Part 6 (1/2)
It was a dazzling, but an illusory triumph. The Russians had been deliberately led by the Austrians--under instructions from the German Higher Command--into their hazardous Carpathian adventure as part of the secret preparations for Mackensen's mighty blow elsewhere. Von Falkenhayn, then Chief of Staff, afterwards gave the credit for the plan to the German General Head-quarters. Germany, with all her factories turning out munitions of war far in excess of anything that the Allies could then muster, had been acc.u.mulating guns and ammunition for this purpose for months past, together with poison-gas and liquid fire, and a total force of some 2,000,000 well-armed men. Russia, on the other hand, though she might oppose this force with fully as many men, was coming to the end of her resources, and her troops were ill-equipped to meet the ma.s.sed guns of the artillery brought against them when the German phalanx, after minor thrusts to left and right to cloak the real designs of the German Higher Command, began its overpowering advance on 1st May against the Dunajec lines, where Dmitrieff's Russian army believed itself securely entrenched. Mackensen's guns, opening up a way for the strongest army yet mustered under one general, blew the Dunajec lines to fragments. The Russian infantry clung to their positions to the last moment, but their rifles, often empty, were useless against high-explosive sh.e.l.ls, or the waves of poison-gas which preceded the advance of Mackensen's shock troops.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Map to ill.u.s.trate the German Attack north of Warsaw in February, 1915]
On 5th May, with its front wholly turned, Dmitrieff's shattered army withdrew as best it could from the Dunajec lines to the San River. All Russia's gains in Galicia were destined to be sacrificed in similar fas.h.i.+on. Brussiloff's advance through the Carpathians was at once arrested; by 14th May, when Everts' army on the Nida had also fallen back, all the pa.s.ses had been evacuated, though not without appalling losses. In the Bukovina, however, the Russian army under General Lechitsky maintained a stubborn resistance south of the Dniester until 27th June, when it fell back to the Gnila Lipa. It was high time to retreat. Przemysl had again fallen into Austro-German hands (2nd June) as the first outstanding result of Mackensen's advance; Lemberg followed suit on 22nd June; and Halicz, abandoned by Brussiloff, fell on the day on which Lechitsky's army retreated from the Dniester to the Gnila Lipa. The end of June saw these positions abandoned and a further retreat in progress towards the line of the Lublin-Cholm railway.
Not cheaply were these spectacular triumphs won by the advancing armies of Mackensen and the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand. Their troops had been twice thrown back on the Dniester before that river had been finally won--a pa.s.sage which cost them, all told, some 150,000 men; and in the successive retreats which followed, the Russian infantrymen turned repeatedly on their pursuers to prove that they were still capable of enforcing a price for every yard of ceded territory.
Mackensen's 'drive' was only part of the German Higher Command's plan for destroying the Russian armies in 1915. While the Austro-German phalanx was thus thrusting its way towards the Lublin-Cholm railway line, a simultaneous movement was in progress in the north, which had for its first objectives the great fortresses of the Polish salient, and Warsaw itself.
Here Hindenburg, who was still in supreme command of the Austro-German forces on the Eastern front, had no longer General Ruzsky opposing him, Ruzsky having handed over the Russian northern command to Alexieff owing to ill-health. No matter how bravely the Russian infantrymen fought, or how ably they were led, they could not stand up against the hurricane of shot and sh.e.l.l which now blasted a path for the fully-equipped armies of von Below, von Eichhorn, von Gallwitz, von Scholtz, Leopold of Bavaria, and von Woyrsch. Prasnysz was won by von Gallwitz after a fierce battle in the middle of July, the Russians retiring to the shelter of the Narew fortresses guarding Warsaw from the north-east. Mackensen's advance to the south was resumed the next day, and the Grand Duke Nicholas, foreseeing the peril of this double threat, realized that his only hope lay in flattening the Warsaw salient and thus shortening his line. This sealed the fate of Warsaw, which was entered by Prince Leopold of Bavaria on 4th Aug.
Ivangorod fell on the following day; Kovno on the 17th; Novo Georgievsk on the 19th. These losses, though deplorable, were not vital while the Russian armies still retained power to retaliate and recoup. Hindenburg strained every nerve to crush them once and for all. Ossowiec fell on 22nd Aug., the Russians resuming their retreat from the Niemen and Bobhr. Brest-Litovsk had already been threatened by the converging movement of Mackensen and Prince Leopold of Bavaria. Seeing no hope of saving it in the face of the continued pressure, the Grand Duke Nicholas evacuated this most easterly of the Polish quadrilateral of forts on the 25th, having previously stripped it, as in the case of the other evacuated fortresses, of all war material.
Hindenburg strove to complete the discomfiture of the main Russian armies by a fresh advance on his extreme left, where von Below was ordered to push through Courland towards Riga, with Petrograd as the ultimate goal in the following year. On this front the Russians had already been forced to relinquish Memel, just across the German frontier, as well as Libau. German naval forces had shared in the operations on the Riga coast-line, and when von Below, after carrying Mitau, some 30 miles from Riga itself, met with prolonged resistance, they made an ill-fated attempt to capture the port from the sea. This was on 18th Aug., when the Russian fleet appeared on the scene while the German naval contingents were attempting to land in flat-bottomed barges at Pernau. The landing forces were annihilated, and the German s.h.i.+ps beaten off with a loss of two cruisers and eight torpedo-boats. The Russians only lost an old gunboat in this one-sided action.
The naval operations, however, had little effect on the main issue. Russian fortresses continued for another month to fall like ninepins before the Austro-German armies. Grodno was evacuated at the beginning of September, and though General Everts escaped from Brest-Litovsk with his supplies and guns, he could not hold up Mackensen's irresistible march on Pinsk, even in the Pripet marshes, which were dry at that season of the year. Pinsk was occupied on 16th Sept. Nowhere was the pressure relaxed. In the south, where the flood-tide of the Teutonic advance had never set so strongly, the attack on the Volhynian fortresses had been vigorously opposed by Ivanoff; but Boehm-Ermolli entered Lutsk on 1st Sept., and the Austrians recaptured Brody on the same day.
The vital blow at this stage was being delivered in the north, where von Below, bent on reaching Riga for his winter quarters, was marching on the Dvina lines with the immediate object of crossing that river and turning the whole Russian front as far as Dvinsk. The extreme left flank of the Germans fought desperately for the Dvina crossing at Friedrichstadt, but failed to make it good, and the danger-point s.h.i.+fted towards Vilna, the ten days' battle for which was decided at Meiszagowla on 12th Sept. Though two Russian divisions of the Imperial Guard were brought up to defend this key position, they were powerless to hold it against the great weight of German artillery. With its capture on 12th Sept., Vilna's fall became merely a matter of days. Before the Vilna armies could make good their escape, Hindenburg endeavoured to crown his triumph by outflanking them on both sides, von Eichhorn's cavalry sweeping round from Vilkomir in the north, and von Scholtz pressing forward, though less rapidly, on the southern side of the salient.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Germanic Slice out of Russian Territory at the end of the Summer Campaign of 1915.]
In this supreme crisis on the Eastern front, Ruzsky, recovered from his illness, returned to his command of the northern battlefields, and signalized his reappearance--not for the first time--by changing the whole complexion of affairs. Reinforcements enabled him in the first place methodically to evacuate the Vilna salient under their protection.
Hindenburg endeavoured to counter this by rus.h.i.+ng up cavalry reinforcements, with 140 guns, to support his outflanking thrust in the north, which, reaching Vidzy on the 16th and Vileika on the following day--this being well to the rear of the Vilna armies--threatened irremediable disaster to the retreating Russians. They were saved by the series of flank-guard battles securing their one avenue of retreat, and Ruzsky's counter-offensive from Dvinsk--a stroke so effective that the long German cavalry arm was in itself now in danger of being cut off. Vidzy was recaptured on the 20th; Smorgon, south of Novo Grodek, on the 21st; and Vileika before the end of the month.
On 15th Sept. Lord Kitchener had publicly declared that the Germans had ”shot their bolt” on the Eastern front; and, so far as the immediate destruction of the Russian army as a force in being was concerned, this was true, though it was hard to believe while the wide sweep of the German advance was in full force. Ivanoff's reaction was equally marked in the south, where Brussiloff and Lechitsky took von Bothmer and Pflanzer-Baltin by surprise. Before the end of September the Austro-Germans had not only been pushed back to the Strypa, but had also lost both Dubno and Lutsk (23rd).
Germany's great summer offensive was over, but Hindenburg tried hard to secure good winter quarters in the north by a renewed advance on Dvinsk and Riga. A frontal attack was launched on Dvinsk on 3rd Oct. and was a costly failure. Ruzsky had defended Dvinsk with a semicircle of far-flung trenches on the Verdun model, against which the German shock-troops and guns could make practically no progress. After three weeks of vain endeavour Hindenburg s.h.i.+fted the attack to Riga, with no better success and heavy additional casualties. Thrust and counter-thrust succeeded one another with little change in the general situation until the end of November, when, after temporarily securing a crossing at Dahlend Island, south-east of Riga, in the River Dvina, Hindenburg was forced to abandon the attempt as futile. With the help of their fleet the Russians won their way back to Kemmern; and in their counter-offensive from Dvinsk in the same month recaptured Illutsk. All hope was then abandoned by the Germans of taking either Riga or Dvinsk that year. The German effort in the south, below the Pripet marshes, also slackened. Ivanoff not only maintained the ground he had won, but scored several notable victories in the Strypa sector; but both here and along the Styr, where Lechitsky was opposing Bothmer, there was both give and take and nothing decisive--apart from the fact that Roumania was saved by this evidence of Russia's recuperative powers from choosing the wrong side.
In order further to influence the dubious att.i.tude of Roumania, a fresh Russian offensive in the Bukovina was begun in the last days of the year, with Czernowitz as the objective; but as this rightly belongs to 1916 it will be dealt with in our summary of the operations for that year. Though Russia had not succ.u.mbed as a military power under the staggering blows she had received in 1915, she had lost 2,000,000 of her best fighting men, and the _moral_ of her army was never so high again. Falkenhayn has hinted in his _Memoirs_ that the Germans knew that the blind faith of the Russians in their rulers was already shaken before they started Mackensen's 'drive'. It could not be expected to endure in face of the criminal neglect and corruption which every day added to their hards.h.i.+ps and losses at the front. The Russian court at that period has been described as a mixture of folly and intrigue, with 'dark forces' at work under pro-German influence, led by the impostor Rasputin. The Grand Duke Nicholas, who was above the treacherous influences now undermining all departments of the Russian system, had been transferred to the command in the Caucasus in the most critical hours of the Austro-Germanic advance, the supreme command of the Russian armies being taken over by the Tsar himself (5th Sept.), with Alexieff as Chief of Staff. The Tsar's motives were above suspicion; but he lacked the efficiency and generals.h.i.+p of the Grand Duke, and stood for a system which, under the searching test of war, was proving itself unworthy of the continued sacrifices of his subjects. The sacrifices were repeated in 1916, but the seeds were already sown of the red harvest which was to lead to Russia's downfall and the end of the Romanoffs.
_The Balkans, 1915_
The progress of German arms in 1915 had decided Bulgaria to throw in her lot with the Central Powers. Her price--fixed by secret treaty with Germany in July of that year--was the whole of Macedonia possessed by Serbia, and other valuable slices of territory. It was not until 12th Oct. that formal war was declared by Bulgaria against Serbia, five days after the fresh invasion of Serbia had begun under Mackensen's leaders.h.i.+p, with two Austro-German armies, one under General Koevess, advancing west of Belgrade in a wide flanking movement along the old roads over the Save and the Drina, and the other, under General von Gallwitz, advancing east of Belgrade against the main Serbian forces. Against this new Mackensen 'drive', with fully-equipped forces larger than the whole Serbian army, organized with all the Teutonic thoroughness which marked the same leader's Galician triumph, the Serbians had no chance, though they fought, as ever, with stoic resistance, and exacted a price for every inch of ceded territory. While they were thus stubbornly retreating, Bulgaria threw in two of her armies on the Eastern front, thus threatening, with the advancing Austro-German forces, to enclose them in a wide loop. The tragedy of it was that Serbia's allies were powerless to save her; and that Greece, who by the terms of her treaty with Serbia should have gone to her a.s.sistance as soon as Bulgaria attacked her, declined through King Constantine to do so, notwithstanding the insistent advice of his Prime Minister, M. Venizelos. Convinced, like King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, that Germany was winning the war, King Constantine maintained to the end an att.i.tude which, though he chose to call it neutral, was never friendly towards the Allies. Russia had her hands too full to go to Serbia's aid, and though a Franco-British attempt was made as the net closed round the encircled Serbians, it was too late to save the situation.
The story of the Serbian disaster of 1915, when the fall of Monastir on 2nd Dec. robbed the Serbians of their last stronghold, is that of a desperate flight across the frontier and over the mountains of Albania and Montenegro to the Adriatic. Thanks to the Serbians' heroic efforts, the Austro-German armies had not been able to close the net tight, and though the Bulgarians followed hard on their heels, they could not quite complete their victory.
All told, however, the Serbians lost some 50,000 men, killed, wounded, captured, or starved, in the retreat, together with their guns and equipment. Their aged monarch shared the retreat and succeeded in reaching Brindisi.
Meanwhile the Franco-British force, which, as already related, arrived too late to prevent this final act of the Serbian tragedy, had established a strong base at Salonika, notwithstanding Greek protests on the grounds of neutrality. It was not until 14th Oct. that the combined force, under the leaders.h.i.+p of General Sarrail--the British column being commanded by General Mahon--began to move up the Vardar valley, the British advancing on the right towards Lake Doiran, and the French towards Strumnitza. Both forces were soon in touch with the Bulgarians, and fought a number of minor engagements in their forlorn hope of effecting a junction with the hard-pressed Serbians. Besides being too late, however, the Franco-British forces were not strong enough to effect their purpose, and when the remnants of the Serbian army had been forced across the frontier towards the Adriatic, they were themselves attacked by powerful Bulgarian columns.
The object of his expedition having been eliminated, General Sarrail prepared for retreat to his base. The Bulgarians did their best to harry his retirement. They launched a determined attack, which he repulsed with heavy loss; and then endeavoured to isolate the two columns by an a.s.sault on the British force at Lake Doiran. Though some 1300 casualties were sustained in defeating this attack, the British, acting as flank-guard to the French, enabled the retreat to be made jointly. By 13th Dec. the Allied troops, having administered a severe check to the pursuing Bulgarians two days previously, were across the Greek frontier in good order, and in due course had entrenched themselves about Salonika.
With the fall of Serbia came the collapse of Montenegro, in circ.u.mstances considerably less heroic than those which marked the Serbian retreat. The key position of Mont Lovtchen was abandoned to the Austrians with little if any show of resistance, and Cettinje, the capital, similarly entered by the invaders. King Nicholas of Montenegro sought refuge in Paris; Prince Mirko of Montenegro in Vienna.
The Serbian soldiers who survived the great retreat, numbering some 100,000 in all, were met on the Adriatic coast by units of the Italian fleet and transferred to Corfu--to recoup and refit for the later campaigns which were to lead to the recovery of their country.
_Italy, 1915_
Italy, whose wars.h.i.+ps were thus instrumental in salving the Serbian army, had thrown in her lot with the Allies by declaring war against Austria-Hungary on 23rd May, 1915. Austria had refused to offer adequate 'compensation' for her disturbance of the Balkans; and, moreover, the time had obviously arrived to complete Italian unity. A few weeks previously Italy had signed the Treaty of London, under which the Allies agreed to satisfy most of her territorial ambitions when the time came to share the spoils of victory an agreement which led to some of the most difficult problems in the final peace settlement. To Italy's honour be it added that she joined forces with the Allies when their prospects were none too bright, when they were able to report little or no progress either on the Western front or in Gallipoli, and Austro-German arms, on the other hand, were beginning to carry all before them in Mackensen's great drive in Galicia.
Italy was in no position to throw her whole weight into the struggle in 1915. Though her war strength was reckoned at a million men, her army was ill-equipped with guns, especially with modern heavy artillery and machine-guns, and her industrial resources were wholly inadequate to make good the deficiency. The mountainous frontier which she had to defend, too, gave every advantage to the Austrians. She succeeded in seizing three of the pa.s.ses, the Stelvio, Tonale, and Guidriari, on the east side of the Trentino, and in blocking others on the west side, as the opening moves of her campaign, the object being to secure her flank in the subsequent offensive operations which aimed at Trieste by an advance across the Isonzo. Though these operations succeeded in pinning to the Italian front considerable forces of Austro-Hungarian troops which might have been thrown into the Russian furnace, the Italian effort fell far short of its objectives. General Cadorna, the Italian Commander-in-Chief, won a number of small successes in deploying his Third Army on the right bank of the Isonzo during June and July, securing the bridge-heads at Caporetto--the scene of Italian disaster two years later--Plava, Gradisca, and Monfalcone, thus holding the western bank of the river from Tolmino down to the sea.
But the Italians were now faced with powerful defences, b.u.t.tressed by the Carso Plateau in the south, which could only be carried at that time at prohibitive cost. All attempts to capture these strongholds broke down, and though a footing was gained on the Carso, and slight gains were constantly reported from the Trentino, the operations along the Italian front settled down before the year was out to the give-and-take fighting which characterized the siege operations in the West.
_Western Front in 1915_
On the Western front neither France nor Great Britain was ready in 1915 to undertake any advance comparable with the great offensives of the Central Powers in the East. Russia in her agony complained that France was not doing enough, but all the Allies' efforts this year were crippled by their inability to supply the wholly unprecedented demands for munitions of war.