in the first days of October. But, at the time, these were treated as fictitious claims of success, for it seemed strange that, in the numerous telegrams that came from Russian sources, there was not a word of any important events in the central theatre of war. Official news told of fighting on the East Prussian border and in Galicia, and non-official reports were full of detailed statements as to the complete collapse of the Austrians, an invasion of Hungary through the Carpathians, attacks upon Przemysl that had reduced the fortress to desperate straits, and steady progress in the direction of Cracow.

It was, therefore, a surprise to every one when, towards the end of the second week in October the official bulletin from St. Petersburg admitted that Von Hindenburg had forced his way up to the left bank of the middle Vistula and overrun all Western Poland—this, too, at a time when all the rest of Europe believed that the Germans were still on the frontiers of Poland and Galicia, and busy preparing the fortresses of Thorn and Posen for a siege. It was afterwards explained that the Russian retirement to the Vistula was a deliberate “strategic” movement intended to lure the Germans to destruction. But it is fairly certain that the Russians had sent such large masses of men northwards and southwards for the operations in East Prussia and Galicia, besides providing for an army they were concentrating on the Black Sea coast and the Caucasus, that their forces in Central Poland had been considerably reduced. During Von Hindenburg’s advance they were busily engaged in reinforcing the army on the middle Vistula and in the Polish triangle of fortresses, and for this purpose they drew in several army corps from their left.

Weakened by this withdrawal, the Russian army in Galicia gave way before the advance of the Austrian armies on the German right. Jaroslav was abandoned, the siege of Przemysl was temporarily raised, and General Brussiloff concentrated his forces to protect Lemberg from recapture.

The right column of the German advance, pushing forward through Radom, reached the river Vistula near Ivangorod, tried to force a passage over it below the fortress, and attacked the outlying defences of the place. The columns of the left and centre, under Von Hindenburg’s personal command, penetrated to within a few miles of Warsaw, where at last they met with serious opposition. The Grand-duke Nicholas began to push a considerable force westward from the city to protect it from even a temporary occupation, while his main line of defence lay along the right bank of the Vistula above and below the city. It was early on the morning of October 11 that the thunder of the guns told the inhabitants of Warsaw that a great battle had begun at the very gates of their city.

During the preceding days there had been rumours not only that the Germans were approaching in great force, but that the Grand-duke was about to evacuate the city.

The wealthier classes of Warsaw are largely made up of those who hold government positions, or whose interests are, in one way or another, closely connected with the existing Russian regime, and there was something like a panic as the rumour spread that the place might soon be in the hands of an invader. The alarm was increased by the sight of German aeroplanes circling high over the houses and dropping bombs into the streets. One of these aeroplanes had an accident to its engine and fell on the estate of Count Briansky in the suburbs of Warsaw. The aviators were murdered by a mob of peasants before they could be taken prisoners by the troops.

For three days Warsaw could hear the cannon thunder close at hand. Indeed, at first, it seemed to be coming nearer and nearer on the south side of the city. The arrival of long trains of wounded men hour after hour told that the fight was a costly one, and this fighting close to Warsaw was only part of an engagement stretching out upon an enormous front along the Vistula. The Grand-duke was, however, holding his own and using the central position in front of Warsaw as a starting-point from which to drive a way into the German line, while along the river the enemy were wasting their forces in desperate attempts to effect the crossing.

The Siberian Army Corps, now in action for the first time in Europe, proved themselves fighting men. Their attack turned the scale in the centre. The great wedge pushed forward from Moscow began to tell upon the German resistance, and as it gained more and more ground new masses of troops were brought across the river to extend the region of the close fighting. The weather had broken, and the battle was fought out under cloudy skies and amid driving showers of sleety rain.

On October 14 Warsaw heard the cannon thunder less loudly. The enemy’s centre was being driven steadily back with the loss of thousands of prisoners and many guns. Higher up the Vistula towards Ivangorod the German attempts to gain a footing on the east bank had also failed.

According to the Utro Rossii, elaborate attempts to cross the Vistula on rafts (after aeroplane reconnaissance) took place at two points, between Ivangorod and Sandomir and between Ivangorod and Warsaw. In the first of these attempts the Russians carefully waited until two battalions had crossed and then fell on them with the bayonet, while the rafts were cruelly raked with rifle-fire. In the second instance, the enemy were similarly uninterrupted while throwing their pontoons across. Then a burst of shrapnel fell upon the masses as they were in the act of crossing. The river ran red with blood, hundreds of corpses floated down the stream, and but few escaped. On the following day a tremendous artillery duel lasted for several hours. The Russians got the range and established their superiority, as was evidenced by the smoke and flames beginning to rise from the miserable villages within the enemy’s position, and by the slackening of his fire. The scene was one of sublime horror. The sky for miles was lit up by the blaze of the burning buildings and by the myriads of bursting projectiles. It was the beginning of the end of the invasion of Russian Poland.

Warsaw itself “returned to the normal” on October 14. The frightened people had been a good deal dispirited and disheartened by what had appeared to them like a falling-back of their defending army, and many of them had, indeed, already fled from the threatened city. They were further discouraged by the dissemination of a German proclamation announcing that the enemy would be in Warsaw “by the 18th”—instead of which, by the date named the Kaiser’s army was in full retreat. Now, however, the aspect was brighter. Numbers of ragged and dejected prisoners (but many of them Poles) were being brought into Warsaw daily. Institutions and shops that had been shut up were reopened. The utmost animation prevailed where yesterday there had been pessimism and dejection. Cheering crowds gave cigarettes, apples, milk, and bread to the Russian troops as they marched past with faces set towards the German frontier. The agony of Warsaw had endured for five or six days. All that time the outside world had watched and waited without being satisfied, so rigid was the Russian censorship of news.

If the policy of “waiting for the enemy” had so far been crowned with substantial success, much remained to be achieved. In the densely wooded country stretching away from the Polish capital to Petrikau, the fighting had been particularly deadly, several villages being taken and retaken. As far as could be ascertained, the German troops suffering the most heavily in this quarter were the 17th and 20th Corps. One Russian regiment alone lost three commanding officers in rapid succession. The behaviour of the Siberian troops under fire was especially gallant and noteworthy. With trenches full of water and the conditions generally depressing, these fine troops held on to one position during eight days of fighting, sometimes hand to hand, and always decimated by shell-fire. This place was swampy ground on the left bank of the Vistula. It was known from the prisoners that the German army detailed for the great movement upon Warsaw contained many of the Kaiser’s finest battalions. It was hoped to smash in the Russian centre while simultaneously dealing heavy blows both against Ivangorod and in Galicia. Apart from its great strategical value, due consideration was given to the moral results of the capture of Warsaw.

We have seen in part how this plan miscarried. I propose now to piece together a few missing links with the assistance of one of the longest and most remarkable despatches sent during the whole war—by Mr. Granville Fortescue to the Daily Telegraph. Mr. Fortescue suggests, as a starting-point for the phase when the Germans’ offensive “exhausted itself” and their complete defeat became inevitable, October 19-20. Close pressure upon the enemy’s left wing caused the huge front to swing round, running westerly instead of north and south. A comparison is made of the “luring” of the enemy towards Warsaw with the “luring” of Napoleon’s legions towards Moscow a century before. For, says this writer, “the Russians do not play by the German rules—they look on Nature as their first and strongest ally. With the elements on their side, batteries of 17-in. howitzers dwindle into insignificance.” There were stories also of friction between the high commanders on the Austro-German side; but as to this the correspondent could of course say nothing very definite, particularly as his information would of necessity be derived from prejudiced sources. Mr Fortescue continues:

“On October 20, when the battle of the Vistula was at its height, the German Austrian line of communications stretched across 150 miles of Russian territory. On that day the German attack exhausted itself. The tide of battle ebbed. The Russian right swept round, discouraged the enemy, and rolled him away from the Vistula. Warsaw no longer trembled under the salvos of the enemy’s artillery. The Russian cheers of victory echoed sixty miles away.

“The Germans, battling for the railroad bridges across the Vistula at Ivangorod, paused in their fight. In that pause they could almost hear the tread of the oncoming Russian legions. At Radom the Crown Prince and his staff hastily ordered up reserves to meet this new menace.

“For four days victory hung in the balance. Then the German resistance began to crumble. The force of numbers began to tell. At Radom steam was up on the engine that pulled the Crown Prince’s private car. Already the German army which had threatened Warsaw was in full retreat along the south margin of the river Pilitza. Under the threat of attack from this flank the Germans and Austrians holding the Kosenitze and Ivangorod front fell back, after offering a most desperate resistance. When the troops of the Kosenitze-Ivangorod line were smashed the German-Austrian position south along the Vistula, from Nowa Alexandria to Sandomir, could no longer hold. On November 5 the main body of the Austrians began to fall back precipitately. A final effort made here to dam the Russian tide was in a manner an heroic waste of force.”

This account is supplemented by the Russian official report, which conveniently divides the two later phases of the German overthrow into October 23-27, and October 28 to November 2. In the first of these phases the enemy battling in the Kosenizy-Ivangorod zone retreated on finding himself being outflanked by way of the river Pilitza. In the second, the German resistance along a line Novaya-Alexandria similarly broke down utterly.

This further retirement found them, a day or two later, endeavouring to hold on to the town of Kielce along a forty-mile line of entrenchments. The Russians reconnoitred this position by night and attacked at dawn. A frightful conflict, often hand to hand, lasted the whole of a day and night. At last the defenders were routed with a loss of 2,400 men and 40 officers captured, with a howitzer, 10 light guns, and 11 machine-guns. These prisoners belonged to the 20th Corps, the Landwehr, the Guard Reserve Corps, and the 1st and 2nd Austrian Corps. Here Austrian and Prussian fought shoulder to shoulder.

Throughout November 2 the Austrians were fighting hard for the retention of the important town of Sandomir on the Vistula, which they had occupied and protected with a triple line of entrenchments and wire entanglements “carrying alternating electrical current.” The Russians stormed all three lines by irresistible bayonet charges. Nevertheless, in the hope of recovering the works the defenders brought up heavy reserves that night; but all in vain—attack and counter-attack ending in their total discomfiture with awful losses. They left all their sick and wounded behind them, whom the Russians found, together with much booty of all descriptions, on their victorious entry into Sandomir. In two days they captured from the Austrians nearly 5,000 prisoners, 18 field-guns, and 24 machine-guns.

The main German army was now in such rapid retreat that it was obvious to all that the scene of operations would shortly be shifted to their own territory. It was only possible to guess at the losses in the three weeks’ Titanic struggle for the possession of the capital of Russian Poland and the long line of the Vistula—losses which, if vast on the Russian side, must be reckoned as simply colossal on that of the Austro-German allies, plus in their case thousands on thousands of prisoners and the hundreds of guns taken.

The scheme of the onslaught upon the Vistula was generally condemned by critics not only of Russian, but of European repute, it being pointed out that if the conception of that offensive had been the avoidance of a battle around Cracow and on the plains of Silesia, such a conflict had merely been postponed—to take place under circumstances far less favourable to the German plans. Rightly or wrongly, General von Hindenburg came in for not a little of this adverse criticism, it being pointed out that, although the report might be correct that the Crown Prince had been nominally in command, Von Hindenburg was in all probability the guiding spirit of the move.

On the other hand, not one but several of Russia’s military leaders had enormously increased their reputations. These included General Russky—who had led the masterly advance along the river Pilitza—General Ivanoff, and, most of all, of course, the Grand-duke Nicholas himself. As Mr. Granville Fortescue phrases it, Nicholas Nicolavitch is a Russian of the old school. He is known to be a strict disciplinarian, but “when one carries the responsibility of one-sixth of the world on his shoulders one cannot listen to excuses. In the army he is the law and the word.” While the prolonged agony of the Warsaw battles was taking place the Tsar conferred upon the Grand-duke that prized decoration the Order of St. George. Lesser grades in the same decoration went to his skilful Chief-of-the-Staff, General Yanuskevitch, and to Quartermaster-General Daniloff. The Tsar also similarly rewarded Captain Martinoff for acts of deep devotion and gallantry. While not yet recovered from a wound, this brave man insisted upon taking over the command of Turret Hill in the defence of the fortress of Ossovetz, where he remained for three days in an exposed position of the utmost danger and under a continuous hail of fire. When a shell dropped close to the magazine and threatened to blow it up, Martinoff personally headed a party to the scene of the danger and extinguished the flames.

During the time of crisis Warsaw did not entirely escape the bomb-throwing from aeroplanes which has been such a feature of the German aggressive in both theatres of war. One such messenger of death (October 19), or, rather, several such, killed nine and wounded no fewer than fifty-six of the civilian population, including several women and children. Then was witnessed the novel spectacle of the people mounting the roofs of their houses and taking “pot-shots” at the deadly Taube machines, one of which had been instrumental in killing or maiming upwards of sixty non-combatants.

It was only natural that victory for the Russian arms should have enhanced the already high enthusiasm and patriotism of the Tsar’s peoples. It was known that there had long existed in German minds a profound contempt for the Muscovite military organisation, Potsdam professors of war having clung to the belief that they were opposed to a system which was faulty and calculated to break down, especially after the adverse verdict of the war with Japan in 1904-5. But such critics had not reckoned with the complete reorganisation of the Russian military “machine” carried out in 1910, nor yet allowed for the vastly improved personnel of the Russian rank and file. Of this last-mentioned point, one of the war correspondents wrote:

“The Russian ‘Tommy,’ or, as he is called here, Ivan, son of Ivan, is a most impressive-looking soldier. Nearly all over 5 ft. 6 in. in height, and of splendid build, they recall certain Irish regiments in size and swagger. For as soon as the peasant has donned the long, light, terra-cotta-coloured overcoat and learned to set his cap at a jaunty angle, he assumes the martial swagger. The Russian military overcoat is the best bit of soldiers’ wearing apparel I have seen in any army. Not only is it smart in cut and colour, but eminently practical. No better protection against the winter cold could be devised. I used to think that the English military overcoat was the best made; but the Russian is better. It is not necessary to emphasise the importance of having a good covering in Russia in winter.”

It was stated, apparently with authority, that some of the German prisoners arriving at Vilna were lads of sixteen years of age. Among stories of “atrocities” vouched for was one to the effect that an enemy patrol, having captured a Cossack trooper, flung the poor wretch on to a fire and literally roasted him alive! It was averred that a Russian officer, doubting the reliability of the horrible story, caused the charred remains of the Cossack to be disinterred. But there were counter-charges of atrocities preferred against the Russians, and on both sides some very wild talk on the subject. In a war of such inveterate bitterness as this had now become one must perforce suspend judgment.

The official communiquÉ upon the defence of the Vistula and the complete defeat of the invasion of Russian Poland closed with these impressive words: “We owe thanks for our victory to the unfailing grace which God has shown to the superhuman heroism of our warriors, of whom Russia may be justly proud. The victory which has been achieved makes it possible for our troops to set about the solution of fresh problems, the grappling with which commences a new period of the war.”

At Radom—now in Russian hands again after a month’s occupation by the enemy, and where his invasion plan is supposed to have been perfected—the following proclamation to the Polish inhabitants was issued by the commander of a Russian army corps: “Poles! Our wounded officers and soldiers, and also our prisoners who had fallen into the hands of the enemy and had passed through the town and province of Radom, speak with deep gratitude of your cordial treatment of them. You have tended the wounded, fed the starving, and sheltered from the enemy those escaping from captivity. You have given them money, and guided them to our lines. Accept from me, and from all ranks of the army entrusted to me, warm and hearty thanks for all your kindness, for your Slavonic sympathy and goodness.”