Battle of the Narew and Biebrza ends

On 26 July 1915 Russian troops tried to push back across the Narew the German divisions that two days earlier had crossed the river at Pułtusk and Różan. The attack covered the front from the area of Novogeorgievsk to the villages east of Różan. By evening the Germans had repulsed it and held their bridgeheads. The British chronology of the war closes the Battle of the Narew and Bobr, that is, the Biebrza, on this day. The fighting on the Narew, however, went on for more than another week.

The Russian counter-attack

The commander-in-chief of the North-Western Front, General Mikhail Alekseyev, had already issued a directive for a general retreat from Warsaw on 24 July. The Russian First Army, however, was to hold the Germans on the Narew for as long as possible, so that the armies standing behind the Vistula could withdraw safely. Its commander, General Alexander Litvinov, ordered an attack along the whole front for the morning of 26 July and asked the neighbouring Twelfth Army for support. According to the 1922 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 16–18 Russian divisions went into the attack, and their artillery, hitherto short of shells, laid down heavy fire from stocks saved up earlier.

The blow fell just as the army group of General Max von Gallwitz was itself preparing to attack towards the Wyszków–Ostrów line. South of Pułtusk, on the road to Wyszków, the Russians broke into the German line at Pniewo only briefly. On the western wing, between Pułtusk and Nasielsk, where only Landwehr units stood, the attack of Siberian and Turkestan divisions was halted after a dangerous crisis. The hardest fighting was in the forests east of Różan. Several Russian divisions massed west of Goworowo pushed the Germans back there almost to the bridges over the Narew. According to the British account, the situation was saved by units of the 83rd Division that happened to be crossing the bridge at Sieluń in order to outflank the Russians at Kamionka.

A German communiqué of 27 July reported that the Russian offensive from the Goworowo–Wyszków–Serock line had “completely collapsed” and that more than 3,300 Russians had been taken prisoner. Meanwhile further east, near the mouth of the Szkwa above Ostrołęka, the German Eighth Army also crossed the river on 25 and 26 July. As early as 25 July a German communiqué announced that the Narew had been crossed along the whole sector from Pułtusk to the area of Ostrołęka.

Balance

In two weeks Gallwitz’s troops had broken through the strongly fortified positions at Przasnysz, advanced about 40 kilometres and forced the Narew. They did not, however, achieve what the German command wanted. Progress was slow, and the Russians defended successive lines just long enough for their main forces to fall back. The 1922 Encyclopaedia Britannica notes that the Germans needed ten days to get from Przasnysz to the assault on the Narew bridgeheads. From 13 July to 3 August Gallwitz’s group took about 50,000 prisoners but only 14 guns, which showed that the Russians had withdrawn their artillery in time.

For the Russians the battle was another painful defeat. According to Russian estimates, the First Army alone lost about 40,000 men in the fighting at Przasnysz in mid-July, and on the Narew some regiments lost as much as two-thirds of their strength. They did, however, gain several valuable days for the evacuation of Warsaw.

What came next

26 July did not end the fighting. The Encyclopaedia Britannica describes the following days as a separate battle on the Orz, or at Goworowo, lasting until 3 August, and Russian historiography counts the Narew operation from 23 July to 2 August. The Russians counter-attacked south of Pułtusk until 29 July, and for another week the Germans struggled forward through the forests east of Różan. On 3 and 4 August the Russians abandoned Ostrołęka, on 5 August troops of the German Ninth Army entered Warsaw, and on 10 August the Eighth Army took Łomża. Gallwitz, however, failed to cut the lines of retreat of the Russian armies from Warsaw, which withdrew eastwards behind the Bug.