Battle of the Narew and Biebrza begins

On 13 July 1915 a battle began in northern Masovia that the British chronology of the war calls the Battle of the Narew and Bobr, that is, the Biebrza, as the Russians called the river. It was the northern part of the great offensive of the Central Powers that set off on the Eastern Front that day. The German army group of General Max von Gallwitz struck at Przasnysz against the Russian First Army of General Alexander Litvinov. On its left wing the German Eighth Army of General Friedrich von Scholtz went over to the attack, facing the Russian Twelfth Army of General Aleksei Churin. The Germans’ objective was the crossings of the Narew, and beyond them the roads leading to the rear of the Russian forces defending Warsaw.

The Narew and Biebrza line

The Narew, with the Biebrza to the east and the lower Bug to the west, formed a natural barrier that shielded Congress Poland from the west and north against an attack from East Prussia. The rivers flowed through wide marshes and wet meadows. The Russians had strengthened this line with fortresses and bridgeheads: Osowiec on the Biebrza, Łomża, Różan (PL) and Pułtusk on the Narew, the fortifications of Zegrze and Serock at the confluence of the Narew and the Bug, and the mighty fortress of Novogeorgievsk, today’s Modlin. Łomża, Różan and Pułtusk already had forts before the war, and during the war they were turned into extensive bridgeheads on the right bank of the river.

The front itself, however, did not run along the river but several dozen kilometres north of it. After the fighting of February and March, described on the page on the First Battle of Przasnysz, the Russians held a line from the approaches to Łomża through Lipniki and Jednorożec on the Orzyc, in front of Przasnysz and on westwards to Grudusk, from where it turned south-west towards the Vistula. During several months of relative calm they built it up into several belts of trenches and wire entanglements. A dozen or so kilometres behind the first line they prepared a second one, between Ciechanów and Krasnosielc, and further back still bridgeheads on the Narew itself.

Forces

Gallwitz had five corps, a dozen or more divisions in all, including several sent by Hindenburg from the German Ninth Army. According to the Soviet history of the war of 1975, his group numbered about 177,000 soldiers and more than 1,200 guns, and the Russian First Army about 107,000 soldiers and just under 400 guns. German studies state that about 800 guns, many of them heavy, were used to prepare the assault. On the chosen sector of the attack, between the Orzyc river and Grudusk, the Russians had, according to the 1922 Encyclopaedia Britannica, only three divisions. They were also short of ammunition, and their artillery was no match for the German guns.

On the eastern sector the forces were more modest. Scholtz’s weak Eighth Army, made up largely of Landwehr units, faced Nowogród and Łomża, in the area of Kolno and Lipniki. Its left wing was tied down by fighting at Osowiec, which had been repelling German attacks since the winter. On the sector between Łomża and Ostrołęka the Russian V Corps with a Siberian division held the line.

13 July

At dawn the German artillery opened fire, which lasted from three to six hours depending on the sector. According to Russian studies the defenders lost as much as a third of their men in that time, many of them buried alive in their dugouts. Before noon the infantry of XI, XVII and XIII Corps went in to the assault. By evening the Germans had taken the first line of Russian positions on a sector about 30 kilometres wide and had begun to outflank Przasnysz from both sides. Gallwitz watched the attack from a forward post at Dzierzgowo, and Hindenburg came to his headquarters at Willenberg.

On the Eighth Army’s sector, south-west of Kolno, the Germans also attacked the Russian trenches. The next day they took further positions there, capturing, according to a German communiqué, about 2,400 prisoners. During the night of 13–14 July Litvinov withdrew his troops from the shattered first line, and on 14 July the Russians abandoned Przasnysz. Over the following days the front command moved reinforcements to the threatened sector from the Second and Fourth Armies and from the Novogeorgievsk garrison. The Russians did not, however, intend to fight to the last in front of the Narew. Their main task was to gain time so that the troops from Warsaw and the Vistula could withdraw safely.