The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, JULY 29, 1915. THE ADVANCE ON WARSAW

New Zealand Tablet, 29 July 1915, Page 33

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, JULY 29, 1915. THE ADVANCE ON WARSAW

f~l .——■-*. ' OR the third time, General von Hindenburg is making a combined, concentrated, and determined -thrust at Warsaw; and at the moment of writing the issue hangs in the . balance, the scales inclining, on the whole - -somewhat heavily towards the AustroGerman side. The operations against the .Polish capital are not a direct attack. The German plan of campaign for some time past has been to hold the Allies in the West in check and meanwhile to endeavor to get possession of Warsaw and make the Vistula the line on which the Russian armies will be held. Warsaw is the centre of the railway communications of Poland; and the main effort of the German armies is being directed against the Russian communications, in respect to which, as the cables indicate, Russia is facing 'a serious risk. If von Hindenburg can cut the railways on which the Grand Duke Nicholas depends for his supplies of food and ammunition, he will hold the capital city against an enemy who will have suffered a blow so severe that no recovery can be looked for for at least a couple of .months'. Once in possession of War, saw and the Vistula line, there will be no further attempt to invade Russia; and the German staff, it may be safely predicted, will not risk a march to Moscow. After this success in the East is achieved, every man that can be spared will be sent to the Western front. • * As we have said, this is Hindenburg's third attempt in force on Warsaw. The first great German advance began as far back as October 5, and the decisive fighting commenced on Friday, the 16th, and continued till the evening of Monday, the 19th. From the first the Grand Duke played for.safety, and he played the game after the traditional Russian manner with complete success. He resolved to risk nothing on the plains west of the Vistula, where he would. have to rely for supplies on divergent railway lines, and where the broad and muddy Pilitza River would cut his army in two. Leaving a screen of light horse west of the river to keep in touch with the invaders, he gave the order for all the Russian forces to retire behind the Vistula and the San. At the same time he held in force the bridgehead at Ivangorod, and had a field army ready for the defence• of Warsaw. Then ho developed an ingenious counterplot, by means of which he threw von Hindenburg completely off the scent. Poles were allowed to be captured in the German advance, who, in apparent terror of their lives, gave all the information they could" about the Russian preparations. The .Grand Duke, they said, had no large force in front of Warsaw, and he did not mean .tor defend it. He intended to give up the line of the Vistula,. to fall back upon Brest Litovski and the '-valley of the Bug—which, according to the cables, ; is now the actual Russian line of defence. . 'Presently

authentic German spies brought back the same tale andshortly after German aviators duly reported a movement of troop-trains from Warsaw and Ivangorod towards the Bug. The Russian generalissimo kept up the deception in every detail, and he succeeded in completely misleading his adversary. The first intimation in Warsaw of the coming of war was the appearance of German dirigibles and aeroplanes above the city, which dropped' bombs chiefly in the direction of Praga—on the eastern side of Warsaw—and the great railway station. Presently came showers, of leaflets, some directed to the Poles, promising Polish autonomy; some to the Russian rank and file, asking them why they fought in a war engineered by the aristocracy. To these were added appeals to religious feeling. One pamphlet, aimed at Polish Catholic sentiment, bore on its cover a picture of the Virgin and Child, flanked by medallions of the -Pope and the Kaiser, that versatile religionist who elsewhere was being represented as a convert to Islam. The engagement which finally took place within some eight miles of Warsaw resulted in an important Russian victory, and-the. Germans had to fall back with considerable loss. It is only fair to say that both in the advance and in the retreat the invaders seem to have behaved with reasonable humanity to the civilian inhabitants. Von Hindenburg launched his second bolt against Warsaw in the middle of November, and in an early phase of the struggle, from the 24th to the 26th", the Germans lost terribly. Companies were reduced to a fifth of their strength, and whole battalions were so broken that they had to leave the fighting line. The actual attack, however, commenced on December 7, and lasted till Christmas Eve. For the first fortnight the Russians once again fell back slowly all along their line, until they reached an absolutely impregnable position. The onslaught on' * the city was pressed with indomitable' vigor, for von Hindenburg desired the Polish capital as a Christmas gift for his Emperor. But the effort failed ; and by Christmas Eve the German attack ebbed and died away. The success of the Grand Duke's strategy on these two occasions affords a hope—a faint one, it must be admitted—that, in spite of the vastly superior numbers and equipment against which he has to contend, he may once again be able to hold his formidable foe at bay. * If by any chance the Germans should fail in this supreme effort, great will be their failure; and even if they are successful, the victory will have been dearly bought. In all three attempts their losses have been enormous; in the present advance, the phalanx alone which forced the crossing of the San lost 150,000 men. Even should Warsaw fall—and on the present outlook its fall seems fairly imminent—it will only mean a delay in the final issue. For the rest, a tribute is surely due to the hitherto despised Russian soldier for the splendid prowess and unbroken tenacity he has shown throughout this struggle. * ' We must remember/ says Mr. John Buchan, that in all these first five . months of war the united strength of the Teutonic League outnumbered the Russians by at least half a million. Locally, as at the first Battle of Warsaw, the latter may have had the superiority, but in all the retreat from the Warta to the Bzura the Russian front was' markedly inferior in weight of men to von Mackensen's forces. When we remember this we can do justice not only to the excellence of the generalship but to the stamina and courage of the rank and file. Let it be added that reports are unanimous on the behaviour of the Russian troops, their chivalry towards the foe, their good humor, their kindliness towards each other, and their devotion to their commanders.' The improvement in the moral of the Russian army during the last decade has, in fact, been a sort of military miracle ; and at last it may be said that Russia has found herself. ' There is as much difference,' wrote one correspondent, in the course of the early Polish campaign, ' in organisation, moral, and efficiency between the armies which some of Us* saw in Manchuria ten years ago, and which crumpled up before the Imperial Guards of Japan at the Battle of the Yalu, and the military machine that these past few weeks has

been "steadily and surely driving back the armies 1 "of Germany and Austria, as there was between the raw American recruits who stampeded at the Battle of Bull Run in. 1861 and the veterans who received the surrender of Lee at Appomattox.’ .