On 5 July 1915 the battle for the Warsaw salient began. Mackensen's phalanx, turning north front Galicia and supported by Austrian troops under Archduke Joseph, aimed a blow from the south to cut the Warsaw-Kovel Rail way near Lublin and Cholm. On the rising ground near Krasnik the Russians under Gen eral Evart fought doggedly for four days (5-9 July) to check the German advance, and suc ceeded temporarily. For a week more this vital railway connecting Warsaw with southern Russia was safe. But on 16 July Xackensen attacked again at Krasnostav, to the east of Krasnik, and drove the Russians back to within 10 miles of the railway near Cholm. It was evidently only a matter of a few days before the railway would be reached and cut.
Meanwhile, on 14 July, on the northern side of the salient, General von Gallwitz had suc ceeded in brealcing through the Narev line of defense with a great German force. Having crossed the Narev between Ostrolenka and Novo-Georgievsk, he was threatening to cut the northern railway which ran from Warsaw to Petrograd and formed the connecting link be hind the great fortresses of Ossowietz, Grodno and Kovno. If Mackensen and Gallwitz cut these two railways on the two sides of the War saw salient, the Russian forces would have been left with only the central railway which runs due east from Warsaw to Brest-Litovsk. This single railway would be wholly inadequate to supply the large Russian army in the Polish salient if it should try to hold on to its posi tions, and equally inadequate to bear the strain of a retreat if it should ultimately be forced to retire.
In this critical situation, on 18 July, the Grand Duke Nicholas wisely decided to abandon Warsaw in order to save his army. It was a bitter decision, but it was in accordance with prudence, honor and sound strategy. The civil population of Warsaw was partially evacuated and began its melancholy exodus totvard the unknown east, crowded in cattle trains, jammed into wagons, or forced to plod helplessly on foot. The troops which had clung to the trenches behind the Bzura and Rawka rivers throughout the crucial winter 1914-15 were quietly withdrawn to the Blonie lines on the outskirts of Warsaw or were sent eastward over the Vistula bridges on the first stage of the great retreat. The heavy guns, some sup plies, and the remainder of the troops were moved out of Warsaw and dispatched to Brest Litovsk. By 3 it.ta on 5 August the last Rus sian soldiers fighting rear-guard actions with the pursuing German cavalry had left Warsaw and crossed the Vistula; the sound of heavy explosions announced that the three Vistula bridges were being blown up and that Warsaw was finally abandoned to the enemy.
The abandonment of Warsaw and the ad vance of the German armies led in quick suc cession to the fall of the gr-mt fortresses which had hitherto protected the two sides of the Warsaw salient. Ivangorod had faUen on 4 August; Kovno was battered into mice and surrendered on 7 August, with a loss of 20,000 prisoners and all the guns; Nove-Geoegieesk did the same on 19 August; Brest-Litovsk, the great Lithuanian border fortress, fell a week later on 25 Auguat These capitulations were heavy blows, for these fortresses lutd been counted upon to hold out for a much longer time as a check to the advancing forces of the enemy. But they were manned only with new and insufficiently trained men, their ammtusition was ra,pidly ethausted, and the fortification works could not stand against the concentrated fire of the German heavy artillery. Conse
quently the morale was low and there ntay have been truth in the stories of treachery which found general credence. The rapid fan of these fortresses greatly increased the embarrassment of the retreating army.
The retreat from Warsaw toward Bran Litovslt was also greatly embarrassed? the flight of great masses of the Polish po ation which blocked the roads along which e Rus sian troops had to move. In addition to the poor people from the city of Warsaw, the panic-stricken peasants east of the Vistula hurriedly loaded their household goods, their children and their old people, on carts, and having collected the large aad small cattle, joined the unbroken ceaseless tide of htunanity moving from west to east. These pitiful waves of humanity, moving without imy order, over flowed the highways and adjoining fields and quickly consumed all local supplies. Thousaads upon thousands died of disease, starvation. and exhaustion in this terrible exodus. Those who survived so clogged the roads that many a time the Russian soldiers had Us fight battles simply to clear the road for the. retreat of the troops. At this disheartening crisis on 5 Sept. 1915 the tsar himself decided to assume the supreme command. He alleged a dfivalrous motive; he did not desire to away anyone's laurels in time of victory, so he came m when things looked gloomiest In reality his appoint ment meant a victory for Rasputin and the in triguing party at court which took this ogaz tunity to make a s t of Grand Nicholas and get rid o him by sending him off to the Caucasus front. In spite of all the diffi culties and discouragement Alexeiev conducted to success the retreat which the Grand Duke Nicholas had begun frorn Warsaw to the Pripet Marshes. Except for the soldiers and guns in the fortresses which surrendered, the greater part of the Russian army was preserved intact And this was worth more than the sail which bad been abandoned. By the end of September there came a lull on the Eastern Front, except at the northern end where the Gernrans made several fruitlais attempts to capture Rig-a. The German armies found that it was increasingly difficult for them to move in the region east of Brest-Litovsk. The German army was weary after the hard campaigns in Galicia and Poland. It had lost some of the effectiveness of its stinting power; moreover, winter was coming on, and Hindenburg sagely decided that it would be wiser not to run the risk of attempt ing to succeed where Napoleon had failed. In stead of seeking a final settlement of the war on the Eastern Front by pushing. on to Moscow or Petrograd in a winter campaign, he aU.owed the German army to settle down into the fixed positions of trench warfare for the winter of 1915-16. The Eastern Front, therefore, from 1 Nov. 1915 to 4 June 1916 ran, as may be seen by the line on the map, in a general north and south line along the meridian of Baranovichi. The Russians still held firmly to Riga and the Duna River, which was a strong natural line of defenae. But they had been compelled to evacuate Pinsk and Baranovichi itself and .the Great Headquarters had been moved back to Mohilev. Farther south, the Front followed the Goryn River, a branch of the Pripet, in such a way that the Russians retained posses sion of Rovno and Tarnopol.