Читать книгу The Great War (All 8 Volumes) - Various Authors - Страница 20

From December to April the eastern campaign lacked decisive circumstances. In the north Hindenburg won a new and splendid victory at the Mazurian Lakes, expelling a Russian army which had renewed the invasion of East Prussia. In the south the Russians steadily pushed the Austrians back into the Carpathians, took Przemysl with more than 125,000 prisoners, and as spring came seemed on the point of crowning the Carpathians and descending into the Hungarian Plain.

But the Germans were already organizing their second great offensive. They were raising new armies, collecting fresh stores of ammunition and preparing for a thrust against Russia as gigantic as that against France, with the deliberate purpose of eliminating Russia from the war. There was no longer any chance of a Napoleonic success in Europe. But if Russia were eliminated, they could still hope to win a peace that might leave them Belgium. Some portion of their plans was spoiled almost as the spring campaign opened, by the entrance of Italy on the Allies' side, but Italy came too late to save Russia from the disasters that had begun.

The German plan of campaign was simple. Hindenburg was to strike east and south from East Prussia at the Russian lines along the Niemen-Bobr-Narew. Mackensen, having pushed the Russians out of Galicia, was to strike north through Lublin and toward Brest-Litovsk. A new army was to invade Courland and aim at Riga. It was the German hope that the main Russian masses would be caught and enveloped by Hindenburg and Mackensen, that Poland would be taken and all its garrisons, and the bulk of the Russian military power be destroyed.

The first blow fell at Gorlice in Galicia in the last days of April. Mackensen, furnished with the greatest train of artillery war had ever seen, burst through the Russian lines along the Dunajec, destroyed Dmitrieff's army, which faced him, almost captured the Russian Carpathian forces and drove the Russians rapidly beyond the San, retook first Przemysl and then Lemberg, thus clearing all but a corner of Galicia.

The main German and Austrian armies were then sent north toward Brest-Litovsk, while Hindenburg began his thrust by attacking Ossowetz and the Niemen-Bobr-Narew barrier of forts. By this time the world knew that Russian ammunition had failed and for many weeks the possibility of a tremendous Russian disaster existed. Step by step the Russians were pushed back. The fall of Warsaw was assured in July and it was not until August that the escape of the Russian garrison was certain. The same problem was raised about Kovno and Brest-Litovsk, but again the Russians won clear. Late in August the final net of the Germans about Vilna was drawn, but for the last time the Russians eluded it.

And with the battle of Vilna the German eastern campaign practically ends. In the north the Russians held Riga and the Dwina line, in the center they were behind the great marshes of Pinsk, to the south they were behind the Styr and Stripa, still holding Rowno, still clinging to a corner of Galicia. They had lost hundreds of thousands of prisoners and many guns. All of Russian Poland, most of Courland, and much other territory had been surrendered. But they had kept their armies intact and were once more in line.

In so far as the German campaign had been designed to free Austrian soil and relieve the pressure upon Austrian and German fronts in the east, it had been a shining success. It had served, too, to restore German prestige in the Balkans. But it had come too late to keep Italy out, and it had not eliminated Russia.

Unless the Germans were prepared to repeat the fatal Napoleonic march upon Moscow, there was now nothing for them to do but abandon their eastern campaign for the winter, to dig in and hold until the spring permitted new operations. But this offered to the Russians a period of recuperation and rest. In the spring they would have new armies and fresh artillery. These circumstances were the measure of the German failure in their second offensive. In their first they had set out to dispose of France and had suffered defeat at the Marne. In the second they had undertaken to put Russia out, and after a long series of victories, Russia had escaped and was now beyond their grasp.

From the military point of view the Russian failure was even more serious than the French, because it came a year later, and at the hour when the superior numbers and resources of the enemies of Germany were already beginning to tell.