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Eastern European Front Campaigns
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or "EASTERN EUROPEAN FRONT CAMPAIGNS. - Under this heading comes the general story of the campaigns of the World War which were fought between 1914 and 1917 on the front between the Baltic and the Black Sea. Till the summer of 1916, Rumania was neutral, and the theatre of war was limited on the S. by the northern extremity of that country. Thereafter, till the conclusion of the peace of Brest, the Russian and Rumanian fronts became one.
The story falls into three main parts, of which the first is considerably the most important. These are: - the open-warfare, free-manoeuvre campaigns from the outbreak of war till the establishment of a continuous trench line and the setting-in of trench-warfare conditions, along the whole front in Oct. 1915; the trench-warfare operations on the Russian front from that date to the peace of Brest; and the Rumanian campaigns of 1916 and 1917. The events of 1918 belong rather to the story of the Russian civil wars than to that of the World War, and may be summarized for the present purpose in two clauses - the occupation of the Ukraine, for its economic exploitation, by German and Austrian forces, and the maintenance of a cordon, requiring large numbers of troops, along the frontier of Bolshevik Russia to provide against the contingency of a new eastern front being built up by the Entente and the Soviet Government, or by either singly. As an active element in the operations of the World War, the eastern front closes its history with the battle of Riga in the autumn of 1917, and this event, therefore, is taken as the limit of the present article.
I. THE Theatre Of War The operative contrast between the eastern and the western theatres of war lies less in the greater distances and areas of the former than in the fact that there Nature's handiwork has not been greatly modified by man's, whereas in France and Belgium there is an intense network of main roads and railways, and in many parts a great industrial development that has covered the country with factories, mines, tramways and workmen's suburbs. Hence arises a peculiar distinction. Strategically, the western theatre is penetrable everywhere; tactically, it is in many parts so tangled that coherent operations are nearly impossible. In the east, on the contrary, it is strategy that is difficult and tactics that are simple.
The importance of area and distance must not of course be ignored. Without counting Rumanian territory the theatre measures 650 m. x 320 m. - a six weeks' march under peace conditions from flank to flank, and a three weeks' march from front to rear. This and the unfamiliar sound of the place and river names to western ears have tended to make the operations of the eastern front seem more difficult to understand. than they really are. In fact, the course of operations was largely dictated by geography, and the map, rightly read, shows the lines of geography to be drawn in bold, strong strokes. And even in point of distance, the E. - W. depth of the theatre is not more than 12 times the distance covered by the Germans in their 1914 sweep through Belgium and France, and only half that covered by the Grande in its march from the Rhine to Austerlitz in 1805. The picture of the operations of 1914-17, therefore, is not too large for comprehension, and the meanings of its parts are usually clear.
The broadest characteristic of the eastern theatre is its division into four well-defined regions. (a) The great central salient of Poland on and W. of the middle Vistula. (b ) The Pripyat or Rokitno marshes, an area of 2 4 0 x 160 m. which, though largely reclaimed in modern times and therefore penetrable to a certain extent for tactical purposes, constitutes an almost insurmountable barrier to strategic movements on a large scale. Lying behind the Polish salient, these marshes, as it were, hollow out its base, leaving on either hand two avenues or corridors: - (c) the northern, connecting Petrograd and Moscow with northwestern Poland, and (d ) the southern, connecting Kiev and S. Russia with Galicia and S.W. Poland. To the right and left rear of the salient (a) the two corridors (c ) and (d ) lie exposed on their outer flanks to hostile attack from E. Prussia and Galicia respectively, except in the portions nearer to their eastern entrances where the hostile frontiers curve away to the sea and to Bessarabia. Across the base of both corridors and in rear of the central marshes runs a, water barrier consisting of the western Dvina and the Dnieper lines, unbroken save for the narrow gap at the watershed traversed by Napoleon in 1812. This waterline marks the eastern limit of the theatre. Its western limits, which espouse the shape of the salient, lie inside the frontiers of Germany and Austria-Hungary and may be taken as the lake region of W. Prussia, the Oder and the Silesian and Carpathian mountains. This limiting line, in contrast to the eastern, has several gaps, of which the most important is that lying between the Silesian and the Carpathian mountains - which is the gate to Vienna, and, owing to the higher cultural development of Germany and Austria, is strategically more penetrable even where geographical obstacles exist.
Across the whole width of the theatre, cutting off the salient from the corridors and the marshes, runs an almost straight barrier of water, constituted by the Vistula and its tributary the San, from the Baltic to beyond Yaroslav, and by the Dniester from the lakes S.W. of Lemberg to the Black Sea. The only gap is between Yaroslav and the lakes of Grodek.
All railways connecting the salient with the interior of Russia, whether they approach by the northern corridor, the marsh or the southern corridor, converge on the Warsaw - Ivangorod portion of this waterline and thence make south-westward for Upper Silesia. Practically all railways from S. Russia to AustriaHungary, on the contrary, traverse the gap of Grodek - Yaroslay. The only line from Russia to the German Baltic lands enters E. Prussia at Wirballen at the broad entrance of the northern corridor; and similarly, at the other end of the theatre, a line from Bessarabia comes into the Bukovina system at Czernowitz. Apart from these two, the whole length of the northern corridor is traversed by three lines from Dvinsk, Polotsk and Orsha respectively ending at Warsaw and Ivangorod; the central marshes by one from Gomel which at Brest-Litovsk merges with the third of the northern lines; and the southern corridor by two from Kiev and Berdichev respectively which at Kovel become one, ending at Ivangorod. The significance of the various lateral lines connecting these approach lines is best judged by studying the map, and here it is enough to draw attention to (r) the line along the eastern base itself; (2) the line Baltic - Shavli - Vilna - Minsk with its accessory Vilna - Baranovichi - Rovno; (3) the line Kovel - Brest-Litovsk - Osowiec - LyckMemel (4) the line Ivangorod - Warsaw - Mlava - Danzig; (5) the line Skierniwice - Lowie - Wloclawek - Danzig. It should also be noted that, in the salient, no lines exist W. of Lodz and N. of Czenstochowa, and that in the northern corridor about Grodno and Augustowo the Prussian and Russian railways carefully avoid contact. Of the road system, it may be said, broadly, that first-class roads are not numerous, and that they group themselves, in the main, on the same axes as the railways. In the area N.W. of Lodz - Czenstochowa, however, roads to some extent mitigate the absence of railways, and about Augustowo the connexion with E. Prussia, which the railways avoid, is, as regards roads, intimate.
Within each of these broad divisions - the salient and the two corridors - other natural features exercised a considerable influence. The chief characteristic of the northern corridor is the practically continuous waterline which defends its flank from attack from E. Prussia. Leaving the Vistula at Novogeorgievsk below Warsaw, this line is formed by the lower Bug, the lower Narew, the Bobr, the lakes of Augustowo and Suwalki, the middle Niemen to Sredniki, the Dubissa, the Vinda y ski canal which crosses the low Shavli watershed, and the Venta prolonged by the Vindava to the Baltic. From the Niemen section to Novogeorgievsk almost every important crossing - there are not many - is protected by permanent fortification of some sort. Its most vulnerable section is that at which the E. Prussian frontier makes contact with Augustowo - Suwalki - Kovno - Grodno. South of this region, on the stretch Rozan - Lomsha, owing to the absence of railways and first-class roads, military operations were never principal, but always dependent upon either those of Suwalki and Augustowo or those astride the Warsaw - MlavaDanzig line. North of Kovno, at the broad entrance to the corridor, it was safe against all but secondary attacks, so long as Kovno held out and kept the attack toward Shavli.
Frontally, of course, the corridor was protected by the Vistula and its fortresses Ivangorod, Warsaw and Modlin or Novogeorgievsk (this last at the origin of the flank barrier just described), and behind this frontal defence were other successive lines - the middle Bug, the middle and upper Narew, the upper Niemen and its feeders, the Vilia system - not to mention partial harriers such as the Wieprz. But most of these rear barriers, in particular the Bug, tend in their upper course to turn southward, thus opening to an invader who stands N. of the San a series of successive gates along the inner edge of the corridor, by which penetration is possible to Bialystok or even to Baranovichi. Hence the special importance attaching, in the operations of 1914-5, to the lower San sector and the fortress of Brest-Litovsk.
The southern corridor, unlike the northern, lies partly on one side of the political frontier and partly on the other. No important natural barrier prevents either an Austrian irruption from the S. as far (roughly) as the line Lublin - Kovel - Sarni, or a Russian irruption through and past Lemberg (Lvov) to the Dniester. As has just been mentioned, the left wing of such an Austrian irruption has the opportunity of seizing the gates of the northern corridor; no reciprocal advantage offers itself to the Russians since the Dniester line is doubled by that of the Carpathians. But, in particular, the fact that the whole Lemberg region is within the Austrian frontier narrowed the corridor normally open to the Russians to a mere strip of country. To protect this from being cut off from behind, the Russians had constructed a triangle of fortresses Rovno - Dubno - Lutsk. At its front end, where it joins the northern corridor and the salient, Ivangorod, Brest-Litovsk, and minor river courses and marshes were relied upon to seal the region of Chelm and Vladimir Volynsk; in effect, a drive by the Austrians into that region if pressed too deep laid open its flanks to counter-attack both from Ivangorod and from Lutsk (Luck).
The geography of the interior of the marsh area needs little description. As above mentioned, much of it is tactically penetrable, but owing to the extreme paucity of communications, as well as to its physical difficulties, it is on the strategic plane essentially an obstacle and not a field of manoeuvre. Its outstanding geographical feature is its river system; the Pripyat itself runs W. - E., but it has numerous N. - S. tributaries notably on the S. side, and these tributaries sometimes form, with tributaries of the Dniester (flowing in the opposite direction), N. - S. waterlines of defence only broken at the watershed (Brody, for example) along which run the communications between Rovno and Lemberg.
In the forepart of the central salient, too, it is the waterlines that are the most important features. The course of the upper Warta; that of the Pilitca; the position of Lodz (or rather Lenczyska) at the divide of the Warta and Bzura systems; the course of the Nida meeting at its mouth the mouth of the Dunajec, one of the several Galician rivers which double the San obstacle; lastly, the upper Vistula itself which forms the southern boundary of the salient - all these were important.
Practically the whole of this region belongs to the W. Russian plain, and has marshy valleys, feeble undulations, and great forests, some of these last still existing in primeval density, others already broken up by man's clearings and settlements. The only hilly mass is the Lysa Goza in the Kielce region of the salient. On the contrary, the Lemberg - Brody - Buczacz portion of the southern corridor, and all country between the San or Dniester and the Carpathians, is almost wholly a country of deep-cut valleys and high plateaux.
The German reentrant opposed to the Polish salient is geographically similar to, but in point of human development very different from, that region. In Silesia, owing to its industrial character, the network of roads and railways is as dense as in western Europe. Without going west of Posen, no less than three complete lateral or circumferential railways join Upper Silesia to the trans-Vistula railways of E. Prussia. As, in face of these, no Russian lateral exists W. of Lodz it is easy to see how this region, in spite of its want of natural defences, was able to act as a curtain between the two bastions of E. Prussia and Galicia, facilitating quick transfers of the centre of gravity from flank to flank and itself (save at one critical moment) immune from attack because of the difficulty of approach.
Of these two " bastions," E. Prussia was the more important as menacing the whole length of the northern corridor, from front to rear. Whereas the Lemberg region only projects from the San - Dniester barrier, E. Prussia has its whole length at right angles to the Vistula. It is served by so many railways that either end of this length is utilizable for the offensive.
The principal directions which this offensive may take are - from the eastern end of the province towards Shavli, from the same towards Kovno and Grodno, and from Mlava towards the Narew and, if and when that obstacle is overcome, on Siedlce or Bialystok. We have seen that the first of these is inevitably a secondary or dependent operation. Between the other two the choice was always, for the German Command, difficult. Presuming the Narew forced, or Kovno taken, as the preliminary in either case, the one offensive leads close into the rear of the Warsaw - Ivangorod stronghold, while in the other the corridor is seized far back near its entrance; the choice therefore depended on how deeply the enemy was advanced in the Polish salient or how long the passive front of the " curtain " could be held, or what chance there was of cooperation from the lower San through the Bug " gate," and on other factors which had to be reckoned together on every occasion that an offensive was planned. But these two avenues (Kielce or Warsaw - Mlava, and Vilna - Kovno [or Grodnoj - Insterburg) equally serve for Russian offensives, and the defensive characteristics of E. Prussia were nearly if not quite as important as its qualities as an offensive base.
The main feature of military geography in E. Prussia is the chain of the Masurian lakes which, in a sickle from N. to S. and then westward, protects the interior against attack from the E. or the S.E. The tongues of land which separate the lakes represent only a narrow frontage which has actually to be defended, and have the effect also of gathering communications, plentiful in the interior, at a few points of exit. To the S. of the lakes a number of tributaries of the Bobr - Narew system continue the water barrier, as against eastern attack, to the Narew; to the N. of them the river Angerapp presents a similar barrier as far as the Pregel, beyond which river smaller streams continue the line of defence with some gaps to the Niemen. Behind the lakes, the next important N. - S. barrier is the line of the Alle which, rising in the central Masurian lakes, runs to the Pregel at Wehlau, whence from Tapiau to the Kurische Haff runs the Deime. Other partial barriers to an invader's westward progress exist but are of less importance. Finally there is the German section of the lower Vistula which, intricate at Danzig and fortified at Thorn and Graudenz, still bars access to Germany proper when E. Prussia has been conquered or evacuated.
Thus on the E. this province is singularly well protected. But it is to be noted (1) that the frontier, especially in the northern part, lies well in advance of the barrier, and that a policy of passive defence on the lake line forfeits a not inconsiderable region at the outset; and (2) that both the Insterburg - Johannisburg line and the Alle are turned by attack from the S., by Mlava and Soldau, where the westernmost part of the lake system dies away. At the centre of the " sickle," on the other hand, the density of the lakes is highest and they not only afford local protection to this part of the region, but also enable the defending army to shift its weight from E. to S.W. and vice versa without much fear of flank attack in doing so; while, on the Russian side, the paucity of communications in the foreground of these central lakes seriously impedes liaison between the northern or Gumbinnen and the south-western or Soldau groups of the invaders. Such shifts of the centre of gravity are, moreover, facilitated by the dense railway system lying behind the lakes. The frontier railway, which runs from Thorn, by Soldau, Johannisburg and Lyck (junction of the Russian Bialystok-Brest-Litovsk transversal), to Tilsit and Memel, lies outside all defensive barriers. But inside the barriers are some three other transversals, one being the Thorn-Insterburg-Wirballen section of the Berlin-Petrograd main line, and the others parts of a well-developed provincial system.
The military-geographical characteristics of the Lemberg region, the other potentially offensive base lying outside the Vistula-San-Dniester barrier, are less sharply marked and their influence is not so definite. Offensive possibilities lie in the direction of (a) Bessarabia, (b ) Kiev, (c ) Kovel, (d ) the inner edge of the northern corridor, towards Brest-Litovsk. Of these, as in the case of E. Prussia, (a) is eccentric, except as a secondary element of (b); and ( c ) centres on a region which is ill-developed in communications, and therefore operations there are subsidiary to those on either flank. The important alternatives are therefore, speaking broadly, (b ) and (d). In (b ) Dubno and Rovno play the same role as Kovno in the N., and the results to be expected from a successful operation of this character are similar to, but smaller in scale than, the corresponding enterprise on the Niemen. (d ) The operation, twice carried out and several times contemplated, offered many results and many risks, and its usefulness varied according to a number of factors like that of the corresponding operation from the N., with which, in fact, it was logically combined.
Defensively, the conditions of the Lemberg region were similar in some respects to those of E. Prussia. Waterlines opposed invasion from the E., while from the N. Lemberg was open. But the real obstacle value of the E. Galician watercourses,- Gnila Lipa, Ziota Lipa, Strypa, etc., - whose names were to become historic, is small, and, though N. of the Styr system and the uppermost streams of the Bug (Styr) have wide marshy valleys and are serious barriers, the watershed itself (DubnoBrody-Lemberg) is an open gate both for road and rail approach to the Galician capital.
The railway system of the Galicia theatre, though far inferior to that of Silesia and Prussia, included two complete laterals N. of the Carpathians, and at least one S. of them. From the interior of Hungary and Moravia, over the Carpathians, to the San-Dniester barrier there were eight approach railways between Teschen in the W. and Czernovitz in the E., and four of these pass the barrier at or near the Grodek gap, converging on Lemberg and Rava Ruska. In the latter region itself the railways lie chiefly radially from Lemberg. It is to be noted that on the whole front N. of Lemberg the Russian frontier region is destitute of approach railways.
Finally, the Carpathians (of which Galicia to the San, to Lemberg and to the Dniester, is simply a glacis) are not as the sea is to E. Prussia, a definitive barrier, but rather a wall with many gates for the passage of an invader into Hungary and Austria. The mountains themselves are rather Vosgian than Alpine, and their main passes are low enough to be practicable for railways. At the W. and E. ends, the mountains broaden out into the Tatra and massifs, but in the centre the mountain zone is at its narrowest, and it is exactly in front of this that the Grodek gap breaks the forward barrier and allows these railway approach lines to make for the Hungarian plain. West of the Tatra massif, the Troppau gap opens Moravia to an invader who has mastered Upper Silesia. (C. F. A.) II. THE Campaigns Of 1914 The Russian Plan of Campaign. - Two characteristics of the Russian Army were admitted on both sides as axiomatic, the relative slowness with which its total forces could
be brought to bear and the numerically overpowering superiority of those forces when assembled and ready. Both these were summed up in the popular phrase of 1914, which likened the Russian Army to a steam roller. The axioms were not, however, independent. Only by waiting could the overpowering strength be realized, and by temporarily forgoing this numerical advantage, it was possible for the Russians to act with partial forces and provisional objectives, almost if not quite as promptly as the armies of the Central Powers. Instead, therefore, of the usual stages of couverture and full-power action there would be, or might be, three - couverture, rapid partial action, and delayed full-power action - and the application of the geographical factors to strategy varied accordingly.
In all alternatives, the inclusion of the central salient, either in the couverture system or in the deployment for the main action, was impossible. In other words, it was militarily evacuated from the outset. In the alternative of delayed full-power action, the couverture would guard the outer flanks of the two corridors and the Warsaw-Ivangorod-Lutsk front, while the main masses assembled further back. Flank-guard groups would prolong the defence of the corridors respectively in the Shavli region and to the S.E. of Dubno and Rovno. The line of detrainment for the main bodies would be, substantially, Kovno-Grodno-Bialystok-B rest, and (for the Southern armies) points behind Rovno. But the abandonment of so large a portion of Poland would only be necessary in the case of Germany's employing the major portion of her forces in the east. In that case, especially if it arose in winter, it was calculated that the Russian forces on the couverture line would have to retire fighting, giving up Warsaw and possibly Ivangorod, but holding firmly at all costs on the middle Niemen front and at Brest. If that case did not arise, then the couverture was strong enough to enable the main masses using the northern corridor to detrain further forward. In proportion as the arrangements for mobilization and concentration were improved in the years 1910-4, and in proportion also asit became more probable that Germany would elect to employ the bulk of her forces on her French front, not only this forward concentration but also preparatory offensives delivered from the couverture line came to be considered.
In all cases the main object which was to be sought when the forces were fully assembled was practically the same. It was the destruction of the Austrian armies in Galicia, the occupation of the Carpathian line, and eventually an advance into Moravia and Silesia by Troppau and the Oder head, turning Breslau. The exact form in which this ultimate offensive would be realized could not be foreseen until the Germans and Austrians had shown their hand; meantime, the problem before the Russian general staff was so to plan their couverture arrangements, their detrainments, and their now feasible preparatory offensives as to subserve this purpose.
Generally speaking, the couverture on the Narew-Bobr, that on the middle Niemen, and that in the Shavli region were disposed and directed to checking as long as possible any German attack on the flank of the northern corridor. It would be reenforced in situ to the strength of two armies and an independent group. If powerful German attacks developed it would offer an elastic defence, on one line after another, to protect at all costs the region of Bialystok-Grodno-Vilna during the troop movements in that area. If not, it was to take the offensive and, by conquering E. Prussia to the Vistula, definitely to secure the right rear of the future main effort. This conquest was to be carried out from the S. by Mlava, turning the lake barrier, by one army while the other pressed up against the front of the lakes and the Angorapp, so as to occupy the Germans and at any rate to prevent a rush upon Kovno and Grodno. The independent group about Shavli was to deal with minor enterprises of the enemy in its own area, and especially with landing threats on the Baltic coast as far as Riga. From that point inclusive, coast defence was entrusted to another army, with headquarters at Petrograd.
In the centre two armies, coming from the interior by the central and eastern railways of the corridor, were, if possible, to concentrate about Lublin and Chelm respectively; otherwise they were to divide, one going to the right of the defensive wing about Shavli, the other continuing S. to Brest and Kobryn. Supposing that this proved unnecessary, the two armies, from Lublin and Chelm respectively, were to take the offensive against the left of the Austrian armies in Galicia. The right of these meantime would be attacked by two other armies, advancing from Dubno and from Proskurov. These armies were given special precedence in their equipment, so as to be ready to act early. At Odessa, a minor army of reserve divisions was to be assembled to watch Rumania.
Defensive or offensive as the case might be, these preparatory engagements were all assumed to be in progress before the full concentration had been effected. Including the Petrograd army, only 28 out of a total of 37 active corps were comprised in the dispositions, and the reserve divisions formed on mobilization were not counted upon for immediate service. The remainder, in so far as no new complications occurred to tie them to their peace regions (e.g. Caucasus), would become successively available and constitute a mass of manoeuvre or a pool of reinforcements, according to the course of events.
On mobilization, accordingly, the allocation of troops was as follows: I. Army (Rennenkampf). Niemen, including Shavli. II., III., IV., XX. Gd., I. Corps. (As soon as relieved by reserve divisions [XXVI. Corps] at Shavli, XX. Gd. was to proceed to IV. Army.) First task: protection in front of Niemen line, on that line, or if necessary further back towards Vilna. Second task: advance to bind the German forces on the lakes and Angerapp.
II. Army (Samsonov). Narew. VI., XV., XVIII., XIII. Corps. First task: protection of Bobr-Narew-Bug line and reconnaissance into Mlava-Neidenburg region. In case of heavy German offensive, the region of Bialystok to be protected at all costs. Second task: invasion and conquest of E. Prussia via Mlava, turning the lakes. (These two armies had each several reserve divisions allotted.) IV. Army ( Evert). Concentration area Lublin. Grenadier, XIV., XVI., XVIII. Corps.
V. Army (Plehve). Concentration area Chelm.°. V., Xvii., Xix., and XXV. Corps.
Both for attack of N. front of Austrian armies in Galicia.
III. Army (Ruzsky). Concentration Rovno-Dubno. IX., X., XI., XXI. Corps.
VIII. Army (Brussilov). Concentration S. and W. of Proskurov.
VII., VIII., XII., XXIV., III. Caucasian Corps.
Both for attack of N.E. and E. front of Austrians in Galicia. The I. and II. Armies formed the north-western front under Gen. Zhilinsky (succeeded after the first operations by Ruzsky), the IV., V., III., VIII. the south-western front under Gen. Ivanov, whose Chief of Staff was Alexeyev.
The VI. Army (Grand Duke Nicholas ) was the title of the Petrograd force, the VII. (Nikitin) that of the Odessa troops.
(In the event of German offensives developing on a large scale, requiring the adoption of the rear line of rail-heads, the IV. Army was to be switched en route to the right of the I., and to it instead of to the VIII., the XXIV. Corps was to go. It would also become part of the north-western front.) The peace-time scheme, as thus outlined, was at once modified in the early days of mobilization, not so much in intentions as in allocations of force. No commander-in-chief of the whole was appointed before the war, as the Tsar was undecided as to whether to take command himself. At the outbreak of war the Grand Duke Nicholas, Commander of the VI. Army, was appointed. He had taken no part in drawing up the scheme, and his own ideas differed somewhat from it. He therefore formed a new scheme, or rather a modification of the basic scheme, whereby the Guard and I. Corps were dispatched to Warsaw (instead of to the I. Army) to form the nucleus of a IX. Army, and the VI. or Petrograd Army was reduced first to one corps, and then to reserve divisions only. The first corps to leave was the XVIII., originally intended for the IV. Army but now assigned to the IX. (replaced in the IV. by the III. Caucasian Corps taken from the VIII. Army). The XXII. followed towards the end of August, joining the I. Army in lieu of the Guard and I. Corps. Further, a number of the reserve divisions accumulating behind the I. and II. Armies were constituted a little later as a X. Army with the mission of connecting the I. and II. Armies - but too late to avoid the catastrophe of Tannenberg.
Mobilization and concentration proceeded rapidly. The cavalry divisions allotted to the Prussian front were detrained complete by the 7th day of mobilization, the infantry corps by the 13th day. On Aug. 14 the Grand Duke informed the French ambassador that the I. and II. Armies would open their offensive on the morrow, considerably sooner than was expected by the French, who only began their advance on that day.
The " preventive " offensive that was to lead to Tannenberg was thus launched on Aug. 14. Its objects were, partly, the accelerated fulfilment of the original plan of campaign (at the lowest, the active flank defence of the northern corridor, now being traversed by a IX. Army as well as the IV.); and partly, the desire to aid France by startling the German command into making detachments to the E.
Plans of Campaig
Central Powers. - The problem of war on two fronts had for many years been anxiously studied in Germany and it had been generally accepted in principle that a simultaneous offensive E. and W. was impossible. In the time of the elder Moltke, the difficulty of defending the long, open eastern frontier, as compared with the relative ease with which the short, strong line Thionville-Strassburg could be held, had decided the great general staff in favour of choosing the east as the offensive theatre; and this plan held the field, with few modifications, until Schlieffen came into office as Chief of the General Staff and reconsidered the military position. He decided that the first offensive must be directed against France, but in such a way as to insure the quick and complete destruction of the French army, i.e. by using Belgian avenues for the envelopment of its left. His solution of the two-front war problem, therefore, was to prevent its happening: neither he nor his successor, the younger Moltke, seems to have dealt exhaustively with the case that actually arose, i.e. that of a prolonged contest in which the centre of gravity constantly required to be shifted from E. to W. and vice versa. An important factor, perhaps the ruling factor, in the decision was the assumption that it would be impossible to bring the Russian army to decisive battle; owing to its slow assembly, the distances to be traversed in order to reach it required a time allowance which the western defensive, at grips with the highly trained and efficient French army, could not insure for it. Moreover, with unlimited space behind them the Russians were regarded as having every chance of avoiding a decision for as long as they wished to do so, and the re-distribution of the Russian peace garrisons after 1910 (which pointed to the choice of the rear line Kovno-Bialystok-Brest as the probable line of entrainment) confirmed the conclusion. Two possible offensive directions were considered, that from the Mlava region against the Narew line, and that from the lake front by Wirballen and by Augustowo and Suwalki against Kovno and Vilna. These alternatives and their meaning have been alluded to already. The choice was a difficult one, hardly to be settled except ad hoc; it was to be the chief bone of contention between Falkenhayn and Hindenburg in the 1915 campaign. But even the second, and more promising, line of operations would not lead to the .nemy's rear if he abandoned all Poland at the outset, and concentrated between Kovno and Brest.
In fact such a course of action was provided for in the Russian concentration scheme. But the alternative preferred by the Russians was an offensive, or two offensives, carried out by the readiest portion of their forces, and their alternative naturally engaged the attention of the Central Powers in the years after 1910, when the war-readiness of the Russian army was evidently being improved with menacing rapidity. The defence against such an attack could not readily be combined by the two Central Powers because of the salient W. of the Vistula; on the defensive, therefore, Germany and Austria-Hungary formed two theatres, either or both of which might be the target of enemy offensives of uncertain power. Further, the entire peace forces of the Central Powers, taken together, were not equal numerically to the peace forces of Russia, and the adhesion of Turkey, and still more that of Rumania, to their side was problematical. If the bulk of the Russian forces concentrated on the forward line, then there were only two practical alternatives for the Central Powers: either (a) to concentrate as much as possible of the German army in the E. (relying upon the short and well-fortified defensive line of Lorraine and Alsace, doubled by the Saar and the Rhine, to hold up the French), and to take the offensive with 90 or 95 divisions, German and Austro-Hungarian, as soon as possible so as to catch the enemy in the act of detrainment; or else (b ) to stand on the defensive, each in his own theatre of war, resigned to give up territory in order to gain time for the annihilation of the French.
But that annihilation effort would require at least four-fifths of the German mobilizable forces, if it were to be carried out in the short time that the conditions of the E. allowed, and in the case of Germany the territory that would have to be resigned was E. Prussia, bound indissolubly to the Hohenzollerns and to the Prussian army by ties of sentiment and tradition. Its abandonment was " unthinkable." Yet the force that could be spared to defend it was small indeed. The Reichstag had declined to sanction the creation of the three new army corps which would have eased the problem; and, in the event, one to two corps allotted in principle to the E. were taken at the last moment for the W. In short, the German army allotted to the E. was a minimum force. But it was not on that account authorized to give up any German ground.
The case of Austria-Hungary was more favourable to this extent, that nearly the whole force of the Dual Monarchy could be employed in the defence of Galicia, unless (as actually happened) offensive action was simultaneously undertaken in the Serbian theatre. On the other hand, Galicia would clearly be the enemy's principal target, and were he to leave mere flank guards against E. Prussia, there was little doubt that even in an accelerated offensive he could employ superior forces. Many Austrian authorities therefore favoured a withdrawal of the line of defence to the Carpathians, and probably the majority considered that nothing could be held in advance of the San - Dniester barrier. The problem then was difficult and obscure, and differences of opinion both within each country and between the two countries themselves were certain. Austria's strategy even in respect of her local problems depended largely upon Germany's, and no definite, binding convention appears to have been negotiated, either for the case of the offensive or for that of the defence. More, the interchange of views which did take place led to completely disjointed action. When the inner wing of the Austro-Hungarians was driving forward the offensive on Lublin and Chelm, the Germans in E. Prussia were under orders to retreat to the Vistula.
Conrad von Hotzendorff, the head of the Austrian general staff, was essentially active in temperament, and the wave of sentiment in favour of the undiluted offensive which swept through all European armies about 1912 strongly influenced him and his entourage. A scheme was prepared under which the left portion of the Austro-Hungarian army was to take the offensive from the lower San, northward on Lublin and Chelm, flank-guarded by an echelon directed on Vladimir Volynsk, while the right portion defended Lemberg against attack from the E. In cooperation with this left wing, a German army was to advance by Mlava on the Narew line, force this, and effect a junction with the Austrian advance about Siedlce. By this scheme it was hoped either to cut off a part of the Russian army and beat other parts in detail as they detrained - if the Russians were attempting to forward concentration - or to make good military occupation of almost the whole of Poland in the shortest time - if they were concentrating on the rear line Kovno - Brest. At the lowest, Conrad held, the protection of Galicia and of E. Prussia would be best assured by the offensive.
In how far Moltke agreed to this plan is doubtful. He had definitely committed himself to the Schlieffen scheme of putting France out of action before an eastern front came into existence, and though he had considerably altered its details, he had provided even less force for E. Prussia than Schlieffen had proposed. Such evidence as is available tends to show that Moltke agreed with the scheme as the operative idea of the eastern offensive that was to follow the decisive defeat of France (expected to have been sufficiently achieved by about the 30th day of mobilization), but not as a preventive offensive to be launched while the issue in France was still undecided. Conrad, on the other hand, was determined to carry it out the moment he was ready, hoping, as he said, that Moltke would not "leave him sitting in the ink too long." The scale of the operation for him was only that of a preventive offensive, carried out substantially by about 27 Austro-Hungarian and io German divisions from the San and from the Mlava region respectively. This force, if it caught the Russians in the act of concentration, would create " favourable conditions for later operations " on a large scale.
Moltke, on the contrary, gave the E. Prussian Army (VIII., Gen.-Oberst von Prittwitz and Gaffron) nine active and reserve divisions (I., Xvii., Xx. Active Corps, I. Res. Corps, 3rd Res. Div.), for both the lake and the Mlava fronts. Apart from a number of Ersatz and Landwehr formations, most of which were intended for the defence of Thorn, Graudenz and Konigsberg, this was all. In Posen province and in Silesia, there were only frontier guards of Landsturm, and the Landwehr and Ersatz garrisons of Breslau and Posen; as the salient facing these provinces was practically evacuated, no more was necessary, and indeed eight Landwehr regiments were grouped in Upper Silesia as a field force (the "Landwehr Corps," von Woyrsch) to accompany and guard the left of the Austrian offensive.
Thus, the first campaigns in the E. were distinct and without connexion of idea or of date. The battles of both being described elsewhere, it is sufficient here to outline the campaigns of Lemberg and Tannenberg in succession.
The Campaign in East Prussia; August - Sept. 1914
The first requirement of the Russian scheme of operations being free use of the northern corridor for the assembly of forces against the Austrian left, the troops disposed on the dangerous flank of the corridor were ready for action about ten days before the date set for the completion of the Lublin - Chelm concentration. In the original scheme, their mission was primarily defensive and in the second place offensive, but as early as Aug. 9 the Grand Duke determined to push forward both the I. and II. Armies on their offensive missions, in the hope of at once compelling the Germans to hold back forces destined for the W. On the 14th, their concentration completed, these armies moved out of the detrainment areas, the I. (II., III., IV. and XX. Corps) under Rennenkampf on the axes Kovno - Gumbinnen and Suwalki - Marggrabova, the II. (VI., XV., XXIII., XIII. and later I. Corps) under Samsonov on the axis Przusznysz - Soldau. Seven to eight cavalry divisions accompanied and preceded them. At many points on the frontier from Memel to Bialla and round to Mlava there had already been local engagements, especially on the axis Kovno - Gumbinnen, where Rennenkampf on the one side and von Francois (commander of the German I. Corps) on the other had both strong motives for activity, the Russians to thrust back the enemy's forces as far from the " corridor " as possible, the Germans to preserve the region between the frontier and the lakes as long as possible from occupation or pillaging. On the Mlava axis these episodes were fewer, for the Russian main bodies were more distant. The Germans were unable to prevent the enemy's mounted troops from ranging up to Soldau, but their Zeppelins reconnoitred the line of advance of Samsonov's main bodies.
Gen. von Prittwitz, in spite of his small forces, was confident. He placed the I. Corps (Francois) facing E. on and in front of the Angerapp, the XX. Corps facing S. between Allenstein and Soldau, the XVII. and I. Res. Corps and the 3rd Res. Div. in the interior, waiting on events. To the left rear of the I. Corps, the Konigsberg main reserve - an Ersatz and Landwehr force numerically, but only numerically, equivalent to a corps - moved out N. of the Pregel to Insterburg. To the right of the XX. Corps was a frontier guard, also composed of Ersatz and Landwehr belonging to the fortresses of Thorn and Graudenz. On Aug. 14 v. Prittwitz, satisfied that no important threat was impending on his S. front, turned over the defence of that front to the Landwehr and Ersatz formations of Gen. von Unger, drew the XX. Corps to Ortelsburg, in readiness for an offensive to wards Johannisburg, and brought the remainder of his forces to the E. front behind and on the flanks of the I. Corps, the 3rd Res. Div. (reinforced by one brigade and a screen of Landsturm posts) holding the lake barrier.
On the i i th took place the first serious encounter of large forces. Von Francois still maintained a forward position on the Kovno railway at Stalluponen, barely five miles inside the frontier; he was determined to defend offensively, and he inflicted a sharp blow on the central columns of the enemy before the others became effective. But his left was driven in, and Prittwitz, whose intention was by no means to fight so far forward, ordered the combat to be broken off and the troops to retire to the Gumbinnen position. There, on the 10th and loth, the battle of Gumbinnen was fought. Claimed by both sides as a victory but in fact indecisive, since parts of each line gained successes or suffered failure, it ended in Prittwitz's ordering the battle to be broken off. To the astonishment of his corps commanders, he announced that he proposed to retreat over the Vistula.
A grave crisis had arisen. The Russian II. Army, seemingly quiescent on the Narew, had in fact been cautiously advancing on the Mlava axis, which was now defended only by secondline troops and, partially, by the XX. Corps - everything else, even mobile Landwehr brigades, having been brought over to the E. front by the order of the 14th. Such was the situation of the defences when, some time after noon on the loth, reports reached Prittwitz to the effect that four or more Russian corps were approaching Dllava and Ortelsburg. He had three alternatives - to disregard the threat, win an effective victory at Gumbinnen, and pursue the enemy in such a way as to impose caution on all Russian forces in advance of the sensitive point of the " corridor "; to leave a containing force about Gumbinnen, trust to the lake barrier, and bring back the bulk of the forces so as to strike the flank of the oncoming II. Army; or to fall back beyond the sweep of that army's manoeuvre. The first alternative was eagerly advocated by von Francois, but the other corps had met with little success in the battle. It is probable that no reasonable hope remained of winning a thorough victory on the 21st, and nothing less would serve. The second alternative was not, at that moment, considered and the third was adopted in its most extreme form, retreat beyond the Vistula. The I. Corps was to move by train to Bischofswerder and Gosslershausen, in order to bar the road to the Vistula, the XX. to fight for time, and the remainder to withdraw southwestward under cover of these corps. A factor in the decision was the activity of Russian cavalry which, in large and small bodies, was appearing in the interior of the province.
In the Kriegsspiel exercises of peace-time, this problem had often been fought out, and the idea of sacrificing E. Prussia - on paper - was familiar. But, as the elder Moltke observed in 1866, " in practice one does not abandon provinces." On the loth, apparently on the initiative of Lieut.-Col. Hoffmann of the staff of the VIII. Army, who sent a protest direct to supreme headquarters at Coblenz, Moltke communicated with Prittwitz by telephone, and urged him to try the alternative of a manoeuvre on interior lines. The army commander replied that this was impossible and that he might need reinforcements even to secure an escape to the Vistula. Thereupon Moltke relieved him of his command, opened direct telephone communication with von Francois and von Scholtz (XX. Corps), telegraphed to General-Oberst von Hindenburg, in retirement, to offer him the command, and summoned Ludendorff (deputy chief of staff II. Army) to act as chief of staff.
This situation, in fact, was less alarming than it had been on the 21st. Neither Rennenkampf nor Samsonov displayed any important activity; and Prittwitz recovered confidence, decided to hold the line of the Passarge against Rennenkampf, and began to work out a scheme of attack against the Russian II. Army. But the order of dismissal reached him that evening.
On the 23rd Hindenburg and Ludendorff arrived at Marienburg (H.Q. VIII. Army). Already, after a conversation with Moltke, Ludendorff had (apparently on a suggestion from Francois) fixed Deutsch-Eylau and eastward, instead of Goss lershausen, as the rendezvous of the I. Corps and ordered all available Ersatz and Landwehr units from Thorn and Graudenz to strengthen von Unger, thus beginning to prepare a group of two active corps and other troops to check Samsonov. The other forces lately engaged at Gumbinnen were to remain, temporarily, opposing Rennenkampf - all measures designed, evidently, to arrest the sense of retreat and panic. Not until the staff of the VIII. Army had reported the situation in detail was a clear idea of possibilities formed by the new leaders. In principle the plan was adopted of holding up Rennenkampf, maintaining the lake region against any break-in from Lomzha, and concentrating offensive effort on Samsonov. Both the newcomers and the staff already on the spot were in agreement as to this. But it remained to be seen whether, and even how, it was to be accomplished. On the evening of arrival, Hindenburg reported to Coblenz " assembly of army at XX. Corps and enveloping attack planned for Aug. 26," but next evening, developing the idea in some details, he added: " moral determined but not impossible things turn out badly." The intention was to disengage some, or even all, of the troops opposing Rennenkampf, and with them by a flank march close behind the lakes, to envelop Samsonov's right; to bring in the I. Corps and the nearest portions of von Unger's force against his left, and to hold him frontally with the XX. Corps. It was on this last that everything hinged. Short of a simultaneous effort by both Rennenkampf and Samsonov - the case feared by the Germans - pressure by the II. Army alone was of greater significance than that of the I. Army alone would be. Rennenkampf, however active, could only drive the I. Res. and XVII. Corps south-westward towards the Passarge (and the Konigsberg troops into their fortress) and work a passage down the rear side of the lakes to join hands with Samsonov, whose VI. Corps was made to diverge towards Ortelsburg for that purpose. Samsonov, on the contrary, could by an energetic advance bring three corps (XIII., XV., XXIII.) against Scholtz, and in case of success break into the midst of the new dispositions of his opponent. On the 23rd24th this seemed probable, for on those days he attacked the XX. Corps and forced it to swing back from the line Gilgenburg-Orlau to the line Gilgenburg-Hohenstein. At that moment the 3rd Res. Div. at Hohenstein and even the first arrivals of the I. Corps at D. Eylau were being drawn into the fight to assist von Scholtz. The arrival of the rest of the I. Corps, destined for the flank attack on the W., was delayed by misadventures; and this western attack (I. and Unger) was itself becoming imperilled by the advance of yet another Russian Corps, the I., from the IX. Army forming at Warsaw. Of the other German corps not one was disengaged for its southward march before the 24th.
On the 24th, however, the withdrawal from Rennenkampf's front began. It was carried out in the midst of an emigration en masse, main roads being so crowded with refugees that troops were marched in some cases entirely by tracks and by-roads. Russian cavalry parties were by now riding about the country as far as the Passarge.
The Angerapp line having been given up on the 22nd, the front of contact opposite the Russian I. Army now (24th) ran along the Deime and the lower Alle, astride the Pregel, to Allenburg, thence by Gerdauen to Angerburg at the N. end of the lakes. North of the Pregel, the Konigsberg force was slowly retiring on its fortress and had left Wehlau. South of it there were withdrawn, each in succession and covered by the rest, the XVII. Corps, which was directed on Bischofsburg-Ortelsburg; the I. Res. Corps, directed upon Seeburg; and finally the 6th Landwehr brigade from Lotzen, the key of the lakes, to the same region. Only the Konigsberg force, one cavalry brigade and some Landsturm, remained in front of the Russian I. Army.
Meantime, Samsonov continued his methodical advance, but very slowly - the VI. Corps on Bischofsburg via Ortelsburg; the XIII. on Allenstein; while the other two, followed in echelon to the left rear by the I. Corps, were sent against Scholtz (loth and 3rd Res. Div.), whose left was driven from Hohenstein. But already the two wings of the envelopment were being pre pared and directed according to the indications of Russian wireless messages sent in clear. On the W., the German I. Corps, with additional troops under Miilmann coming up on its right, attacked towards Usdau on the 26th. On the same day the Russian VI. Corps was met and defeated at Gross-BOssau by the oncoming eastern enveloping wing. Von der Goltz's Landwehr division, arriving opportunely from SchleswigHolstein, was added to Scholtz's threatened flank. From the 26th the battle was general. Strategy had done its part. By the 31st the destruction of Samsonov's army by double envelopment was complete, only the attached I. Corps echeloned back on the left being outside the ring and able to escape as a formed body. Samsonov himself fell, and 92,000 prisoners and 300 guns remained in the hands of the victors.
Meantime the German supreme command at Coblenz had taken a step which is generally regarded as having been fatal to Germany's success in the war. Moltke had recognized from the first that the strength of the VIII. Army was little above, if not below, the safety limit, and in the background there was Conrad's repeated demand for effective cooperation in the Siedlce scheme. Only after much hesitation was the IX. Res. Corps in Schleswig-Holstein taken to reenf orce the W. on the strength of Prittwitz's optimistic reports on the eve of the battle of Gumbinnen. Two days later came the crisis which led to Hindenburg's appointment, but at that moment the battle of the Frontiers was developing all along the line in the W. and Moltke did not suggest (nor did Ludendorff ask for) a reonforcement of the E. On Aug. 25, however, caught apparently in a wave of optimism which pervaded the armies of the W. after five simultaneous victories, Moltke decided to send no less than six army corps to the VIII. Army, not so much in order to reestablish a compromised situation there as to deal the offensive blow in the E. that was only waiting upon a decision in France. Two corps were to go from each portion of the western front, and the Guard Reserve and XI. Corps, being reported by their army commanders, after the fall of Namur, as free, were sent first, along with the 8th Ca y. Div. In the event, the other four were never sent, as the results of Tannenberg altered the balance of forces in the E. at the same time as a new crisis was arising in the French theatre.
These reenforcements arrived too late for the battle of Tannenberg, but began to be available in the first week of September. Meantime the VIII. Army Command had to decide whether to pursue immediately to the southward, forcing the Narew line and making rendezvous with Conrad about Siedlce, or to deal with Rennenkampf's army which still stood, inactive but threatening, on the Deime-Wehlau-Allenburg-Angerburg-Bialla line. The latter course was preferred, as was practically inevitable. The progress of the Austrian I. Army and Woyrsch (see below) in the Lublin region was evidently being neutralized by the advance of Ruzsky and Brussilov in E. Galicia, and Rennenkampf's inactivity could hardly continue. Moreover, he occupied a great part of E. Prussia and the call of the civil population for rescue from the Cossacks could not be ignored.
Rennenkampf's halt on the Deime-Angerburg line, when enemy forces were daily slipping away from him to take part in the destruction of Samsonov's army, was and is severely criticized, and exposed him to the reproach even of treason. Part at least of the causes of this passivity lay in the inherent slowness of Russian military practice - a slowness which equally characterized the unfortunate army of Samsonov, as we have seen. For the rest, it is to be noted that the Grand Duke was himself at Insterburg during the critical days. Such evidence as is available suggests that the intention of the Russian supreme command was not to press even Samsonov's offensive, still less the frontal advance, farther than it would go, but to give the whole campaign a wider sweep by means of the new IX. Army assembling at Warsaw and intended to move on Thorn and Posen,' turning the Vistula barrier from the south.
1 The I. Corps of this army was not placed at Samsonov's disposal till Aug. 26, the Guard not at all. One cavalry division was actually taken from Samsonov.
From the German point of view, although information was no doubt lacking as to the large undisclosed reserves moving in the " corridor," it must have been clear that the defeat of Rennenkampf would effectively answer any renewed threat from the S. by endangering the Grodno-Kovno artery. In the conditions of the moment this defeat could best be ensured by attacking his left wing, and in the first days of Sept. the VIII. Army with the corps from the W. were disposed accordingly on a long line from Preussisch-Eylau to E. of Willenberg: in order from left to right Guard Res., I. Res.; XI., XX., Xvii., I. Corps and 3rd Res. Div. Von der Goltz with his own division and another made up from Unger's and Miihnann's forces (called 35th Res. Div.) watched the southern front on both sides of Mlava. The Konigsberg force still held the Deime line. On his side Rennenkampf had already brought up two of his reserve divisions from the Niemen for the siege of Konigsberg, and he now strengthened his left from botn active and reserve formations assembled about Grodno. As had been the case at Tannenberg, the forces were numerically almost even. On neither side was any important condensation of force at particular points effected, and the resultant battle, known as the battle of the Masurian lakes, or of Angerburg, was practically " linear." The idea pursued by Hindenburg was to press the Russian right, as far S. as Angerburg, with four corps, to break out of Lotzen (the key of the lakes, which had been kept throughout) with the XVII. Corps while the I. Corps and 3rd Res. Div. advanced from their Tannenberg positions eastward along the frontier railway. These 22 corps were intended to roll up the left of Rennenkampf and press northward, with an echelon to the right against the fresh enemy forces reported detraining about Grayevo. The battle began on Sept. 7 and on the 8th was general. But the lake barrier this time favoured the Russians. The German XVII. Corps made only slow progress in advancing from the pass of Lotzen, and most of the I. Corps was soon drawn north-eastward. The balance, however, passing S. of the lakes along the axis Johannisburg-Bialla, made marked progress, and on the night of the 9th-roth Rennenkampf decided to take down his front by successive fractions from right to left, and retire into the Mariampol region whence he had come. The battle then became one of tactical incidents, with all the local vicissitudes of a general chase. At the end, thanks to the traditional rearguard aptitudes of the Russian soldier, Rennenkampf's army had flowed away to safety, leaving the bulk of the VIII. Army congested round Vladislavov and Eydtkiihnen with the I. Corps E. of Vilkovishki and the 3rd Res. Div. at Suwalki. Goltz's southern cordon had meantime extended eastward as far as Marggrabowa.
The battle of the Masurian lakes freed E. Prussia, and the victors gleaned a harvest of some 30,000 prisoners in manifold combats amidst woods and lakes. But it was not a Tannenberg, and already events elsewhere were in progress which involved the VIII. Army in a general eastern front campaign.
The Galician Campaign of August-September 1914
As has been said above, Conrad had determined to carry out the offensive in the region Lublin-Chelm, where the Russians were concentrated, though without definite assurances of cooperation from E. Prussia. In the offensive, the forces to be employed formed two armies - the IV. Army (Auffenberg), consisting initially of the II., VI., IX. and newly formed XVII. Corps, and four cavalry divisions; and (detrainment area Yaroslav-Przemysl) the I. Army (Dankl), I., V., X. Corps and two cavalry divisions (detrainment area middle and lower San).
East of Lemberg it was intended to place two armies, the II. and III. But owing to the belief that the war crisis would be limited and localized as a campaign against Serbia, the II. Army was assembled initially on the Danube, and could only be brought N. by degrees. At the outset it was represented in Galicia only by the Army-group Kovesz (XII. Corps and some extra divisions S.E. of Lemberg and on the Dniester), but the IV. and VII. Corps were being disengaged from the Serbian front and sent up gradually. The III. Army (Brudermann) K and N.E. of Lemberg consisted of the XI., III. and XIV. Corps and some other divisions, of which the XIV. Corps was presently taken to form the Army-group of Archduke Josef Ferdinand and placed N. of Lemberg to maintain liaison between the IV. and III. Armies, intervening as required by either.
On the left of the I. Army, along the N. side of the upper Vistula (i.e. in the Polish salient) an Army-group under von Kummer, formed of Landsturm troops, and to the left of Kummer, the German Landwehr Corps of Woyrsch, were to advance in the direction of Sandomir and Ivangorod respectively, driving back such Russian mounted forces as remained in this region. These formed an echelon protecting the left rear of the I. Army, but were primarily intended to form a rallying-point for an insurrection in Poland. This hope was not realized, or realized only to a small extent, and the " Polish Legion " that was formed in fact consisted largely of Galician Poles.
The
These files are public domain.
Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Eastern European Front Campaigns'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/e/eastern-european-front-campaigns.html. 1910.
