CHAPTER II THE AUSTRIAN DEBACLE: FROM LEMBERG TO JAROSLAV

We shall now proceed to follow the fortunes of the Russo-Austrian campaign immediately after the capture of Lemberg in the early days of September. Such a substantial success naturally put the Russians in good heart. Rewards were judiciously distributed on the recommendation of the Grand-duke Nicholas, Generals Russky and Brussiloff each receiving that most coveted of decorations, the Cross of St. George. It was likewise officially notified that between August 17 and September 3, a period of rather more than a fortnight, the Tsar’s forces operating against the Austrian host of General von Auffenburg had advanced no less a distance than 220 versts, or roughly 150 miles. During the same period there had been practically no lull in the fighting, which for sheer sustained fury would appear to have been little less sanguinary than that between the German and Franco-British armies in the West.

It was about this time that the _Daily Telegraph_, in an editorial setting forth the general situation of affairs after some five weeks of war, called attention to the influence being slowly but none the less surely exercised by the Russian field-armies. After pointing out that the crisis of a great war had worked wonders in the way of a more perfect understanding between the Russian and British peoples, the writer went on to say:

“The extraordinary prowess of the Russian Army has already begun to draw the ordinary Briton out of his absorption in the military situation in France, and to keep him in mind of the fact that the arena of this war is not any one country, but the Continent of Europe. He realises more fully than before that every blow struck at the Central European Powers on their eastern frontier is, in the long run, as telling as any reverse inflicted upon them in the western theatre of war. But he ought to realise it more fully yet. The position is that the long series of Russian successes, culminating in the Austrian overthrow at Lemberg and Halicz, has cast the whole Austro-German war-plan into confusion, which may at this moment be affecting the German operations in France in the most serious degree. The main Austrian Army in Southern Poland is now being attacked with unsparing energy. Its situation is rendered desperate by the destruction of the Second Army at Lemberg, which lays open its right wing to assault by the victorious troops of General Russky. Should the great battle now raging end in another such defeat as has already been inflicted there will be nothing remaining in the field that can stay the Russian march to Berlin. The rapidity of the Russian mobilisation and of the movement of the Russian forces to the attack is one of the several absolutely vital things with which Germany did not reckon. The brilliancy of their performance in the field has surprised the enemy no less. Deeply involved as Germany is in the French campaign, dares she provide the heavy and immediate reinforcements for which her Ally is clamouring? Dares she, on the other hand, refuse them? That is, put simply, the fatal dilemma on the horns of which the monstrous ambition of German militarism is like to perish.”

If this last pertinent question was not destined to be immediately answered, the military situation now began to be one of increasing menace for the Austro-German Allies. In war one is bound to get a vast amount of “claim and counterclaim” on the part of the contending nations. On September 6 the Tsar’s Government took the step of publicly characterising as “wilful falsehoods” certain Austrian and German official reports of recent successes. It was claimed, in disproof of these statements, that in the region between the rivers Vistula and Bug the Russians had, up to and including September 4, captured many Austrian guns, 150 officers, and 12,000 men. It was added that, “having broken the Austrian resistance,” the Tsar’s army was already continuing its victorious advance southwards from Lemberg.

The Grand-duke and General Russky had determined that no rest must be given to the enemy’s army already so badly beaten in front of the capital of Galicia. Scouting far to the flank, the Cossack cavalry already found themselves in the passes of the Carpathians. A German division intended to stiffen the Austrian resistance along this extended line was understood to have been badly cut up on the left bank of the Vistula; but details of the affair were vague. To the west of Krasnostaw, however, a whole Austrian battalion--the 45th of the line--was cut off and surrounded, being compelled to surrender to the number of 1,500 men and nearly 50 officers.

The next Russian objective would obviously be the important and strongly fortified town of Przemysl, fifty-five miles west of Lemberg. But, before attacking this strong place of arms, it was essential to get possession of Mikolaiev. This point owes its strategical importance to the circumstance that it is situated at the junction of the railways to Lemberg, Jimacheff, and (via Stry) to the Carpathians. Entrenchments had been thrown up on both banks of the Dniester for the protection of the bridges crossing that river. With a mixed population of Poles and Jews of a little over 4,000, it had a garrison of some 10,000 men. Moreover, it was common knowledge that the Austrian authorities did not believe in the practicability of Mikolaiev being reduced either by investment or direct assault, owing to the deep marshes that surround the place for many miles. But, alas! a similar impregnability has been claimed for only too many of the fortresses involved in this war, which have held out for no longer than a few days. Mikolaiev was to prove no exception to the rule, although we are told that the fortress’s guns were mounted in “armoured cupolas.”

Apparently the place surrendered at discretion after a very moderate resistance. The garrison, forty heavy guns, and a great quantity of ammunition became the prizes of the victors; but the details of what must have been a brilliant feat of arms are conspicuously meagre. It is stated, however, that the defences included triple lines of barbed wire “and other obstacles.”

We have now the spectacle of two separate Austrian armies, that of Galicia and that which was operating in Southern Poland, striving desperately to stem the tide that appeared to be setting dead against them.

By the second week of September public interest in Russia had become deeply centred in the plight of the latter army. It was by this time fighting a series of rearguard actions with its wary and well-handled opponents. Although the majority of well-informed military critics assumed the ultimate destruction of this army as a fighting force, the extent of the assistance it might receive from the German side could not be gauged with accuracy. Thus a special correspondent of the _Daily Telegraph_ wrote from Petrograd on September 11:

“The theory is put forward that at any rate the greater part of the 300,000 men whom the Germans are known to have withdrawn from their western front, and who are supposed to have been replaced by the Landwehr and the Landsturm corps, have been directed to the assistance of the Austrians, and not to East Prussia. An army paper issued officially at the front for the information of the troops says that on September 5 and 6 the battle continued on the Austrian front. The Russian troops operating between Lublin and the Vistula had occupied the river Chodel. They had to deal with a well-entrenched enemy, and therefore the attack developed rather slowly. Moving from Krasnostaw, the Austrian force attempted to reach the railway line between Lublin and Cholm, to cut the communications between those two places; but the plan was frustrated by the battle of September 2 and 3 at Suchodol and other Russian counter-moves. The position of the Russians was, on September 6, much stronger, and Krasnostaw was in their hands. There were then also pretty plain signs of a general Austrian retreat.”

These German reinforcements amounted, at all events, to one or two army corps, and with their co-operation hard fighting took place on September 8-9 along the entire front. It is significant that 10 per cent. of the prisoners taken on those days are said to have been Germans. The Austrian commander appears to have strengthened his left wing, now resting on the Vistula, at the expense of his right in order to attempt to hold the relentless flanking movement of General Russky. A large Austrian force was thrown for this purpose along a front running roughly from Lubisch to Komarno, which had formed a rallying-point for considerable numbers of the army broken up near Lemberg. Along this line they managed to entrench with some skill and elaboration, and Russky encountered a stubborn resistance in the task of turning them out, though it has been claimed on the Russian side that the enemy as a rule has been generally loth to wait for the bayonets to cross.

This Austrian conception of a counterstroke of their heavily reinforced right wing, with the intention of driving Russky back upon Lemberg, was in the main a good one. It commenced on September 9, when, according to one who was in the firing-line, the Austrians essayed “repeated and stubborn attacks with the object of crushing the Russian left wing and getting round their right. These movements were met by vigorous counter-attacks, and in order to ease the pressure the army on the Vistula, and particularly that portion to the south of Lublin, was ordered to push forward and, if possible, strike at the enemy’s rear. Accordingly the Russian forces in South Poland pressed on from the line Solez-Opole-Vichowe-Samostie-Komarow, and, after desperate fighting, drove the Austrians from their entrenched positions. On September 9 the enemy’s resistance was overcome, and he retired all along the line, with the Russians in pursuit. In the battles of that and the preceding day the Russians took 150 cannon, several machine-guns, and 3,000 prisoners.

“On the 10th, while the chase of the retreating Austrians was proceeding in this quarter, the Russians in the direction of Lemberg were called upon to sustain repeated assaults. These were, however, all repulsed with heavy loss, eight guns and more than four thousand prisoners being captured. Apparently the Austrians withdrawing from the Lublin province fought a rearguard action on the 12th, as mention is made of an obstinate battle on that day which ended with the rout of the enemy, who was compelled to abandon his wounded. Evidently in concert with this stand the Austrians to the west of Lemberg delivered three furious night attacks between the 11th and 12th. From the impetuosity with which the assaults were pressed home it was evident that they were a last despairing attempt to sweep back the onflowing wave of Russians.”

In a word, this series of desperate attacks and counter-attacks resulted in the total failure of the Austrian army, though stiffened by its German supports, to “hold” their terrible opponents. But it was no easy victory. Both sides fought with devoted courage and stubborn tenacity. Much of the ground was cut up with marshy streams and belts of treacherous swamp land, and one of the harrowing features of this battle was that numbers of dead lay unburied among the morasses or half sunk in the shallow streams and hundreds of wounded wretches died among these abandoned dead, undiscovered by the peasants of the district until it was too late.

In the close fighting the Russian losses were necessarily heavy, but the Petrograd official estimates of the Austro-German casualties from the capture of Lemberg up to and including this hard-won triumph on the Vistula simply stagger the imagination, and suggest that the computation was somewhat loosely made. These were the figures:

Killed and wounded, 250,000 men. Prisoners, 100,000 men. Guns captured, 400.

The last of these figures is probably nearest the truth. It would include the numerous guns secured by the surrender of Mikolaiev, as well as those taken on the battle-field. In the great battle the Russian artillery is said to have outnumbered that of the enemy in the proportion of two to one, and the Austrians had to abandon many batteries among the marshes when the retreat began. Amongst these were some of their formidable field-howitzers.

Amongst the Russian corps commanders specially distinguished during these days of battle, and decorated by the Tsar with the Cross of St. George for his part in the victory, was the Bilarian Radko Dimitrieff. He has had a remarkable career. Born in 1859, passed out of the Military School of Sofia as a lieutenant at the age of twenty, and then studied for a while in the Staff College at St. Petersburg. He had rejoined the Bulgarian army as a captain when there came the withdrawal of the Russian officers who held the higher commands, and the sudden attack by Servia. Dimitrieff, though only a captain, acted as a general at the victory of Slivnitza, and there laid the foundation of his career. The Bulgars called him “little Napoleon,” partly on account of a certain personal resemblance to the “little Corporal,” partly as a tribute to his genius for command. He served for ten years in the Russian army, and on his return to Bulgaria was appointed first chief of the General Staff, and then to the command of a district. In the war of the Balkan League he commanded the 3rd Bulgarian Army, won the first victory at Kirk-Kilisse and shared the after-triumphs of the campaign in Thrace. On the outbreak of the present war he at once offered his services once more to Russia.

In the official record of these operations special mention is made of the uniformly good work of the Cossack and other cavalry, who appear to have established as thorough a personal ascendancy over the enemy’s mounted troops as did that of the Franco-British army in the western theatre of war.

A similar remark may be applied to the achievements of the Russian air-craft in this region. The Grand-duke seeks out for special commendation in this connection the work of Air-Scout Tkarchoff. While returning from a reconnaissance his machine was shot at and a bullet penetrated the oil-tank. With wonderful nerve and resource, the brave Tkarchoff managed to plug the bullet-hole with his foot, in that way stopping the flow of the oil and preventing a collapse. At last he was able to descend, though under heavy fire from the enemy, and eventually he saved his aeroplane with the help of two soldiers.

The Russian forward movement was very naturally speeded up by the quickened retirement of the foe. Having crossed the Lower San River without encountering any resistance, Russky’s army entered the town of Gorodek and Mosciske, which brought them within one day’s march of Jaroslav. When the Austrian Government reorganised the defences of Galicia more than twenty years ago it was at first intended to make Jaroslav instead of Przemysl the eastern stronghold of the province. The fortifications were begun and then left in an unfinished state, but on the outbreak of the war these incomplete works were taken in hand and made the basis of a strong system of entrenchments. It is an important place, some twenty miles north of Przemysl, and covering the junction of the eastern railways of Galicia with the main line to Cracow. Strong redoubts, to the number of more than twenty in all, had been erected on both banks of the San. The reduction of the place would greatly minimise the value of Przemysl to the Austrians and enable two railways to be used both in connection with the siege of that fortress and the operations against Cracow. The progress of the Russian advance had by this time--the third week of September--given them possession of other eastern lines of railway with large quantities of rolling-stock, tanks of naphtha, benzine, and large stores of wood and other material. On every side, as the advance converged upon Jaroslav, were seen evidences of the disorder of the recent Austrian retreat in the amount of arms and material of war abandoned in the swamps or by the roadside.

Anything like full details of the garrison of Jaroslav and its actual preparedness at the time of the onslaught are not available. This is partly owing to the Russian habit of lumping together the numbers of prisoners and guns captured at various points, and partly because a portion of the garrison succeeded in escaping. But it seems clear that a vigorous night-attack took two of the most important works, and that this rendered inevitable the early fall of the place.

In point of fact, the actual investment lasted only three days. Its reduction was semi-officially described as “a pleasant surprise,” for it left open the Cracow road, while the undoubted strength and importance of a town of 20,000 inhabitants and protected by a score of well-equipped forts, could not be over-estimated. Moreover, the only railway to Przemysl now left open to the enemy was a small single line. The officers deemed to have been most distinguished in the success of the operation were Generals Ivanoff, Alexieff, and Dragomiroff, who were all decorated. Between September 11-14 the vast captures included a general, 535 officers, 83,531 men, 637 guns (38 German), 44 machine-guns, seven flags, and 823 ammunition-wagons.

With Jaroslav in its hands, the Tsar’s army could now close up the ring of steel with which the greater prize of Przemysl was being encircled. In summing up the satisfactory results so far achieved, an eminent Russian critic, Colonel Shumsky, pointed out how utterly the enemy’s plans had come to grief. “It was supposed,” he said, “that the Austrian army approaching Ivangorod would have joined up with the Germans advancing from Posen and Thorn. By this means Western Poland would have been cut off, and there would have been a final development of the Austro-German forces on the line from Ivangorod and East Prussia to the sea, which is nearly a straight line. By moving out from the meridian of the East Prussian line, the enemy would have had the advantage of shortening the road of attack. This was very important for reasons of time. As the Austrian troops were completely beaten, that plan has broken down. The Austrians are retreating most probably to Cracow, and are attempting to arrange a new strategic front with the Germans for an attack in three echelons--the first from Eastern Prussia, the second from the line Tschensto-chau-Wjelun-Slessin, and the third from the district of Cracow.”