The Year 1915 Illustrated/The Russian Retreat in Galicia and Poland

HE Fall of Przemysl on March 22nd encouraged the Russians to develop a still more vigorous offensive in the Carpathians, but it likewise had the effect of consolidating the Austro-German defence of the plains of Hungary. At first the tide seemed to be in favour of the Russian invasion, and a dispatch from the Grand Duke Nicholas, published in England on April 18th, announced that 70,000 prisoners had been captured. Ten days later the Russian line of fortification along the Biala and Dunajec, to the North-West of the Carpathians, was subjected to fierce bombardment by the Austrian heavy artillery. This was continued for two days with disastrous results. On May 1st, the Russian line was broken and their carefully prepared screen to the operations in the Carpathians was forced back to the line of the San.

As things turned out, the breaking of the Russian Biala-Dunajec line proved one of the most critical episodes of the Eastern Campaign, for after May 1st, the Russian offensive in Galicia was broken, and the months which have followed have witnessed a drive by the united forces of the Central Powers which is probably without parallel in the history of war. On the other hand, the Russian retirement was from the first carried out with masterly skill, and in the almost continuous rearguard actions which they fought, tremendous losses were inflicted on the enemy. The preponderance of heavy artillery and an almost unlimited supply of shells appear to have been the two chief causes which enabled the Germans and Austrians to renew their offensive in the East. The following all-too-brief summary of the events which have taken place in that theatre of the war since May will indicate the line and nature of the Russian retreat.

On May 12th, the Germans were across the river San and within twenty-five miles of Przemysl. On June 3rd, that fortress fell, after a heroic defence by the garrison. Then followed von Hindenburg's new advance on Warsaw. On June 9th, Stanislau was reported to have been occupied by the Germans, and ten days later a sanguinary battle was being fought for the possession of Lemberg, which resulted, on June 22nd, in the Austrians regaining possession of their Galician city. Meantime the Russians had been offering a strong resistance on the river Dneister, but ultimately they had to fall back from the line of the river to their own frontier. At the end of June the Germans claimed to have taken in the course of the month, 150,000 men, 80 guns and 268 machine guns on the Eastern Front.

During July it was apparent that the fresh German attempt on Warsaw was one of vast dimensions and of serious import. From the North the enemy advanced from Thorn to Przasnysz, where they were reported at the middle of the month. On the 17th, Mackensen was at Krasnostav to the south, and on the 25th, the German armies were across the Narev. It was now everywhere realised that Warsaw was doomed, and the entry of the Prince Leopold of Bavaria into the city on August 4th created no surprise in England.

But the events which followed during the next few weeks caused the greatest anxiety both in Russia and Western Europe. Warsaw had been recognised as a dangerous salient for the Russians, but the line of the Cholm-Brest-Litovsk Railway was believed to be a position which the Russians would be able to maintain against all onslaughts of the enemy. This did not prove to be the case, and that the Allies were depressed by the further series of Russian retirements is only stating the bare truth. Ivangorod fell on August 5th, on the 15th the Germans broke the Russian line at Bransk and on the following day they captured the outlying forts of Kovno and of Novo Georgievsk. Kovno fell on the 17th and Novo Georgievsk on the 19th. These successes caused the Russians to retire from the Niemen and Bobr line. Then on August 25th, Brest-Litovsk fell, and the Germans advanced rapidly and drove the Russians back to Kobryn, whilst to the south the Austro-Germans broke through the Zlota Lipa positions, north and south of Brzezany.

On August 29th, the Germans stormed Lipsk, twenty miles from Grodno and after fierce fighting occupied the latter place on September 2nd. On September 13th, the Dvinsk-Vilna Railway was cut at Sventsiany and the Russian forces at Vilna were threatmed with envelopment. But, although Vilna was to fall five days later, the Russians were again to prove their ability to save their army intact. With the fall of Vilna, the tide of the German invasion of Russia was stayed, and when we next take up the thread of the story of the fighting in the East it will be with the renewal of an offensive by the Russian armies. Throughout the whole of their enforced retreat the Russians succeeded in removing to a place of safety behind their lines almost everything in the way of machinery and material which would be of any service to the invading armies.