Battle of Dęblin ends

The British chronology of the war gives 20 October 1914 as the day the Battle of Ivangorod ended, Ivangorod being the name then used for Dęblin. The date marks rather the end of the first, German stage of the fighting on the middle Vistula. In those days the Germans were handing over the sector at the fortress to their Austro-Hungarian allies, and the heaviest fighting at Dęblin was only just beginning.

Changing the guard on the Vistula

Since 9 October the German Ninth Army had been trying in vain to drive the Russians from their bridgeheads on the left bank of the Vistula, at the fortress and near Kozienice. When the Germans began to withdraw from Warsaw, General Paul von Hindenburg needed every soldier in the north. He therefore asked the Austrians to take over the sector at Ivangorod. By 21 October the Austro-Hungarian First Army of General Viktor Dankl had concentrated seven divisions in the area between Radom and the river Iłżanka (PL). On its left flank remained the German Guard Reserve Corps.

The Austrian chief of staff, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, had a bold plan. He wanted to let the Russians cross the Vistula and then strike them before they could deploy, and drive them into the river. The Russian Fourth Army of General Alexei Evert, however, crossed the Vistula at several points with much larger forces than expected, and around 20–21 October moved out of its bridgeheads towards Radom.

Fighting before the fortress

On 22 October Dankl went over to the attack. At first he had some success, but on his right flank a Hungarian Honvéd division found itself in a critical position under the pressure of two Russian corps. On 22–26 October the legionnaires of Józef Piłsudski fought in the Battle of Laski and Anielin near present-day Pionki. They held the positions they had taken even when neighbouring Austrian units fell back, and only on the night of 26–27 October did they withdraw to avoid being surrounded. They suffered heavy losses in the process.

Further Russian crossings, north and south of the fortress, threatened Dankl’s flanks. At the same time the Russians were attacking the Ninth Army along the whole front from Łowicz to the Vistula. On 27 October the Central Powers broke off the battle and began a general retreat. The First Army fell back towards Kielce and Opatów, and later behind the Nida and towards Kraków.

Which date?

The British date of 20 October therefore does not match the course of the fighting. The Austrian account of the campaign, published in the Encyclopaedia Britannica in 1922, dates the Battle of Ivangorod to 22–27 October. Polish studies, on the other hand, treat the fighting at Warsaw and Dęblin as a single operation that ended only at the beginning of November, when the Russian pursuit halted far to the west of the Kingdom of Poland.