As the Germans advanced toward War saw, they took great pains to construct excellent communications: the broad-gauge of the railways was altered on the Kalisch lines to fit the narrow-gauge German rolling stock; causeways were built for the artillery, and great stretches of forest were felled by the engineers for corduroy roads for the automobile trans ports. If they were to spend the winter in Warsaw, the Gernians wanted plenty of means for bringing up supplies, and good communica tions with Germany would be necessary for a further Invasion of Russia in the spring of 1915. Now, however, at the end of October 1914 as Hindenburg retired, he demolished all the preparations of roadways as carefully and systematically as he constructed them three weeks before. He blew up all the railway sta tions, water towers and bridges. He .was even said to have a machine which twisted steel rails into the shape of cork-screws. He blasted out great holes in the roads. The tele graph lines were ant and the posts sawed off. In short, the whole country of southwest Po. land was thoroughly devastated so as to make it virtually impassable for an army. But the curious thing, not noticed at the time, was that the policy of devastation was carried out in west and southwest Poland only. In north west Poland Hindenburg's troops took just as much pains to keep the communications good and the country free from devastation. Why this difference in Hindenburg's treatment of southwest and northwest Poland? Because he was already planning a second surprise attack on Warsaw, this time from the northwest If the Germans struck a blow from the northwest, they would find favorable conditions for ad vancing, while the Russians would have no road or railway by which to return for the defense of Warsaw. Again, railroads, speed and sur prise were the factors in a second attack Olt Warsaw which Hindenburg was planning, and the Russians unwittingly played into his hands.
Russky had been so encouraged by the fail ure of Hindenburg's first attack on Warsaw that he made the grave mistalce of following him too far to the west. He disregarded the original Russian strategic plan of not risking an advance of the Russian centre far into the Polish salient until the wings were in secure possession of all of East Prussia and Galicia. He did not even take warning from the ruined state of the country which Hindenburg left behind him in southwest Poland. In pursuit of the retiring Germans and Austrians, RussIcy had moved his whole army far west of the Vistula to the Warta River close to the Silesian frontier. His Cossacks even crossed into Ger man territory west of Kalisch (12 November) and cut the Cracow-Posen Railway. In his eagerness to assist Dtnitriev, he had shifted his army somewhat to the south so that his left wing was able to capture a town on the Galician frontier only 20 miles from Cracow. On 13 Nov. 1914, at the moment when Hinden burg was starting his second great attack on Warsaw, Russky's front, as may be seen by the accompanying small map, ex,tended in a curve from the neighborhood of Cracow on the umer Vistula toward Plock on the lower Vistu But most of his troops were con centrated along the Warta, because it was here that the Germans appeared to malce a stand after their retirement. The northern end of his line between the Warta and the Vistula was made very thin; for no enemy seemed to be near. Here, in fact, there was practically a gap between the Russian centre and the Rus sian right wing on the Narev-Niemen line. It was through this gap, only 40 miles wide, that Hindenburg began to pour an irresistible force. He had collected this force by transporting German troops by rail northward from the Silesian frontter around to Thorn on the Vis tula. To these he added more of the East Prussian army under General von Frangois. He had also several corps from Germany. Ludendorff was assisting Hindenburg at the staff headquarters, and Mackensen was in im mediate command.
Russky's position soon became desperate. His thin right wing was exposed to attack on the flank and rear. In fact his whole line stood
practically with the enemy at its rear, and was in danger of being cut off from Warsaw. For Russky was further from Warsaw than Mack ensen's advancing troops. Moreover. he had to make all his movements over country m which the roads and railways had been sys tematically destroyed, while Mackensen had a relatively well-ordered territory to march through. Russlcy is to blame for allowing him self to be thus caught too far from his base in a bad country, with too long and thin a front. But he retrieved himself admirably. He succeeded in drawing his right wing from its exposed position, although in so doing he lost nutny thoussuid prisoners. He then ordered a general retreat toward Lodz, in order to get behind the Bzura River. This river rises west of Lodz and flows northeastward past Lowicz until it joins the Vistula half-way between Warsaw and Plock. Owing to a bend in the Vistula, the Bzura gave the Russians the short est line between the Lodz region and the Vis tula for defending Warsaw. If the Russians could hold the banks of the Bzura they could retain possession of the railways from Lodz and Piotrkov. The Rawka River, ficrwing into the Bzura from the south, should also be noted; it affords sotne protection to an army retreat ing eastward toward Warsaw.
By 20 November a weelc after he first be came aware of Mackensen's advance, Russky had succeeded in retiring most of his riiicht wing behind the Bzura, near Lodz. Siberian levies which had just arrived in Warsaw were hurried up to the front, and reinforcements were hastily summoned from Rennenkampf's army opposite East Prussia. With these Si berian troops RusskY was able to maintain a very stubborn resistance on the Bzura. But on 23 November two of MacIcensen's corps broke through the Russian line between Lodz and Lowicz. For a few hours the Russians in Lodz were in a most perilous situation, hav ing to fight an eneiny on their front, flank and rear. Here, at what is called the Battle of Lodz, though the fighting was some distance from the town, took place the fiercest and most desperate hand-to-hand fighting which had yet occurred on the Eastern Front, and, as usual when it came to bayonet work, the Russians got the upper hand. With reinforcements which kept coming up they c.hecked and very nearly surrounded the two German corps which had broken through the Russian line. The Ger mans in their turn—or at least these two corps —were in a dangerous position. They were now entrapped as in a narrow-necked bottle, caught between three fires, and able to keep open only the very narrowest line of communi cation with the rest of the German army. Russky tried valiantly to cut off this narrow neck of the bottle, and so to ((pocket') completely the two German corps which had broken thrcmgh the Russian line. For three days (24– 26 November), night and day, but especially at night, the fierce struggle went on between the 60,000 Germans trying to brealc out of the ever narrowing circle of Russian troops, and the Russians trying to cut them off or surround them. The Russians almost succeeded. It is said that one of the kaiser's sons, fearing cap ture along with these army corps, escaped in an aeroplane over the Russian line. The Rus sians on their side were so confident of suc cess that orders were given to have rolling stock collected at Warsaw to talce away the prisoner& But owing to the new troops which Mackensen hurled forward to widen the open ing of the apocketp and owing to tactical errors on the Russian side for which Rennen kampf was blamed, the living circle was not closed and the Germans escaped from the peril ous pocket into which they had been led by their first success. Rennenkampf was dismissed after this ; his troops had been counted upon to close the exit but they were late; the popular notion, however, that he was pro-German and a traitor— easily believed on account of his German name and his disgraceful flight from East Prussia—probably ltad no basis.