The order for general mobilization signed by the Czar at mid-day on July 30, 1914, involved in European Russia and the Caucasus 30 corps with a total of 96 infantry and 37 cavalry divisions (about 2,700,000 men) in addition to 900,000 special reserves and fortress troops. The arrival of the various Asiatic army corps from the thirtieth day onward would raise the total to 1,830 battalions, 1,250 squadrons and 6,720 cannons, in all roughly 5 million men, of which about two-thirds were combatants.
If Austria and Germany had to fight on two fronts, Russia had to fight two enemies on one wide front. The Russians had alternative mobilization plans for war with the Central Empires. G, ‘Germania,’ envisaged the bulk of the German forces massed against Russia. A, ‘Austria,’ contemplated Germany on the defensive in the east. In both cases the field armies were to be divided into the North-west group consisting of the First and Second armies and the South-west group consisting of the Third, Fifth and Eighth armies. The Fourth Army was to be added to the North-west in the event of G, or to the South-west in the event of A. The Sixth and Seventh armies protected the flanks and the line of battle stretched from the Baltic and Finland to Roumania and the Black Sea. In either alternative all Russian Poland west of the Vistula was to be evacuated on the outbreak of hostilities in order to ensure an unhurried concentration. The North-west group of armies was to assemble along the East Prussian frontier and the South-west along the Galician frontier of Austria.
These primary arrangements were common to both plans. If Germany took the offensive in main force at the outset in the East both groups of Russian armies were to retire alike towards a line running north and south through Brest-Litovsk and behind the Pripyat marshes, abandoning the whole of Poland, Warsaw and all the fortresses of the Vistula and the Narev. If necessary the strategy of the Moscow campaign of 1812 would be repeated. The Russian line would retire still farther to gain time at all costs for the arrival in three or four weeks or more of the Asiatic troops (5½ Siberian and 2 Turkestan corps), and the complete assembly of the whole resources of the Empire before attempting a decisive counterstroke. So much for ‘Germania.’ If, on the other hand, Germany remained on the defensive in the east, both groups of Russian armies were to attack at once, the North-west group invading East Prussia and the South-west Galicia, to conquer these two bastions preparatory to re-assembling east of Warsaw for a combined advance into the centre of Germany.
The Grand Duke Nicholas, uncle of the Czar, had assumed command of all the Russian Armies against Germany and Austria upon the declaration of war. By August 6 the Russian General Headquarters—in future called the Stavka—learned definitely that the German main forces, including those along its eastern frontier from Pomerania, Posen and eastern Silesia, were entraining for the French front. ‘Germania’ was not going to happen, and Plan A, as had been generally expected, would come into force. The Fourth Army therefore joined the three armies in the South-west group facing Galicia. All these preliminary movements had been minutely concerted and came into operation in response to the simplest gestures.
But now France with nearly the whole might of Germany pouring down upon her began to raise strident cries for help. In the arrangements concerted from 1911 onwards between France and Russia a violent irruption into Germany with the object of relieving France from German pressure was to be made by Russia from the outset, if Germany threw her main weight to the west. Now that this was clearly happening, the French Government, going much further than the pre-war protocols, urged Russia to march directly against Germany. This would have involved great changes in the carefully preconceived plans. Moreover, the Grand Duke Nicholas although by no means over-rating the Austrian armies, was not prepared to march past them into Germany, leaving them behind his left shoulder, without quelling them—at least for the time being. To show Russian goodwill and sincerity towards her imperilled ally, he ordered between August 7 and 10 the formation of two more armies, the Ninth and Tenth, at Ivangorod and behind Warsaw, with the German frontier of Thorn, Posen and Breslau as their eventual objective. Moreover, in order to accelerate the formation and advance of these armies, the Stavka decided to skip some important preparatory stages and had devised a form of ‘forward mobilization’ which at a serious cost in efficiency gained eight or nine precious days. It was expected in all the War Offices that the main struggle in the west would be in full progress from August 19 onwards, and history will recognize the intense loyal efforts made by the Czar and his generals to make their onfall with the greatest possible strength at the same time.
CHAPTER X
AUSTRIA AGAINST RUSSIA
In its broadest outline the immense composite battle of Lemberg was fought by three Austrian against four Russian armies during three weeks from August 23 to September 12 along a 200-mile front facing north-east between the Vistula and the Dniester rivers. From the beginning of September onwards each side was joined by an additional army. At first the two northern Austrian armies defeated the two Russian armies opposite to them. They were robbed of their victory by the easterly advance of the two southern Russian armies upon Lemberg, which overpowered the third Austrian army before an additional Austrian army could be recalled from Serbia, whither it had been sent in error. The whole Austrian front was thus driven back 150 miles and only reformed behind the Wisloka river. This prodigious military event comprised seven separate hard-fought battles between individual armies each lasting several days, reacting upon each other, involving the engagement of 648 Austrian battalions against 720 Russians, and causing in the aggregate to both sides the loss or slaughter of between five and six hundred thousand men. This mighty episode must now be described.
By August 20 the three Austrian armies of Dankl [First], Auffenberg [Fourth] and Brudermann [Third] were ranged in line, with the ‘Army group’ of Kummer, supported by Woyrsch’s German corps, protecting their left, and the ‘Army group’ of Kövess their right flank. Conrad’s expectation that the main Russian force would be found in Poland between Lublin and Kholm led him to discount the chance of any heavy attack upon Lemberg from the east. He was strong in his old prepossession that, by advancing northward into Poland, he would break up and cut off large Russian masses assembled in the salient. He was still hopeful that the Germans would move southward from East Prussia to meet him. At any risk he felt bound to attempt to forestall the full development of the Russian strength. The situation as he saw it was grim.
‘In Serbia, the offensive a failure, and considerable portions of the Second Army destined against Russia involved; in E. Prussia the German army in retreat; the stroke towards Syedlets not to be counted on; Roumania fallen away, and her intervention on the Eastern wing not come about; Russian troops on that wing thus set free; Bulgaria and Turkey in passive expectancy; Italy tending to turn hostile; in Vienna, forces behind the scenes at work, agitating against A.O.K.;1 and before us the Russian superiority of force gathering to strike an annihilating blow.
‘Nevertheless I held fast to taking the initiative in the North, for the enemy there must be grappled, so that he should not disturb the victorious advance of the German armies against France, so that the German Eastern army should not be given over to face a blow in isolation, and finally so that Russia should not gain time to gather together her full numerical superiority.’29
On the 22nd therefore he ordered Dankl, who now lay south of the woods and marshes of the Tanev valley, to advance northwards in the general direction of Lublin, to cross the Tanev river and occupy the high ground beyond. He ordered Auffenberg on Dankl’s right to move a day later in the direction of Kholm. He ordered Brudermann to stand in front of Lemberg and cover these movements from any interference from the east. Conrad expected—and events did not belie him—that all three armies would come into contact with the enemy on the 26th. He did not feel in immediate danger from the east; he hoped to find his prey in the north. All was now ready; he could wait no longer. With many misgivings and heart-searchings, veiled or deadened by a fatalistic mood, he gave
the signal. Forward, then! And forward went the Imperial and Royal Armies over the broad rolling landscape, their gay uniforms vivid in the August sunshine, their many races and divergent loyalties held together by the discipline and mechanism of war and caught in the momentum of events.
The command of the Russian South-west front was entrusted to General Ivanov. The four armies of Salza (Fourth), Plehve (Fifth), Ruzski (Third) and Brusilov (Eighth) deployed in that order from north to south along the Galician frontier from Ivangorod to Roumania. Together they comprised nearly 1,200,000 men. The Russian high strategy was clairvoyant. The Stavka was acutely sensible of the peril being struck at from both sides of the Polish salient. The basis of General Ivanov’s plan against Austria was the advance of a mass attack not from the north but from the east. Brusilov’s (Eighth) and Ruzski’s (Third) armies with 8 corps assembled in the Lutsk, Dubno and Proskurov areas were to march westwards across the east Galician frontier with their right on Lemberg and their left on the Dniester. This straightforward invasion beginning on August 18/19 and crossing the frontier by the 22nd was expected to cause the Austrians to assemble their main strength about Lemberg and give battle there facing east. Meanwhile Plehve’s army with 4 corps was concentrating at Kholm some sixty miles to the north-west facing south. It was to leave its concentration zone about the 22nd to be in time to come down upon the Austrian northern flank when the battle towards Lemberg began. Salza’s army with 3 corps, still further to the west between Kholm and the Vistula, was to move south about the same time as the Fifth towards the line of the San River and beyond. It would thus be ready to cut off the enemy’s probable line of retreat westwards by Przemysl and Cracow. Their retreat southwards across the Dniester and the Carpathians would be prevented by Brusilov on the left or southern flank. To sum up, Ivanov expected that Conrad would seek to invade Russia in an easterly direction and that he would speedily encounter front to front the armies of Ruzski and Brusilov who were advancing to meet him. Meanwhile the armies of Salza and Plehve would swing steadily round from the north and strike the advancing Austrians on their left flank and rear.
Both Commanders were, as we see, equally in the dark about each other’s plans. In fact their assumptions were in each case exactly contrary to the facts. The Russian right seeking to turn Conrad’s left met his main offensive, and Conrad’s right wing was soon overweighted by the advance of the two armies of the Russian left.
THE BATTLE OF KRASNIK
General Ivanov had not intended Salza’s Russian Fourth Army to leave its concentration zone about Lublin until its mobilization was completed and all its transport had arrived. The Grand Duke, believing that the Austrian main force was about Lemberg ready to advance eastward, did not expect that Salza would encounter any serious opposition. The remainder of the transport and late arrivals could overtake the army on the march. He ordered it, therefore, against Ivanov’s judgment to advance across the San River to a position west of Przemysl, where it could cut any retreat of the Austrians westward through the Cracow corridor. By the afternoon of the 22nd Salza reached the line of the Wyznitsa stream. Although not a single man of his reserve divisions had yet come up, his army resumed its southward march at daybreak on the 23rd, and his advanced guards soon reached that same high ground overlooking the Tanev valley up which Dankl’s Austrians were already toiling. This direct collision head-to-head of the Austrian First and Russian Fourth armies led to the battle of Krasnik. The line of contact ran very nearly east and west. The country was open and the troops on both sides were eager to engage. The long-stored-up peace-time ammunition was plentiful, the infantry fighting was at 1,200 or 1,500 yards, and the troops were on the top of the ground manœuvring without trenches in an encounter battle such as most of the generals of all the countries had pictured to themselves would occur at the outset of a great war.
As the Austrian centre and left reached the high ground they encountered the leading troops of the XIVth Corps forming the Russian right. Severe fighting followed with heavy losses to both sides and without appreciable gains to either. But during the afternoon the Austrian left (the 1st Corps) came into action: and by this preponderance the Russian XIVth Corps was beaten back upon Krasnik, involving in its retreat the 13th Cavalry Division between Krasnik and the Vistula. Meanwhile the Xth Corps on the Austrian right had reached its destination without meeting the enemy forces in its front, for these had halted for the night in the valley of the Por three or four miles farther north. Such was the first day.
Both armies renewed the battle on the 24th. General Salza, persisting in his orders to cross the line of the San as soon as possible, ordered his centre and left Corps, the XVIth and Grenadiers, which had not yet been engaged, to storm the high ground north of the Tanev. Here they met Dankl’s Vth and Xth Corps in stern conflict. The Austrian left had meanwhile continued its attack upon the Russian XIVth Corps and the whole force of both armies was thus in action. By nightfall the Austrian superiority of numbers—144 battalions to 104—bore the Russians backwards and darkness found the Russians still clinging tenaciously to the high ground about Krasnik, having been driven back about 3 miles.
Taking advantage of the success of his 1st Corps and keeping in mind also the dominant intention of forcing the enemy eastwards, General Dankl, whose conduct of the battle was skilful, ordered his right and centre corps to hold fast on the 25th while his left continued its advance across the Wyznitsa, and then to turn east to attack the flank and rear of the Russian resistance east of Krasnik. Under this pressure and threat of envelopment of Russian XIVth Corps at last gave way and the Austrians’ further advance eastward caused in turn the rapid withdrawal of the Russian XVIth Corps followed by the Grenadier Corps, to a new line 4 miles in rear. So far the victory in this hard-fought battle rested with the Austrians. They had turned the enemy’s right flank and in straightforward open fighting had driven him back at least 7 miles. These two armies, each of nearly 200,000 strong, had now fought all day for three days, and had lain exhausted on the ground at night. The slaughter had been severe. At least 40,000 men had been killed or wounded, and in addition the Russians had lost more than 6,000 men taken prisoners and 28 guns.
The news of heavy and adverse fighting around Krasnik caused bewilderment at the Stavka. The Grand Duke and his staff, although their forces were far better disposed strategically, were under as complete a misconception of the situation as was Conrad. Neither the Grand Duke nor General Ivanov could believe that the enemy were still unconscious of or ignoring the advance of the main Russian mass of attack across the East Galician frontier towards Lemberg. At both Russian headquarters it was believed that the Fourth Army had merely run into an isolated Austrian force of unexpected strength posted to protect the northern flank of a main Austrian battle-front facing east. They believed that at least two and possibly three Austrian armies were ranged about Lemberg, or were perhaps even advancing to meet the armies of Ruzski and Brusilov. There could not therefore be any important surplus available to support the Austrian army which had taken Krasnik. Accordingly it was decided to encircle and crush that army. The Russian Ninth Army newly forming at Ivangorod for the advance into Germany was ordered to send its XVIIIth Corps southwards to reinforce the right of the Fourth Army and turn Dankl’s left. The Russian Fifth Army, Plehve’s, on the immediate left of the Fourth, was ordered to make a right-wheel against the flank and rear of the unexpected opposition in front of its neighbour. The blame for the defeat at Krasnik was laid on General Salza. He had failed to reconnoitre the wooded country of the Tanev before involving himself in it; he had made bad arrangements for intercommunication; he had failed to use the Vistula as protection for his right flank. It is always easy to cite errors of this kind after a reverse, but it is probable that the undue haste with which the Grand Duke Nicholas himself had sent forward this Fourth Army before its concentration was complete and thus exposed it to battle against markedly superior numbers played at least as large a part in its misfortune as the faulty tac
tics of its unlucky Commander. Be that as it may, General Salza on the evening of the 25th was superseded in the command of his Army by General Ewarth.
The news of Dankl’s success at Krasnik inspirited Conrad’s already audacious and sanguine temperament.
‘This,’ he writes, ‘was a joyful and welcome beginning, but I knew only too well that it was only a beginning and that the momentous decisions were yet to be taken…. The basic idea was an offensive to give a decision between the Bug and the Vistula; and repel the blow threatening Lemberg from the east and north-east, but also to prevent the Russians in the Brody direction from turning their forces against the Fourth Army from which I looked for a decision.’30
The Austrian Fourth Army under General Auffenberg was now almost in line upon Dankl’s right, and its intervention the next day might be decisive. Conrad, bidding high for victory, actually drew on the night of the 25th three divisions from his already weak Third Army under the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, to support, prolong and protect the right of Auffenberg. He was still without any serious apprehension of the Russian attack impending from the east upon Lemberg. The few Russian corps reported crossing the East Galician frontier he regarded ‘as a passing episode.’ His view was shared by General Brudermann who on the 25th proposed to attack and envelop the northern Russian columns approaching Zloczov. Conrad agreed and Brudermann ordered his reduced Third Army, together with the bulk of Kövess’s ‘Army group,’ to march north and east on the 26th. There are two parallel tributaries of the Dniester river called the Gnila- and the Zlota-Lipa respectively. Brudermann set his whole available force in march across the former to meet the Russians on the latter. The Austrian Second Army was only now beginning to arrive around Stanislau in the south. Thus we see the Third Austrian Army, the sole defence of the whole of the right flank and communications of Dankl and Auffenberg, not only giving a quarter of its strength to aid the northern battle, but eagerly and confidently advancing northward and eastward against what their leaders regarded as a weaker foe. At this moment the armies of Ruzski and Brusilov, with eight army corps comprising 336 battalions, 264 squadrons and 1,214 guns, were rolling forward slowly and with every precaution at about 8 miles a day upon an 80-mile front. The heads of their columns too would reach the Zlota-Lipa on the 26th. When properly closed up and fully deployed they were more than two and a half times the strength of Brudermann’s army.
The World Crisis Page 15