Battle of Łódź

The Battle of Łódź, also called the Łódź operation, was one of the greatest battles of manoeuvre of the First World War. It was fought in November and early December 1914 in the heart of Congress Poland, in the fields and forests around Łódź. The German Ninth Army of General August von Mackensen struck from Thorn into the flank of the Russian armies that were preparing to march on Silesia, and almost trapped them in a pocket at Łódź. After a few days it was the Germans who found themselves encircled, and they broke out at Brzeziny. The fighting ended only when the Russians abandoned Łódź and German troops marched into the city.

Name and dates

On this page we use the dates 11 November – 6 December 1914. On 11 November the Ninth Army began its attack near Włocławek, and on 6 December German troops entered Łódź, which the Russians had abandoned. The English Wikipedia gives the same range of dates, while Russian historiography, which speaks of the Łódź operation, dates it in the Julian calendar to 29 October – 23 November, that is, the same days.

The Polish Wikipedia notes that the dates in the literature vary. The battle is taken to have begun on 11 or 16 November, when the fighting moved to the Łódź area, and to have ended on 24 November or 6 December. The date of 24 November marks the end of the most dramatic episode, the breakout of General Scheffer’s German group from encirclement at Brzeziny. Indeed, in German historiography the whole engagement is often known as the Battle of Brzeziny.

Background

At the turn of October and November 1914 the Battle of Warsaw and Dęblin ended with the Germans and Austrians retreating westwards. The Russians recovered almost all of Congress Poland, and their commander-in-chief, Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, decided to follow up the blow. A great offensive deep into Germany was planned for mid-November. The armies of General Nikolai Ruzsky’s North-Western Front were to advance on Silesia and the Province of Posen, while the First Army of General Paul von Rennenkampf was to cover their right flank along the Vistula.

On 1 November Paul von Hindenburg became commander-in-chief of the German forces in the East, and Mackensen took command of the Ninth Army. From intercepted Russian radio messages the Germans learned of the enemy’s intentions. Hindenburg and his chief of staff Erich Ludendorff decided not to wait for the blow. In about ten days they moved the Ninth Army by rail from the area of Częstochowa and Kalisz northwards to the area of Thorn. From there it was to strike south-east into the flank and rear of the Russian Second Army, cut it off from Warsaw and destroy it. The front in Silesia was taken over by weaker German units and the Austro-Hungarian Second Army.

Forces

According to the Polish Wikipedia, the main striking group of the Ninth Army numbered about 155,000 men and nearly a thousand guns. It included corps transferred earlier from East Prussia, among them the I and XXV Reserve Corps, as well as the XI, XVII and XX Corps, two cavalry corps and the 3rd Guards Division. The Russians had three armies in the battle area, about 360,000 men in all: Rennenkampf’s First Army, standing on the Vistula between Włocławek and Warsaw; the Second Army of General Sergei Scheidemann on the line of the Warta and near Łęczyca; and the Fifth Army of General Pavel Plehve, which was preparing to march west further south. The Russians thus had numerical superiority, but the Germans concentrated their forces where they intended to strike.

Course of the battle

11–16 November. On 11 November the Germans attacked the V Siberian Corps of Rennenkampf’s army near Włocławek before it had time to dig in, and forced it to retreat. A gap opened between the retreating Siberians and the Second Army, and Mackensen exploited it. On 15 November the Germans took Kutno, and on 16 November they crossed the Bzura. Scheidemann pulled his corps back towards Łódź. The Russian command at last understood what was happening, called off the offensive into Silesia and sent Plehve’s Fifth Army north to rescue the Second Army. Its soldiers covered more than a hundred kilometres in a few days of forced marches.

17–22 November. The Germans attacked Łódź from the west and north, while the right wing of the Ninth Army, the group of General Reinhard von Scheffer-Boyadel, went round the city from the east. On 18 November it took Brzeziny and then, together with the cavalry, came out into the rear of the Second Army east and south-east of Łódź. By 22 November the Germans had surrounded the city from the west, north and east. They lacked the strength, however, to close the ring from the south, where Plehve’s Fifth Army had arrived. The fighting went on in ever harder frost. Meanwhile a group detached from Rennenkampf’s First Army set out from the north-east, from Łowicz. It took Brzeziny and cut the roads linking Scheffer with the rest of the Ninth Army. The encirclers had themselves been encircled. The Russians were so sure of victory that they ordered trains to carry away tens of thousands of prisoners.

22–24 November. On the evening of 22 November Scheffer received orders to withdraw northwards. His troops, taking their wounded and prisoners with them, set off by night in three columns. On the morning of 24 November the 3rd Guards Division of General Karl Litzmann attacked Brzeziny, surprising the units of the Russian 6th Siberian Division resting there. That same day all of Scheffer’s columns gathered in the town and broke through to the main German forces. They brought out with them more than ten thousand prisoners and several dozen captured guns, although they themselves had suffered heavy losses. The Russian command blamed the failure on poor coordination between the three armies and contradictory orders. In Germany Litzmann earned the nickname “the Lion of Brzeziny”.

25 November – 6 December. The fighting around Łódź continued, but neither side could decide the battle. The Germans brought up reinforcements, including corps transferred from the Western Front. The Russians were exhausted and short of ammunition, and their position in the westward-projecting salient around the city was becoming ever more dangerous. At the end of November Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich decided to withdraw his troops to a shorter line closer to Warsaw. On the night of 5–6 December the Russians abandoned Łódź, and on the afternoon of 6 December German troops entered it. In the following days the Russian armies fell back to the Bzura and the Rawka, where the front froze for many months.

Łódź under fire

For the inhabitants of Łódź, one of the largest cities of Congress Poland, the battle meant weeks of fear. The city’s affairs were largely run by a Citizens’ Committee set up by its inhabitants, and order was kept by a Citizens’ Militia. From 18 November shells fell on the city, and the heaviest bombardment by heavy guns, among other places on Bałuty, came on the night of about 21 November. According to the militia’s report, 135 civilians were killed in the city during the battle and 99 wounded. Other sources give 155 killed. About 300 buildings were destroyed or damaged. Villages and suburbs burned around the city, and Łódź turned into one great hospital. All the larger buildings were taken over by the wounded, whose number was estimated at about 35,000. Food and fuel were short, and many factories had stood idle since the start of the war. The entry of the Germans began the German occupation of the city (PL), which lasted until November 1918.

Many Poles fought in the battle on both sides: in Russian regiments, including Siberian ones, filled up with recruits from Congress Poland, and in German units from the Province of Posen. Nearly 180 war cemeteries in the Łódź region are a reminder of this fighting. The largest of them is at Stara Gadka, where about 2,000 soldiers are buried.

Losses

Estimates of the losses vary widely. Polish studies often cite figures of about 110,000 killed, wounded, missing and prisoners on the Russian side and about 90,000 on the German side. Some Russian historians give much higher figures, as many as 280,000–300,000 men on the Russian side and over 120,000 on the German side. All that is certain is that the Battle of Łódź was one of the bloodiest on the Eastern Front in 1914.

Significance

Neither side achieved its aim. The Germans failed to encircle and destroy the Russian armies, and Scheffer’s group barely escaped annihilation. The Russians, however, did not repeat the defeat of Tannenberg and came out of the battle with a minor tactical success. Strategically, the Germans gained. The Russian offensive into Silesia and deep into Germany was stopped and never again took place on such a scale. The Russians gave up Łódź and fell back to a line closer to Warsaw.

The battle also had consequences for individuals. Rennenkampf, already criticised after the defeats in East Prussia, was removed from command of the First Army at the turn of November and December, and in 1915 dismissed from the army. The commander of the Second Army, Scheidemann, also lost his post. Mackensen, Scheffer and Litzmann received the highest Prussian military decoration, the Pour le Mérite. Litzmann’s memory returned in grim circumstances during the Second World War. In 1940 the occupiers renamed Łódź Litzmannstadt.