Page:EB1922 - Volume 30.djvu/962

906

leaders became involved in fighting E. of Wlodawa, which inevitably formed the starting-point of an offensive against the eastern communications of Brest-Litovsk. By Aug. 21, then, the greater part of the Bug Army was engaged on the line of the Kapajowska from its mouth to Switiaz lake inclusive, well inside the region of the great marshes; the remainder (Beskidenkorps only), still west of the Bug, was nearing the outworks of Brest.

To the left of the Bug Army, the XI., already being reduced for the forthcoming Serbian campaign (for the conduct of which its staff was presently withdrawn), moved forward cor- respondingly against the W. of Brest. On Aug. 19 its left had reached Janow on the Bug below the fortress, while the Beskiden- korps stood at Koden on the same river above it. To the left of the XI. Army, again, the Austrian IV. Army at that date lined the Bug between Janow and Niemirow; and beyond Joseph Ferdinand, already N. of the river, was Prince Leopold with Woyrsch's and his own armies, which, as soon as they had debouched from Ivangorod and Warsaw, had made rapid progress, as the Russian centre retreated at the fastest possible pace to escape while Gallwitz and Mackensen were still being held off. The German IX. and Woyrsch Armies stood, on Aug. 19, N. of Niemirow, facing the line of the Pulwa and the Nurzec on which the Russians were preparing to make a stand.

Meantime Gallwitz, in his bridgehead position in the angle of the Bug and Narew, had overcome the Russian counter- attacks, but not before their purpose of keeping open the railways and roads for the retreat of the Warsaw and Ivangorod forces had been achieved. The battles of Ostrow (Aug. 8-10) and Tschishew-Sambrow (Aug. 11-12) and the advance in the direction of Bielsk which ensued were thus similar in character to the operations of the IX. and Woyrsch's Armies, viz. : a direct pursuit where an envelopment had been hoped for. At the date of Aug. 18-19, Gallwitz stood between the Nurzec and the upper Narew, facing Biala, where the Russians were prepared.

The rightmost troops of the XII. Army, viz. those which in the battle of the Narew were facing south against counter-attacks from Novogeorgievsk and the strong points of the lower Bug, had now been combined with the leftmost troops of the IX. Army for the siege of Novogeorgievsk, in an army group under von Beseler, the captor of Antwerp; and the siege, pressed with energy, was nearing its close. On the aoth the place, with a large garrison, surrendered. On Gallwitz's other flank, the right of the VIII. Army had conformed to his advance and was taking the direction of Byelostok; its centre had mastered Lomza and Wiszna on Aug. 10; and its left was again, as in Feb., batter- ing Osowiec, which fell to the superheavy artillery on the 2 2nd. Kovno, as will be seen, had already fallen on the i8th, to the attack of the German X. Army.

Throughout these pursuit operations large numbers of prisoners continued to be taken by the Germans, and the Rus- sian fortress artillery swelled enormously the total of captured guns. At Novogeorgievsk some 85,000 men and 700 guns were taken. Shortly it was to be the turn of Brest-Litovsk and Grodno, though these places were not defended after the withdrawal of the battle-lines outside them.

The later stages of the frontal pursuit may be very briefly dealt with. The general direction of the Woyrsch, IX. and XII. Armies was eastward. From Aug. 19-24 Woyrsch and the IX. Army were engaged in mastering the Pulwa-Nurzec line, on which the Russians delayed their opponents long enough to cover the evacuation of Brest-Litovsk against interference from the N.W: or N. From the 2$th to the 3ist these two armies were involved in a fresh series of combats in and about the " primeval forest " of Byleovitsa. Meantime the XI. and (till its with- drawal) the Austrian IV. Armies, with the Beskidenkorps of the Bug Army, had attacked Brest-Litovsk concentrically from the W. and S., and the last Russian rearguards had been driven out of the evacuated stronghold on the 26th. The Germans and Austrians then continued the pursuit eastward, where the operations of the Bug Army and the Austrian I. Army (presently to be described) came into line with theirs in the early part of Sept. The XII. Army drove the Russians from the Bielsk posi-

tions on the 26th, from the Swislocz river a few days later, and from the Naumka-Wereczya line on Sept. 4, at which date the IX. Army and Woyrsch had at last debouched from the Byelovitsa forest towards the Jasiolda river.

In general, the effort of the Bug, XL, IV., Woyrsch and IX. Armies in the earlier stages of pursuit had tended to crowd the Russians into the area round Brest-Litovsk, and at a certain stage in this process the Bug Army had been authorized to push through the marshes E. of the river so as to reach the line of communications Brest-Litovsk-Kobrin-Pinsk. At the same time the Austrian I. Army about Vladimir Volhynskiy advanced to Kovel, and thence eastward (see Autumn Campaign in East Galicia p. 907) while from Kovel its cavalry worked up through the marshes northward to join the swinging right wing of the Bug Army. But that army, although it drove the retiring and diminishing forces of its opponent N.E. from the Kapajowska to Kobrin, was unable to reach that point before the Russians evacuating Brest-Litovsk had flowed past it. The Russian rear- guard stood to fight on a line N.W.-S.E. through Kobrin, but, the Austro-German Cavalry Corps of General von Heydebreck from Kovel arriving on their flank, they soon fell back to the oblique line of the Dnieper-Bug canal, where they were tempo- rarily secure against all but frontal pressure. Thus in this quar- ter too the pursuit became a direct one. The Russians were driven by the Bug Army and by what remained of the Austrian XL and Austro-Hungarian IV. Armies the whole now com- manded by Linsingen out of the canal lines in the battle of Horodec (Aug. 3i-Sept. i) and out of the defences of Drohiczyn- Chomsk (Sept. 4-6). But Linsingen's offensive, more and more hampered by poor communications, came to an end with the occupation of Pinsk on Sept. 16, and positions were taken up here which remained unchanged till the end of the war.

With the almost simultaneous capture of Brest-Litovsk, Bielsk, and Grodno (the last named fell to the German VIII. Army on Sept. 2-3), the Germans obtained possession of that line across the northern corridor which had usually been re- garded as the Russian stabilization line. Falkenhayn, however, took full advantage of the shortening of front which resulted from the directions taken by his armies, and then at last Luden- dorff's scheme came into play.

Such an operation as Ludendorff contemplated, or at least one from the middle Niemen, Falkenhayn had been willing to agree to from the first; and as the occasion approached he re- laxed his hold on Hindenburg's dispositions, stipulating only for the observance of his general directions and for the release of certain divisions for the West. In practice he approved the attack on Kovno. Ludendorff promptly took advantage of this, and the intended wheel-in upon the rear of the " corridor " was already in progress before the fall of Grodno and Brest- Litovsk. On Aug. 8 the X. Army was able to begin the siege of Kovno. Ten days later the fortress was in its hands even earlier than at Novogeorgievsk, Osowiec, and Brest-Litovsk. On condition of strengthening either the Niemen army or the left of the X., therefore, Ludendorffs plan had become feasible, if feasible at all, while masses of the enemy were still south of Brest-Litovsk, on the Pulwa and the Nurzec, about Bielsk and Byelostok and Grodno. At that date, Aug. 18, the Niemen army had pushed its left columns close up to the Riga-Uxkiill bridgehead on the Dvina, and to Friedrichstadt on that river, whence its centre and right ran southward along the Jara and Sventa to the north side of Kovno. It was still very strong in cavalry, but some of its transport had been taken for the armies pursuing through the devastated areas to the South.

Nevertheless, no serious advance was made to the westward from Kovno for more than a week, and even then part of the X. Army swerved full to the south against Olita to open an advance in the direction of Orany, and also to help the VIII. Army in cutting off Grodno, now a pronounced salient. At this late stage Ludendorff himself had doubts of the efficacy of the westward movement, and for a moment contemplated taking the direction favoured by Falkenhayn, viz.: Orany, Lida, Bara- novichi. Not only was this the shortest route to the enemy's