The Children's Story of the War Volume 4 (of 10) / The Story of the Year 1915

A Night Scene before the City of Warsaw. An Engagement in Front of the doomed Capital.

(From the picture by Frédéric de Haenen. By permission of The Illustrated London News.)
"Night fighting," says a correspondent, "is one of the splendid spectacles of war. Flashing batteries, wavering lines of musketry and machine-gun fire, make a picture painted in silver and gold on a background of black. The moon shines behind the gray clouds, shedding a soft radiance just strong enough to shape the shadows. On the western horizon flash after flash springs out of the darkness; these are the distant German guns. Nearer to us the Russian batteries are firing, each piece cutting a red flash of flame into the darkness before its muzzle. Suddenly a blazing rocket shoots up into the heavens and bursts into a shower of silver stars. As they fall slowly, the country beneath is lighted in high relief. A long arm of searchlight shoots across the heavens. A line of sparks reveals a battalion of the advancing enemy."

Such was the Grand Duke's plan. He knew full well all that it involved. Przemysl and Lemberg, at whose capture joy bells had rung throughout all Russia, would have to be left behind. The great city of Warsaw, which had thrice defied von Hindenburg, must be abandoned. The line of the Vistula must be allowed to fall into German hands, and probably the German flag would wave above the great Polish fortresses; but if the armies could be saved, all might yet be well.

In our first volume (page 64) I told you how Napoleon, the greatest war lord that Europe has ever known, marched a great army into Russia in the year 1812, and by so doing rang his death knell. The Russians were now about to repeat the tactics of 1812, and observers in the West prophesied that the Kaiser would be led into the same trap and suffer the same fate. But we must remember that the conditions had changed in many respects since Napoleon's day. He failed chiefly because he could not obtain sufficient supplies. The country through which he advanced had been swept clear of everything but wood and water, and all the food and munitions that his armies needed had to be sent forward by horse-drawn wagons along tracks which frequently ended in morasses. When these wagons failed to reach the troops, the men starved. Nowadays every army is accompanied by engineers who can build roads and light railways very quickly, and so keep the advancing army in touch with its bases. For example, during the campaign which I am about to describe, a German general boasted that his men, who then lay within a hundred miles of Riga, were eating bread baked in Berlin the day before. He also said that his engineers could construct fifty miles of asphalted road in two days. Motor transport has largely superseded the horse, and long distances, given fair roads, can be covered very quickly. Thus you see that in our time Napoleon's great difficulty need not be fatal.

There was, however, much danger in pushing far "into the bowels of the land." As the German lines of communication grew longer and longer, supplies would take more and more time to reach the armies, and there would be more and more chances that the line might be impeded or cut. Thousands of men would have to be taken from the firing-line to hold the railways and roads along which the convoys travelled, and thus the attack would gradually lose force, and at last be unable to resist a vigorous onset by the enemy.

Now we must return to the San, where the Russian armies were lying ready to retreat when the word was given. From the map on page 293 you notice that the Russian lines bulged out in front of Przemysl. Ivanov was prepared to give up this fortress, but not until he had cleared it of everything that might be useful to the enemy. In order to gain time he fought a holding battle in the centre and struck hard on the flanks. On the morning of 15th May his right began a three days' battle, in which the Austrians were well beaten, and after losing 30,000 men had to fall back. The enemy was caught in the open and the Russians plied the bayonet with deadly effect. On the borders of Bukovina the Russian left also had a success, and the enemy was driven back as much as thirty miles. But in the centre, where Mackensen was advancing, a very different state of things prevailed. The salient round Przemysl was fiercely attacked in three places, and its sides were driven in until the neck was less than ten miles across. Attacks were also made at two places farther north. When the Russian line was pierced at these points, the Austro-Germans were able to swing southwards towards the main railway, and the days of Przemysl were numbered.

On 31st May the fortress fell, and at 3.30 on the morning of 2nd June von Mackensen entered the city. The Russians had held it a little over two months. The capture of Przemysl was a great feather in von Mackensen's cap, but it was no great prize. He found it little more than an empty shell. Guns, rolling stock, and supplies had been moved eastwards, and only a little booty fell into his hands.

Why, you ask, did not von Mackensen push on more quickly and keep the Russians on the run? You must remember that his great weapon consisted of an enormous number of heavy guns which could only be moved slowly. As soon as the great machine lumbered up, the Russians were bound to retreat, but while it was slowly advancing to a new position, they were able to hold back the enemy on the wings and send away eastward all the valuable contents of the city. The great danger was always in the centre, where von Mackensen was making his terrible thrust; on the wings the Russians were able to delay the enemy.

The fall of Przemysl compelled the Russians to give ground once more, and on 14th June their line ran as shown in the map on page 293. While the retreat was proceeding, Brussilov scored a victory. When the German right wing had pushed through the forests from Stryj, had crossed the Dniester, and was travelling by bad country roads, Brussilov caught it at a disadvantage. A three days' battle followed, in which the enemy was flung back across the Dniester with heavy loss. Some 17 guns, 49 machine guns, and more than 15,000 prisoners were captured, including a whole company of the Prussian Guard. Successes on the wings, however, could avail nothing while von Mackensen was blasting his way through the centre.

A glance at the map shows you what a very strong position the Russians held from Grodek southward. In front of the city for fifteen miles there is a series of shallow, swampy lakes, with but few roads crossing the dry ground between them. Farther south lies a great district of marshes. The Russian lines behind the lakes and the marshes could not be forced, but they would be turned if the Germans could break through to the north of Grodek and force the line of the Dniester to the south of the city.

Von Mackensen now moved on a broad front towards Rava Russka, and as soon as his great guns began their terrific onslaught on the Russian lines, the fate of Lemberg was no longer in doubt. On 19th June he broke through, and on the same day the German right wing crossed the Dniester. Next day a fierce battle was fought for Rava Russka. Von Mackensen won it, and then swung his forces southwards in the direction of Lemberg. The Grodek position had been turned, and once more the Russians were forced to retreat. The way to Lemberg was open, and on 22nd June the Austrians entered the city. After nine months the capital of Galicia passed once more into their hands. Vienna, Buda Pest, and scores of other places in Austria-Hungary broke into loud rejoicing. Towns and villages were bedecked with flags, and joyous peals rang out from every belfry.

There was good reason why the Austrians should rejoice at the recovery of Lemberg. They had not only regained the capital of Galicia, but they were once more masters of a city that afforded them a splendid jumping-off place for carrying the war into Russia. As you see by the map, Lemberg is almost on the Russian frontier, and six lines of railway meet in it. So long as the Austrians could hold on to Lemberg, Galicia was safe. Its recapture was, therefore, a triumph for von Mackensen; but though he had reconquered a province and its capital, he had not brought the war any nearer to its end. He had neither shattered the Russian armies nor split them in twain.

It is said that one day in June, just before the fall of Lemberg, the Kaiser met von Hindenburg and his Chief of Staff, von Falkenhayn, in the castle at Posen. The Kaiser was in high spirits, and he declared that the moment had now arrived for the capture of Warsaw. He already saw himself riding into the city at the head of his troops as the conqueror and deliverer of Poland. The two generals gladly agreed with his proposal. They believed that the Western front could be held without much effort, and that with the mighty engine of artillery which they now possessed they could batter through the Russian lines, and seize the great city which had so long defied them.

After the fall of Lemberg, Warsaw formed the apex of a great salient. It could only hold out so long as the two great railway lines which meet in the city were in the hands of the Russians. The first of these routes runs north-east through Grodno, Vilna, and Dvinsk to Petrograd. The other line runs south-east through Ivangorod, Lublin, Cholm, and Rovno to Kiev.[54] Von Mackensen was already pushing northwards towards this southern line of railway, and the Russians were falling back before him. It was now the business of von Hindenburg to advance from East Prussia and capture the northern line. Once the railways were cut, Warsaw would fall. Von Falkenhayn, however, hoped to do more than merely capture the city and a few more thousand square miles of Polish ground. He hoped to make an end of the Russian armies in the salient, and this he proposed to do by carrying out a great enveloping movement. While von Mackensen was pushing on towards the southern railway, he would make a fierce thrust at the northern part of the same salient, in order to cut the Petrograd line between Warsaw and Bialystok. But this was not the whole of the plan. A German army under von Buelow had already overrun Courland,[55] and was not far from Riga. While the two thrusts were being made at the salient, this force was to hack its way south, seize Kovno and Vilna, and cut the Petrograd line far to the eastward. The Russians in the salient would thus be taken in flank and in rear; they would be squeezed between the enemy on the north and the south, and probably would be surrounded and forced to surrender. Russia would thus be crippled for many a month to come, and then the might of Germany could be flung against the Western front.

We will now follow the fortunes of the three great thrusts that were about to be made—the thrust against the southern railway, the thrust against the Petrograd railway between Warsaw and Grodno, and the thrust against the same railway still farther east. Before the end of June five German armies, with von Mackensen in the centre, were moving steadily northwards to cut the southern railway line between Lublin and Kovel. They had now left the railways of Galicia behind them, and were crossing a country of forests, marshy plains, and bad roads. The great guns moved slowly, but the armies met with little opposition, and by 2nd July they were less than thirty miles from the railway.

Round about Krasnik they came into touch with the Russians, who held a strong position, with marshes and streams on their flanks. The army of the Archduke Joseph, to the left of von Mackensen, was heavily assailed, and during four days of attack and counter-attack was driven back with the loss of 15,000 prisoners, a very large number of machine guns, and heavy casualties in dead and wounded. For a week the German advance was checked. It began again on 16th July, when von Mackensen, who had bridged the marshy streams, was able to get his big guns working. Once more he blasted his way through, and on the 18th was within ten miles of the railway.

Now let us see what was going on in the north. On 14th July von Buelow's army in Courland began to push forward, and at the same time another army attacked the Niemen front. The great thrust against the Warsaw salient was entrusted to von Gallwitz, who now advanced against the line of the Narev. He made good progress, and the Russians fell back, fighting stubbornly. They retired across the Narev on the 20th, and three days later von Gallwitz won several crossings of the river. By means of one of these crossings he pushed forward until by 25th July, though the river line had not yet been won on a broad front, he lay within twenty miles of the Warsaw-Petrograd railway. Meanwhile the German heavy guns were battering down the outworks of the river fortresses, and the army of the Niemen was within sixty miles of Vilna.

The Warsaw salient was now in great peril. Spears had been planted against its breast in three different directions. At the apex a spearhead was but fifteen miles away; another was only ten miles from the southern railway, and a third was but twenty miles from the northern railway. The fortified line of the Narev had been broken through, and the salient was doomed. Once more the Grand Duke had to make a decision upon which hung the fate of the Russian armies. Should he try by means of the great Polish triangle of fortresses—Novo Georgievsk, Ivangorod, Brest Litovski—to hold the salient, or should he sacrifice Poland and fall back to the east? The second course was by far the more difficult. To withdraw his armies along the three railways left to him, while the spearheads were closing in hour by hour, and any day two of the three roads of escape might be lost, was a most perilous task. His wornout troops would have to hold the sides of the salient for some weeks while the main body retired. If the sides were forced in, it was more than likely that his armies would be utterly overwhelmed. It seemed easier to hold on to the fortresses, and hope that in some way or other the enemy might be checked.

The Grand Duke refused to take any risks; he chose the more difficult task. He determined to withdraw his armies from Poland altogether, and fall back eastward and ever eastward, until his forces could be properly fed with munitions and were ready to make a stand. It was a great resolve, and few commanders would have dared to make it. Probably no other army could have made such a retirement without losing heart altogether, and hopelessly breaking down.

The last days of July saw strange scenes in Warsaw. The whole city was stripped of everything that might be useful to the enemy. The great factories were dismantled, and their plant sent eastward. Gold from the banks, books and papers from the Government offices, relics and sacred pictures from the churches, bells from the towers, copper from the roofs, wire from the telegraph poles—all were piled on great wagons which followed each other in a long procession across the Vistula bridges. Half a million of the city's inhabitants streamed eastwards in carts and in hackney carriages. Only the Poles and the poorest of the Jews remained.

About 24th July the forces in front of Warsaw began to fall back into the suburbs of the city. Meanwhile along the Narev a fierce holding battle was being fought to enable the troops in the northern part of the salient to get away. Five days later Mackensen cut the southern line between Lublin and Cholm, and the sides of the triangle were fast closing in. By this time all the stores and guns were safe, and the troops in the centre were moving through the city. Every day German aeroplanes dropped bombs in the streets, and soon, as the German shells burst among the houses, great fires began to flame up in the western suburbs. At three o'clock on the morning of Thursday, 5th August, three loud explosions shook the city. The Vistula bridges had been blown up.

Three hours later German cavalry galloped in, and that evening Prince Leopold of Bavaria with his suite rode through the streets on the way to the palace. On the eastern horizon he saw the red glow which Napoleon had seen—the flames rising from crops and villages which the Russians had fired as they fell back before the invader.

The Kaiser made no state entry into Warsaw. His exultation, however, appeared in the following telegram which he sent to his sister, the Queen of Greece: "My destructive sword has crushed the Russians. They will need six months to recover. In a short time I will announce new victories won by my brave soldiers, who have shown themselves invincible in battle against nearly the whole world. The war drama is now coming to a close."

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Another correspondent describes what he saw in Warsaw prior to the entry of the Germans. Day and night, he tells us, one heard the muffled roar as factory plant, too heavy or too deeply embedded in concrete to be moved, was blown up. Every fragment of the metal was carried eastwards. The newspapers made their last appearance with a notice that the city was to be abandoned, after which the lino-types were uprooted and the very floors carted away. Police and soldiers visited every printing works and newspaper office, taking away founts of type and dismantling presses. Hardly a ton of copper fittings was left in the city. . . . Warsaw knew no sleep over that week end. Through the streets passed endless columns of carts and lorries heavily laden, and all making for the bridges across the Vistula. You could only distinguish a wagon loaded with millions of roubles in paper money from those containing sacks of potatoes, by the soldiers who sat swinging their legs over the side. Day and night gangs of soldiers were seen stripping league after league of copper telegraph wires from their poles. Church doors flung open revealed the interiors filled with weeping, praying Poles and Russians, amongst whom passed priests in their rich vestments. Aloft in the towers the huge bronze bells had been unslung, lest they should become food for Krupp's furnaces. Not only the bells, but all records and church plate, precious vestments, and ikons,[56] were carted away into the interior. In the Church of the Holy Cross there was a vault, and in it lay the heart of Chopin.[57] The vault was opened, and the precious relic was removed to Moscow. Wherever possible troops were sent out to garner the crops in the surrounding country. Where this was impossible the harvest was destroyed, and villages were burnt to the ground. Thousands of poor were ferried across the Vistula to begin their long tramp eastward.

It is said that after the fall of Warsaw the Kaiser was very much annoyed that the Russian army had been allowed to escape. "We have paid too dearly," he said to his generals, "for the privilege of walking along the streets of Warsaw. Our success has been gained under such a cloud of mourning that at present I cannot think of rewards. You are not little children to be dazzled with a toy while the Russian troops are at liberty. You have secured the cage, but the bird has flown. While the Russian army is free the problem of the war is unsolved."

A Russian journalist tells us that when the Kaiser seized the cage without the bird he began, like Jehu, to drive furiously in the hope of rounding up the retreating enemy. His soldiers were driven remorselessly. The advance guard was ordered not to beat the enemy but to detain him until the arrival of the main body. The leading detachments were hurried along so rapidly that they often lost touch with each other. Along the Vistula, on the bridges and at the fords, sentinels remained unchanged and without food for two or three days at a stretch. They were forgotten, and some of them died at their posts. All this time the Russians made great captures of their pursuers. So many Germans were seized that the captors scarcely knew how to deal with them. The prisoners when questioned said that they had been marching almost without pause for five days and nights. Each morning they were driven forward for three or four hours. Then they had twenty minutes' rest, and were again sent onward until midnight."

Perhaps you will be surprised to learn that a British boy fought with the Russians, and that he rose from the ranks to be an ensign.[58] His name was John Wilton, and he was a frail lad of seventeen when the Tsar gave him permission to serve in the ranks of the famous Petrograd Guards. He became a mounted scout, and took part in every battle in which his corps was engaged. He was one of the scouts who managed to get within eight miles of Cracow. After six months' service he was promoted ensign, and five months later was in command of the mounted scouts of his regiment. On one occasion he very cleverly withdrew his scouts from a position in which they had been ambushed by German cavalry, and got them away with the loss of only one man.

You have read more than once in these pages of women fighting in the Russian ranks. A story from Petrograd tells us that twelve schoolgirls from a Moscow college somehow obtained uniforms, boarded a military train at a roadside station, and thus reached the Austrian frontier. When they left the train for the march towards Lemberg the major discovered them, and ordered them back home; but they persuaded him to let them go on with the army. "We had to have our hair cropped," said one of them, Zoe Smirnoya, a girl of sixteen. "That is what I felt most. My hair was long, and I confess I cried. I've carried it ever since in my haversack."

The girls fought in many of the Galician battles. They never fell out of the ranks, and they shared all the hardships of the campaign. They took men's names, and their comrades treated them kindly. When von Mackensen's big guns swept away the Russian trenches they fell back with the army. An officer asked Zoe, "Were you afraid?" "Of course," she replied; "how could one help? When the big shells burst all around us we could not help crying out. Several of the girls were only fourteen, and in their terror they called for their mothers. For that matter, I think I blubbered too."

During the retreat one of the girls was killed by a shell. "We buried her on the morning after the battle," said Zoe. "We put her in a hurriedly-made grave, and set up a little cross marked with her name. On the morrow we were far away, and now I hardly remember the place where she was buried." Zoe was twice hit, and the second time was left out in the open, but was rescued by stretcher-bearers. She spent a month in hospital, and returned to the firing line as a corporal, wearing the war medal and the Cross of St. George.

Amongst the names that Russians hold in high honour is that of Michaelovna Ivanova, who acted as a nurse under her brother, a regimental surgeon. She insisted on going out to tend wounded even in the midst of a hail of bullets from rifles and machine guns. Her brother and the other regimental officers begged her to seek shelter, but in vain. When all the officers had fallen, the men lost heart for a moment and began to retire. At once the heroic nurse ran in amongst them, rallied them round her, and at their head rushed forward and captured a trench. Unhappily she was struck by a bullet, and died shortly afterwards.

Perhaps you will be surprised to learn that British seamen, with armoured motor cars, were sent out to lend a hand to the Russians. They did not take part in the fighting described in the former chapter, for they only left England late in the year. On 12th December, when they were in the Arctic Ocean on the way to Archangel, they established a record by singing "God save the King" farther north than any British field force on active service had ever been before. We may be quite sure that, under Commander Locker-Lampson, they fully upheld the honour and glory of the British Navy. It is also said that Japanese guns and gunners fought for Russia during the year 1915.

CHAPTER XL.

You will remember that the bridges across the Vistula at Warsaw had been blown up. Prince Leopold now collected a number of the thousand-ton barges which ply on the river, and constructed a floating bridge, across which he carried a railway line. By 10th August he began to advance; but he found himself constantly held up by Russian attacks, and he made but slow progress. By 16th August von Gallwitz was across the Petrograd line, and von Mackensen was within twenty miles of Brest Litovski. The Russians had already fallen back, and were lying in front of the railway from Ossowietz through Bialystok to Brest. They were, however, still holding out in front of the old city and fortress of Kovno.

Glance at the position of Kovno. You see (page 311) that it stands on the Niemen, at the point where the course of the river swings to the south. Should Kovno fall, the other fortresses on the Niemen would be in great peril, and the enemy would have a direct route to Vilna, where they would be in the rear of the Russians. On the day that Warsaw fell, the Germans were near enough to Kovno to begin the bombardment. For twelve days they rained shells upon the forts, while the infantry fought for the outworks. By this time the city had been stripped, and its valuable contents had been sent eastwards. Nevertheless it had to be held while arrangements were made for the Russian line to retire. The gunners in Kovno stuck to their posts for twelve desperate days, and all the time the big siege howitzers of the enemy played havoc among them. Nevertheless, the Russians held on, and, what is more, continued to work their guns.

By Sunday, 15th August, the forts were in ruins, and two days later the heroic garrison yielded. The Germans claimed 20,000 prisoners and over 200 guns. The Russians, however, were fully prepared for this loss. The holding of Kovno was a forlorn hope, and the men and guns in it were sacrificed to gain time.

The fall of Kovno meant that the Russian right must now retire, and a day later it was clear that the centre must retire too. The Germans had cut the railway to the north of Brest, and were now attacking the western forts of the stronghold. Next day Novo Georgievsk, which had been besieged for about three weeks and was now a huddle of ruins, had to yield, and 20,000 of the garrison, along with 700 guns, most of which had been rendered useless, fell into the hands of the Germans. Shortly before the surrender, a daring Russian aviator was entrusted with the maps and secret papers of the fortress. He ascended, and though furiously assailed by the anti-aircraft guns of the enemy, managed to fly clear and carry the precious documents into safety.

Two of the three great fortresses forming the Polish triangle had now gone; Brest alone remained, and its doom was already sealed. While the Russians were preparing for a further retirement, their right, which rested on the Baltic Sea, was threatened with a new danger. On Sunday, 10th August, a German fleet tried to force a way into the Gulf of Riga; it was beaten off, but the attempt was renewed on the 15th and on the 16th. During a thick fog the Germans got into the Gulf on the 16th, and two days later tried to land troops at an unfortified port on the road to Petrograd. Four very large flat-bottomed barges, filled with troops, attempted to get ashore on the 20th; but the Russian light craft swooped down upon them, and captured or destroyed the whole of the landing force. Meanwhile a naval battle was going on throughout the length of the Gulf. The Russians lost an old gunboat, while the Germans had eight destroyers and two cruisers either sunk or put out of action, and a submarine driven ashore. On the 21st the Germans left the Gulf. Their attempt to outflank the Russian right had failed.

During the previous twenty days the Germans in the centre had pushed forward no less than one hundred miles; but the Russian armies had eluded them, and no crushing battle had taken place. The Germans had not yet given up all hope of overwhelming the Russians, but for the time being they were anxious to secure a strong line on which they might maintain themselves during the coming winter. They had also a new campaign in view. Already they were thinking of forcing a way through the Balkans to Constantinople, so as to open a road to the east and fling such forces into Gallipoli as would drive the British and French into the sea.

Now we must return to the doomed fortress of Brest. On the day that the German warships left the Gulf of Riga, Prince Leopold was close to the western walls of the fortress, while von Mackensen, east of the Bug, was threatening to take the forts from the rear. On 25th August Brest Litovski fell. It had held out long enough to enable the Russians to get away with the guns and supplies, and only a little wheat was left behind. Soon after the Germans entered the place a mine exploded and destroyed a thousand of their troops.

Map illustrating the various Stages of the Russian Retreat.

A, after the fall of Lemberg; B, after the fall of Warsaw; C, after the fall of Grodno; D, after the fall of Vilna.

You will see from the map on page 311 that the Russians, who had been holding the front around Brest, could use two railways to help them in their retreat. Most of them, however, had to retire on foot through the Marshes of the Pripet. Prince Leopold, in following them up, had to fight his way through the great forest region which lies to the north of Brest. It is said that in the recesses of this forest the European bison, elsewhere extinct, is still found. In the woods on the edges of the marshes the Russian rearguards fought fierce delaying actions, while their comrades trudged, unhasting but unresting, eastwards. Happily, the summer had been fairly dry, and it was possible for large numbers of men and guns to cross the swamps. By the end of August the Germans were thirty miles east of Brest, and were well within the marshy region.

Meanwhile, the chief interest of the struggle lay in the north. On 28th August von Buelow began his great attack on the line of the Dvina. In all the valley of that river, from Dvinsk to Riga, there is no crossing save at the little town of Friedrichstadt, some fifty miles from the coast. Below the town great stretches of marshy forest line the left bank of the stream, and no road follows its course on that side. On the other side the ground is harder, and along the line of the river runs the main Riga-Vilna Railway. The Russians held the left bank of the river, and von Buelow urged his men to the assault in the following words: "After the brilliant campaign on the Russian front, and the occupation of many cities and fortresses, you must make one more effort to force the Dvina and seize Riga. There you will rest during the autumn and winter, in order to march on Petrograd in the spring." On the morning of 2nd September the Russians were forced back for ten miles from the left bank of the river; but the bridgehead at Friedrichstadt still held out.

With the close of August the worst was over, and the turn of the tide had come. The tornado had blown itself out, the skies were clearing, and those who had been hurled back by the mighty blast were able to keep their feet and hold their own once more. The Russian line was nearly straight; the wings were hard pressed, but they could still resist; and the centre was too far within the Pripet marshes for easy capture. The struggle for dear life was over. Thenceforward the Russians were masters of their fate. They could retreat when and where they chose into the limitless expanses of their land. If they halted to fight a battle, it was because they saw some advantage to be gained, not because they were compelled to do so.

The Tsar and Tsarevitch with the Russian Army.

(By permission of The Sphere.)
The Tsarevitch, the eldest son of the Tsar, is the Grand Duke Alexis, who was born on August 12, 1904. He was therefore eleven years old when, on September 5, 1915, his father took command of the Russian armies. Both father and son are seen wearing the uniform of the Caucasian Cossacks.

With the passing of all immediate danger, confidence surged up in their breasts, and at this moment the Tsar placed himself at the head of his soldiers. "We shall," he said, "fulfil our sacred duty to defend our country to the last." The Grand Duke Nicholas, who had so long borne the heat and burden of the day, gladly yielded place to his sovereign. Twice before in the history of Russia had a Tsar come forward to lead his armies in the day of dire peril. What Peter[59] and Alexander I.[60] had done, Nicholas II. now did. It was a sign to the whole Russian people that the war was to be waged to a triumphant end. The Germans were prepared to make a separate peace with Russia; they believed her to be crushed and broken and war-weary. Now came the reply: the Tsar, the head and front of Russia both in Church and in State, followed the example of his forefathers in the hour of trial and took chief command.

Look carefully at the large map on page 311, and find Grodno, on the Niemen. At the end of August the Russians were holding a salient round this fortress. September was but three days old when Grodno fell, and the Russians had to retire in order to avoid being surrounded. They had two railways to help them in their retreat—the main line to Petrograd and a line connecting with the Riga-Vilna-Rovno Railway. At all costs the enemy must be held back from these railways until the guns, troops, and stores in and around Grodno could be got away. Rearguards behind Grodno and a screen of troops farther north, where the Germans had to cross a district of lakes and forests, fought gallantly, and by 12th September the salient was clear. The Germans claimed to have captured 4,000 prisoners; but even if they did so, the price was not too high to pay for the safety of the army corps that escaped.

Now we must turn to Vilna, against which von Hindenburg had prepared a great thrust. On 2nd September a ten days' struggle began fifteen miles to the north-west of the city. By sheer weight of artillery the trenches of the Russians were carried, and a gas attack gave the Germans an important pass between a group of lakes which formed the main defence of the fortress on their left. Other forces were pushing up from the south, and retreat was again necessary. By the 13th it was clear that Vilna must fall. The Germans had cut the Petrograd railway only twenty miles from the city.

The Coming of the Big Guns that mean Victory.

(By permission of The Illustrated London News.)
Russian artillery being hauled through the snow to the battlefield by long teams of horses. By September 1915 the Russians had managed to provide themselves with sufficient artillery and ammunition to meet the Germans on equal terms.

The forces in front of Vilna had only one good railway line by which they could retire eastward, and only one good road—a causeway running across the marshes towards Minsk. On 15th September it was discovered that some 40,000 German cavalry, with 140 guns, were sweeping round so as to cut the railway and capture the causeway. Here was a terrible danger. If the cavalry could hold the railway and the causeway, the Russians in the Vilna salient would be surrounded, and nothing could save them. Not an hour must be lost. Vilna was abandoned on 18th September, and the troops were hurried eastwards by means of the road and railway. Rearguards on the right fought desperate holding battles, but on the 20th the gap through which the Russians were retreating had shrunk to little more than fifty miles. The Minsk railway was in danger; only the causeway, densely packed with guns, wagons, convoys, ambulances, and troops, was clear.

Suddenly, in this moment of peril, the German thrust weakened. While the cavalry were sweeping round to the rear, the artillery and infantry to the west of the fortress made no push. Owing to the bad and crowded roads they could only proceed very slowly, and thus the Russians were afforded what they most needed—time. No longer were they without arms and ammunition. The Russian factories had worked miracles, and now the Tsar's armies were able to meet the enemy on equal terms. On the evening of 20th September, when the retreating Russians were thirty miles east of Vilna, their right wing fell upon the German cavalry and drove them back with the bayonet. For some days there was heavy fighting, but by the end of the month the Russian line was straight again. Once more the Germans had been foiled.

Meanwhile the army of Brest, which had never been in serious danger, had been pursued, but the pursuers were now firmly held. On the Dvina von Buelow had made but little progress, while in the south Ivanov had held his ground, and had even won victories against the German right. He had overthrown a force moving against Tarnopol and another which was advancing further south, and had won one of the most successful of the smaller battles. Of course the Germans had made counter-attacks upon him, but they had been unsuccessful, and Ivanov had advanced in some places as much as twenty miles. His captures at the end of the month amounted to 80,000 men and many guns.

Thus the end of September saw the Germans held in check. They had won Vilna and Grodno, but they had failed to cut off the troops in these salients, and had not made good the line of the Dvina. Winter was almost upon them, yet they had not found a suitable position for winter quarters. Meanwhile the Russians were growing in strength every day.

During the terrible months from May till September the nation had suffered greatly, and misfortune had been heaped on misfortune. The spectacle of troops falling back day by day, the endless stream of wounded arriving at the bases, the highroads thronged with homeless peasants, and the seeming hopeless struggle would have broken down the spirit of most nations and brought about revolution; but in Russia, though there was some unrest, there was no revolution. Even the peasants who had lost their all, and had not where to lay their heads, bore their sufferings without complaint. A correspondent who talked with some of them tells us they felt that they were playing their part in defeating the hated enemy, as their fathers had done before them. They hoped for an early winter in order that their enemy might perish of cold and starvation, and they thought nothing of the sufferings that the winter would bring to them and their children. "I have heard them say again and again: 'We must win now, regardless of the cost and the time it takes. The sacrifices we have suffered are too great for us to hesitate at anything short of victory.'"

When the German cavalry were flung back from the rear of Vilna, the retreating Russians once more breathed freely. The end of the summer campaign had come, and still the Germans had delivered no smashing blow. During the month of October von Hindenburg strove fiercely to carry the line of the Dvina, in order to secure Dvinsk and Riga as winter quarters. The Russian right lay on the sea, and behind the river stretched a wilderness of marsh and lake almost impassable for troops and big guns. Riga and the line of the river south of it were defended by great stretches of bogland, and the patches of dry ground were cut up by many sluggish streams flowing in reedy channels. General Ruzsky, who was holding Dvinsk, had learned the lesson of Verdun and pushed out his defences far from the city. In the course of a big attack on 26th September the Germans came within eight miles of the fortress, but they could approach no nearer. An attempt to reach Riga by the coast road was foiled by the guns of the Russian fleet.

On 3rd October von Hindenburg began a new series of thrusts against the line of the river, but made very little progress, and when the Russian counter-attacks began the German losses were very great. Before long 50,000 of the enemy had fallen, and their goal was as far off as ever. Von Hindenburg now saw that he could not succeed against Dvinsk, and began a determined effort to capture Riga. He managed to win a marshy island in one of the arms of the river; but here he was stayed, and soon his troops were blown off the island. He was now fighting an army that was as strong as his own and could return shell for shell and shot for shot. By the end of October all his efforts against Dvinsk and Riga had come to nothing, and he was forced to dig in for the winter in a most inhospitable land. The snows were beginning to fall, bitter north winds were sweeping over the land, and no great movement was possible until the spring.

So the tragic year came to an end. The Russians had passed through their fiery ordeal, and had emerged with a new courage and a new hope. On the map the Germans looked like victors, but actually they had failed. The Russian armies were intact; the Germans could not push on in the wilderness, and at the close of the year they lay waiting the uncertain future amidst dismal swamps and meres.