- from ‘Newnes Illustrated’ June 12, 1915
- 'The Great Russian Ordeal'
- The Battle of the Week
the Russian Retreat in Galicia
- German officers inspecting an abandoned Russian barricade
- all photos from ‘Newnes Illustrated’
The terrible onslaught of the Austro-German army on the Russian forces in Galicia has spent itself. The Germans claimed an overwhelming victory; they were delirious with joy. But the Russians remained calm and steadfast. Driven back day by day, mile after mile, their line nevertheless remained unbroken; they retreated, but they were not defeated. A defeat meant a broken line involving the splitting up of the Russian army in Galicia, envelopment, perhaps partial destruction. A retreat simply means that they will come on again and again, as they have done before. The enormous losses of the Austro-German forces are a more serious thing for them than a retreat is for the Russians.
But, notwithstanding, the battle has been the greatest drive in history ; the Russians were thrust back for 80 miles, and had to give up much ground they had previously won. They had also to withdraw from the passes of the Carpathians, and thus give up the fruits of their arduous winter campaign..
The Third Russian Army had been holding the gap between Cracow and the northern openings of the Carpathian passes. It had been entrenched along the Dunajec, and had been engaged in screening the operations of the Russian on both slopes of the Carpathians. Austrian and German alike had failed to throw the Russian from his hold on the Carpathians, and the German General Staff decided on a forward movement to the east of Cracow to crush the screen which covered the Russian flank, and begin a serious invasion of Galicia. One army, consisting probably of 120,000 men, formed this screen, which had its right centre at Tarnow and its right resting upon the River Vistula, and on. the other side of the Vistula the Russian held a line north and south which protected Kielce.
crossing a river in Galicia
The "Battering-Ram" Army
The Austro-German forces assembled for the grand assault. The men had been brought from fields as far apart as Eastern Prussia, France, and Belgium. Every soldier that Germany could put into the field, every man she could spare from any other front, was brought to this region for the supreme effort. On the left facing Kielce was the First Austrian Army of three corps. In the centre a "battering-ram army "under General Mackensen was concentrated in close formation, and consisted of ten corps, half of which were German and half of which were drawn from the Fourth Austrian Army.
So that the battering-ram was made up of 400,000 men, heavily supported by artillery — four times the normal quantity which should accompany an army of that size. On the right of this ram was the Third Austrian Army of five corps. On the right again was the Second Austrian Army of five corps; on the right of that Lingsegen's Army of five corps, and a further army to the extreme right of yet another five corps. So there were between 33 and 35 corps, making a total of 1,400,000 of the enemy engaged in this gigantic push designed to crush the Russian centre and establish Austrian rule in Galicia.
The main attack delivered by Mackensen's army and immediately supported by the Third Austrian Army (600,000 men in all) was driven straight at the screen of Russian soldiery. Outnumbered by five to one though they were, the Russians offered a tremendous resistance.
a bridge destroyed by retreating Russians
The Retreat Through the Passes
They were fighting not only for their own lives, but for the security of their comrades, who were now-pouring back in full retreat through the Carpathian passes at their rear. Once let the Germans block those passes from the north, and one or two Russian armies who had been engaged in the southern slopes, and were now hastily retiring to the northern ground where they had elbow-room and manoeuvring space, must be irretrievably annihilated or forced to surrender. The retirement through the passes in the rear of that desperately battling line was one of the most heroic efforts of the war. In the last two days of April the grand assault, heralded by a terrific and demoralising fire from the whole heavy armament which the German brought into line, broke along the devoted Russian front.
The concentration of German artillery was enormous, consisting of no less than 4,000 pieces, ranged on several lines, one behind another. Each fresh attack was described as "a perfect riot of heavy shell." Day by day the deluge of this concentrated fire was poured into the Russians, directed by a host of aeroplanes. An equal massing of guns on the part of our Ally was impossible. They had to stand up against it as best they could. Day by day they were compelled to retire, just managing to preserve the centre line intact.
For two days, in face of the overwhelming strength opposed to them, the screen held fast in its specially prepared positions, but on the third day, Saturday, May 1, the enemy concentrated his attacks at two points between Tarnow and the Carpathians. On the fourth day the line was broken and the Russians were in full retreat. Outnumbered as they were, the resistance which was offered was little short of marvellous. At the first hint of danger the army before Bartfield began its retirement. Behind it was a portion of the Third Austrian Army (probably three divisions) and the full force of the Second Austrian Army.
It had, therefore to fight a strong rearguard action across the mountains and a strong advance-guard action in addition, for whilst the rear was still engaged with the army on the southern slopes, the advance guard of this gallant force, debouching from the northern defiles of the passes, came under heavy fire from the advancing German wedge. It was obvious that -the Russian Third Army was in deadly peril; the screen could not hold long enough to cover the retirement, but the men pouring from the northern approaches swung westward, gripped the line where the screen was broken, and battled desperately to save the corps which were following in the rear. The German threw caution to the winds; he flung his serried ranks at the Russian line. Shoulder to shoulder, man behind man, this great phalanx, in such dense formation as had never before been seen, drove in, and the Russian gunners burst their shrapnel into its very heart.
German dead in a Galician village
Terrible German Loss
Germans fell by thousands, the uneven plain was covered with ramparts of dead. The Russian machine-gunners brought their weapons to the first line and pumped nickel into the close-packed ranks of the enemy till the barrels of their guns were red-hot and the water jackets evaporated; but the enemy was too large in number to hold. "If we had had the time we could have killed them all," said a Russian officer, describing the battle, "but they did not give us time. They were like a cloud of ants. There were too many to kill."
The Russians had nothing like the number of the enemy's guns, and they were dangerously short of ammunition. Slowly but surely, then, they went back to the San, protecting as best they could the main lines of railways which run east and west through Lemberg, until they stood in a last desperate line about Przemysl. They suffered heavily in that retirement, over 100,000 men were lost as prisoners, but it is estimated by an independent authority that the great German battering ram, which moved "slowly along the one line of railways, suffered a loss in killed alone of 130,000. From line to line went the Russian, his trenches blown in by high explosive shells; his redoubts scattered by a concentration of howitzer fire, his ranks mangled and broken. It was Mons all over again, but on an enormous scale.
oilfields in Galicia destroyed by retreating Russians
- from ‘Newnes Illustrated’’ August 7th, 1915
- 'The Fight for Lublin'
the Great Russian Retreat of 1915
an illustrative flight of fancy
When the Russians left Lemberg they turned naturally northward to that position where months before they had fought and defeated the Austrian forces. It was here that Darikyl's army had come against the Russian might, and had suffered its first defeat, which had flung it back to Lemberg and beyond.
Where the Austrian's had failed in August and September, 1914, the Germans were determined to succeed in July, after nearly a year of war had passed. They were taking great risks in bringing their munitions and provisions over roads so far from their base, for the railways end on the Russian frontier. They had to negotiate most difficult country, and had to pass through swampy land and forest ; they had to confront the natural barriers of river and marsh, but they were determined upon piercing the line which runs through Cholm and Lublin, an operation which would result in the isolation of Warsaw from the South. Mackensen, with the Archduke Joseph, commanded an army of 700,000 men.
They marched northward in dense columns, and the roads were packed with their artillery.
a sugar factory hit by German artillery
Russia's Stout Resistance
As the first line carried a position, after terrible fighting, the second, fresh and rested, moved up in their endeavour to hammer the weary Russians. But every foot of the way was disputed by our gallant Ally. Every step they took, every yard they retired, was marked by Austrian dead. Village and town served for defence. There was fighting in main streets, there were desperate counter-attacks in mean little houses ; but step by step the Austrians prised back their stout opponents. Mackensen's advance was a triumph until he came to the angle made by the Volica and the Wieprz, and here he met a greater shock of resistance than had hitherto met him. He brought his guns into play; he covered the rolling country, across which the strong lines of the Russian army stood, with shrapnel and explosive shell; he launched the flower of his army at this unbending line, not once, but a dozen times.
There never was a finer soldier than the Russian of to-day. Born in the tradition of war, and in the tradition of defensive retreat, Ivan Ivanovitch (which is the Russian equivalent for Tommy Atkins) contested every breastwork with untiring desperation.
Twelve times Mackensen tried to carry the line and failed, and the Archduke Joseph, who had been waiting on Mackensen's left for some encouragement, pushed forward to the left of Krasnik, enveloped the city on three sides, and finally carried the town by assault.
The Russians went back to the line they had already prepared, manned anew their breastworks and their trenches, brought their hot guns to new positions, and stood ready for the next assault.
It came in three days.
The full weight of the Archduke Joseph's army, composed in the main of Austrian elements, was flung against "an already weakening enemy." As the sea breaks upon the rocky foreshore, so did this offensive shatter in the face of the Russian resistance. Not shrapnel, nor great shell, not machine gun or rifle, not the valour of the Hungarian regiments nor the dogged persistence of the German corps prevailed against that steel line of defence.
The Archduke Joseph had prepared for a triumphant entry to Lublin. He had communicated his certainty of success to his superior on the right, and now, as it seemed, with victory in his hands, he was met by a force which in point of skill, no less than in point of courage, offered him the bitter fruit of failure.
Through the dust clouds before the Russian line marched a dense mass of men, who swept forward, shoulder to shoulder, at a pace faster than any advance in mass had ever been attempted, and the Russians, standing to their parapets, heard the deep, harsh voice of the German corps singing "Deutschland uber Alles."
Germans crossing a hastily erected bridge
A Check to the Prussian Guard
It was the Prussians, led by a regiment of the Guards, who made a final effort to carry this line by assault. For a moment the apparition of this solid wave of men surprised the Russians to inactivity, and then from parapet to parapet, and trench to trench, rose a defiant roar. Scarcely a shot was fired ; a machine gun here and there spattered angrily, but up from the ground rose the grey coats of Russia, and the evening sun setting behind the Volica marshes glittered on their bayonets. Straight for the advancing' Germans they drove, and as cavalry passes through ill-trained levies so did the Russian regiments of the Guard pass through that advancing host, and all that was left of the Prussian corps went back to its trenches in a panic of haste.
Again the Archduke re-formed ; again the German legions covered the face of the earth before the Russians. This time each parapet spurted fire; the Russian field guns, drawn up to close range, shot point-blank into the ranks, and again the Archduke retired to Krasnik to heal his bruises and to find what comfort he could in the possession of that town.
The clean development of the German plan for storming Warsaw depended absolutely upon the ability to deliver a smashing stroke at the Cholm line, whilst the armies in the North under Von Hindenburg carried the Narew defence, and- enveloped Warsaw from the North and North-West.
Von Hindenburg was making great progress. He had pushed the Russians back to the Narew line, he had stormed the positions guarding the bridge heads of the Narew, and had even successfully assaulted the old forts which strengthened the Narew line, and on one sector his men had gained the right bank of the stream, and were holding it in face of furious Russian counter-attacks. As they were threatening the railway line which connects Warsaw with Petrograd, so was Mackensen endeavouring first to threaten and then cut the sole remaining line of any importance (save that which runs due East from Warsaw). It was necessary, if the plan was to succeed, that it should be carried out with minimum loss, with the maximum, effect, and in the shortest space of time possible.
It was a maddening position for the Archduke and for Mackensen, for they had staked everything upon reaching Lublin and Cholm within five days of their arriving at Krasnik. Mackensen made his supreme effort. With a force which was almost entirely German he delivered a terrific assault upon the Russian line between the Volica and the Wieprz. He had accumulated a tremendous number of shells, and these he loosed at his enemy without stint. Under that hail the Russians fell back, and crossed the Volica, and Krasnastow, which stands on the apex of the triangle, fell.
The effort was repeated by the German armies, and for a while it seemed as though Mackensen would succeed. But although the armies of our Ally had been battled from Dunajee, the Russian line was intact. Behind the Russians was the most difficult country, all immense swamps, which were only to be crossed by one road, with dense forests fringing the swamps, and little eminences which gave them the advantage in defence.
Germany's Legions Baffled
Mackensen, elated with his hard-won success at Krasnostow, pressed on towards the line, but as the Archduke had failed to weigh up the power of Russian resistance, so did Mackensen fail.
Time and time again he launched his masses at the Russian line, and was driven back with terrible loss, without achieving his object. Though Warsaw might fall, though the Russians were obliged to fall yet further back beyond the Vistula line, the value of that defence of the Lublin railway was incalculable. It gained for the Russians a fortnight's valuable time, which enabled them to some extent to save the northern Force above Warsaw, of, if it did not save it, at least it assisted them materially to make that retirement gradual and punishing.
Russian soldiers at parade
