GERMAN ROUT IN NORTH POLAND

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2276, 9 October 1914, Page 5

GERMAN ROUT IN NORTH POLAND

FALLING BACK ON FRONTIER NEW LINE OF RESISTANCE PREPARED , . ' Petrograd, October 7. * When the Russians emerged at the western exits of Augustow Forest, near Suwalki in Northern Poland, they_ found the enemy's main forces and artillery concentrated further west, holding positions from which, they opened a-deadly fire, across level ground, fromthree sides of a square. The Russians were ordered to occupy the nearest height, dominating the whole countryside. The first guns ascended the hill under a murderous shrapnel fire, but reached the plateau. Within a few minutes the Russian artillery had decimated the Germans and. disabled their guns. The enemy were soon retiring, and retreat was transformed into rout, the Russian horsemen hewing paths through the enemy's regiments. Russians at Roezki, .northward'of.Augustow, discovered in the nighttime, during tremendous rain, that.tho Germans had omitted to post pickets. •' The infantry, with a battery of light guns, stalked the enemy under the noise of the rain. The artillery opened fire, and swept the sleeping Germans. Thou followed a bayonet charge. According to prisoners, the Kaiser before leaving Grae-vo ordered Ossowietz to be captured within three days. The Germans, fired forty thousand shells before the Russians took their lines by a daring frontal charge of a single troop of cavalry, combined with the infantry in a casual flanking movement. Ossowietz is 13 miles in Poland from the frontier of East Prussia, and is on the railway to Bielostbk. Graevo- is a frontier station on. the same line, a few miles in Russia. , AUSTRIAN ARMY UNDER GERMAN CONTROL. (Rec. October 8,10.45 p.m.) Roma, October 7. "II Corriere Delia Sera" confirms the report that the Austrian Army is entirely under the control of the German Staff, notwithstanding Emperor Francis Joseph's opposition. General von Hoetzendorff, Chief of the Austrian Staff, haß been practically deprived of his power under the.pretext that he is unfit for duty owing to the death of his son. General von Auffenberg has been removed from his command, nominally on account of ill-health, but really because the move on Lublin, in. Russian Poland, was considered an enormous mistake. A message from Vienna states that Archduke Joseph Ferdinand has superseded General von Auffenberg. There is popular indignation against Germany for leaving Austria unsupported so long. , ' . c GERMANS RESISTING STUBBORNLY. (Rec. October 8, 11.30 p.m.) Petrograd, October 7. The Russians defeated an Austrian detachment west of the Sanok Pass, oapturing guns and many prisoners, and they also captured a train and a park of artillery near Munkacs. Advices from East- Prussia state that the Germans have been reinforced from Konigsberg, and are offering a stubborn resistance- on the WladislawowBackka front. The.Sanok Pass, in the Carpathians, lies south-west'of Przemysl. Munkacs is a town in Hungary on the southern slopes of the Carpathians, and 110 miles west by north of Maramaros-Szigeth, on the Tisza, which the Russians were recently reported to have reached. Wladislawow is a town in Northern Poland, on the frontier, about 40 miles east by'north of Insterburg. RAILWAYS CONGESTED' WITH RETREATING TROOPS. ' '(Rec- October 9, 1.10 a.m.) . London, October 8. A Petrograd message states that the railways in East Prussia are congested with trains conveying the retreating "Germans. ' Several derailments and collisions have occurred. The Germans seized hostages in all the occupied towns of Russian Poland for the security of tho railways. Heavy artillery from Konigsberg covers tho retreat.