The Russian Campaign, April to August, 1915 / Being the Second Volume of "Field Notes from the Russian Front"

CHAPTER XV THE GERMAN DRIVE IN GALICIA

Dated:
Rovna,
June 26, 1915.

It is utterly impossible at this time to give anything like an accurate story of the past two months in Galicia. It will be years before the information necessary for definite history can be accumulated from the various units engaged. Even then there will be gaps and inaccuracies because hundreds of the men engaged have been killed, and so few even of the Generals know more than their own side of the case, that the difficulties of the historian will be enormous.

I shall not attempt then, in this brief chapter, anything but to trace the merest outline of the causes and effects of the German drive in Galicia.

It has been apparent to all of us here from the start of the war that Warsaw was becoming increasingly the German objective. Attempts from the north and on the centre failed absolutely, the latter both in October and in January-February, and the former in September and in March. The fall of Przemysl and the Russian advance in the Carpathians, with the even greater menace to the Hungarian plain by the army operating in Bukovina, was threatening Austria with absolute collapse. The extreme eastern army with its drives further and further toward Hungary is said to have brought Hungary to the verge of openly demanding a separate peace. All these causes, then, rendered it necessary for Germany to do something for Austria, and by clearing out Galicia she hoped, not only to restore to her broken ally something of hope and spirit, but no doubt conceived the belief that by the time she had done this, she would be sufficiently far east and south of Warsaw to threaten it from the south and rear, and possibly cause its abandonment without a real battle near Warsaw at all. Many people here believe that the Germans want merely to secure and hold the line of the Vistula and Galicia, and then concentrate all their attention on the west. After the echoes of the fighting north of Warsaw in February-March were dying away, it became clear to all of us here that there would soon be another blow in some other quarter. Russia, as one so often repeats, has this enormous line. She cannot be in strength at every point, and though she saw for several weeks that the Germans were concentrating on the Dunajec line in Galicia, she could not reinforce it sufficiently to hold it without weakening other more vital points. As a fact, under the conditions which actually developed there she could not have held it, nor I think could any other army.

The world’s history records nothing that has even approximated to this German drive which fell on one Russian Army, the bulk of which remained at its post and perished. The total number of German army corps sent down to do this job is uncertain. I have heard from many in high authority estimates differing so widely that I can supply no statement as absolutely correct. Perhaps sixteen is not far from the actual number, though probably reinforcements and extra divisions sent in pretty steadily to fill losses, brought up the total to a larger number than the full strength of sixteen corps. However the details at this time are immaterial. The main point is that the Russians were entirely outnumbered in men, guns and ammunition. The statements about the German massed guns also vary as widely as from 2,000 to 4,000. Certainly they had not less than 200 guns equal to or exceeding 8-inch types. These were concentrated on the front which was held by three or four corps of the devoted Dunajec army.

Men who know have told me that what followed was indescribable. I have not heard that there was any panic, or attempt to retreat on the part of the troops. In characteristic Russian fashion they remained and took their gruelling. For whole versts behind the line, I am told that the terrain was a hash of earth, mangled bodies, and fragments of exploded shell. If the statement that the Germans fired 700,000 shells in three hours is true, and it is accepted in the Russian Army, one can readily realize what must have been the condition of the army occupying that line of works. Much criticism has been brought against the General commanding because he had no well-prepared second line of trenches. No doubt he ought to have had it, but it would have made little difference beyond delaying the advance a few days. The German machine had been preparing for two months, and everything was running as smooth as a well-oiled engine, with troops, munitions and supplies being fed in with precision and regularity.

Russia is not an industrial nation, and cannot turn her resources into war material overnight as the Germans have been able to do. She was outclassed in everything except bravery, and neither the Germans nor any other army can claim superiority to her in that respect. With the centre literally cut away, the keystone of the Russian line had been pulled out, and nothing remained but to retire. In this retirement five Russian Armies were involved. Beginning on the right was that of Evert lying entirely in Poland on the Nida river. His army has been usually successful and always full of fight, and its retirement was purely that it might keep symmetrical with the Russian line as a whole. I have written in an earlier chapter of Evert’s retreat, of how in falling back on to his new line he accounted for between 20,000 and 30,000 of the German and Austrian troops. Of this it is unnecessary to say more at present, save that his army is in a good position and stronger and more spirited than ever.

General Brussilov.

The unfortunate army of the Dunajec, whose commander and number are as well known in England as here, began then to fall back with what there was left of it on the San, tearing up railroads and fighting a rearguard action with what strength it could command. In the meantime the army of Brussilov, which up to this time had never been defeated, was well through the Carpathians and going strong. The crumbling of their right neighbour left them in a terrible plight, and only skilful and rapid manoeuvring got them back out of the passes in time to get in touch with the fragments of the retreating centre, which by the time it reached the San had got reinforcements and some ammunition. Brussilov’s right tried to hold Przemysl, but as the commander assured me, there was nothing left of the fortifications. Besides, as I gather from officers in that part of his army, further retirements of the next army kept exposing their flank, and made it imperative for the whole army to commence its retreat toward the Russian frontier.

I have good reason for believing that the Russian plan to retire to their own frontier was decided on when they lost Przemysl, and that the battles on the Grodek line, around Lwow, were merely rearguard actions. In any case, I do know that while the fighting was still in progress on the San, and just as Przemysl was taken, work was commenced on a permanent line of defence south of Lublin and Cholm, the line in fact which is at this moment being held by the Russians. My belief, then, is that everything that took place between the San and the present line must be considered inevitable in the higher interests of Russian strategy. The interim between leaving the San and taking up what is now approximately the line on which they will probably make a definite stand, will make a very fine page in Russian history. I cannot at this time go into any details, but the Allies will open their eyes when they know exactly how little the Russians had in the way of ammunition to hold off this mass of Germans and Austrians whose supply of shell poured in steadily week after week.

Next to the army of Brussilov is that army which had been assaulting and making excellent headway in the Eastern Carpathians. They, too, were attacked with terrible energy, but taken independently could probably have held on indefinitely. As it was they never moved until the retirement of all the other armies west of them rendered their position untenable. The German and Austrian communiques have constantly discussed the defeat of this army. The world can judge whether it was demoralized when it learns that in six weeks, from Stryj to the Zota Lipa, it captured 53,000 prisoners. During this same period, the army of Bukovina in the far left was actually advancing, and only came back to preserve the symmetry of the whole line. The problem of falling back over this extremely long front with five great armies, after the centre was completely broken, was as difficult an one as could well be presented. In the face of an alert enemy there were here and there local disasters and bags of Russian prisoners, but with all their skill, and with all their railroads, and superiority in both men and ammunition, the Germans and the Austrians have not been able to destroy the Russian force, which stands before them to-day on a new and stronger line. The further the Russians have retired, the slower has been their retreat and the more difficult has it been for the enemy to follow up their strokes with anything like the same strength and energy. In other words the Russians are pretty nearly beyond the reach of enemy blows which can hurt them fatally.

The Austrians have followed up the Eastern armies and claim enormous victories, but it must be pretty clear now, even to the Austrians and Germans, that these victories, which are costing them twice what they are costing the Russians, are merely rearguard actions. In any case the Austrian enthusiasm is rapidly ebbing away. After two months of fighting the Germans have finally swung their main strength back toward the line of Cholm-Lublin, with the probable intent of finishing up the movement by threatening Warsaw and thus closing up successfully the whole Galician campaign, which as many believe, had this end in view. But now they find a recuperated and much stronger Russian Army complacently awaiting them on a selected position which is in every way the best they have ever had.

As I write there is still much doubt as to whether the Germans will try and go further ahead here, for it is pretty clear that they are checked at this point, and that the Galician movement has reached its low-water mark as far as the Russians are concerned. The next blow will no doubt fall either north of Warsaw or possibly on the much-battered Bzura-Rawka Front itself, which for so many months has stood the wear and tear of many frantic efforts to break through.

THE FRONT OF IVANOV

Clyx.com