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The Great War of 189-: A Forecast

Chapter 23: OCCUPATION OF ALEXANDROVO BY THE GERMANS.
By P. H. Colomb
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About This Book

A speculative forecast of a large-scale European war describes a chain of diplomatic crises, mobilisations and coordinated campaigns that spread from the Balkans across Central Europe and into colonial and naval theatres. Episodes include an attempted assassination, declarations of war, manoeuvres and pitched battles between Russia, Germany, France, Austria, Italy and Britain, combined naval engagements, landings, sieges and distant operations in Asia and Africa. The work interleaves battlefield reportage, strategic councils and political reactions at home, and concludes with reflections on imperial defence and the war's general effects, accompanied by illustrative sketches and appendix interviews on defence policy.

OCCUPATION OF ALEXANDROVO BY THE GERMANS.

Alexandrovo, May 3.

It is not yet twenty-four hours since the victorious 6th Division of the German Army occupied this place, and already it is bristling on the Warsaw, or south-eastern side, with a most formidable line of earthworks, thanks chiefly to the marvellous exertions of the Engineer Battalion of the 3d Corps, which was quick to arrive here by rail yesterday, within an hour of our triumph—the first of the campaign. But, indeed, the spades of all our infantry have also been incessantly at work since they piled their rifles here, it being thought certain that the Russians will endeavour to get a double amount of work out of their cranky, creaking mobilisation machine, and hasten to deliver a desperate counter-attack, with the view of repairing the disastrous error they have committed—an error that has placed us in possession of a railway base of operations of incalculable price. Among other spoils we captured 123 railway waggons of various kinds, and nine locomotives, which, added to the rolling stock that is hourly pouring in from the direction of Thorn, with the remainder of the German Army of the Vistula, now rapidly massing here, render us certain of the means of transport in the event of our deciding to carry the torch of invasion deeper into the heart of Russia.

It is true that the railway from here to Warsaw consists of only a single track, but the gauge, unlike that of all Russian lines on the right bank of the Vistula, is of the ordinary European size, and that in itself is a tremendous advantage for us. Our Army of the Baltic, under Count Waldersee, will be hampered in its forward movements into Russia, if it decides to push across the frontier also, by the fact that the line from Eydtkuhnen is a broad-gauge one, though, indeed, it is understood that the General Staff—prescient in all things—has also made provision for adapting the axles of German lines to the broader gauge of Russian; but, on the other hand, the Army of Silesia, under Prince George of Saxony, will enjoy the same transport facilities as ourselves, if it can only manage to effect, like us, a pied à terre on the Warsaw and Vienna line, and we are anxiously awaiting news of its movements.