Battle of Warsaw and Dęblin

The Battle of Warsaw and Ivangorod, also called the Battle of Warsaw and Dęblin, was one of the largest operations of 1914 on the Eastern Front and the first great battle of this war fought in the heart of the Kingdom of Poland. Ivangorod was the Russian name of the time for the Dęblin fortress at the confluence of the Wieprz and the Vistula. At the end of September the German 9th Army and the Austro-Hungarian 1st Army set out from Silesia and western Galicia to the north-east to draw the Russians away from the defeated Habsburg army. They reached the Vistula, and German units stood a dozen or so kilometres from Warsaw. The Russians, however, assembled much larger forces here, crossed the Vistula and forced the enemy to retreat, a retreat that halted only near the borders of Silesia and outside Kraków.

Name and dates

On this page we use the dates 28 September – 8 November 1914, given by the Polish Wikipedia and some Polish studies. The start date is the day on which the 9th Army began its advance. The end date is the moment at which the Russian armies pursuing the enemy halted on the line Uniejów – Przedbórz – Miechów, having moved some 150 kilometres away from their supply bases. English-language studies, including the English Wikipedia, call this fighting the Battle of the Vistula River and usually date it to 29 September – 31 October, ending it with the withdrawal of the German and Austro-Hungarian forces to their starting positions. The British chronology of the war on which our timeline is based, by contrast, dates the beginning of the battles of Warsaw and Ivangorod to 9 October, when the Germans reached the line of the Vistula and collided with the main Russian forces. The same chronology ends the Battle of Warsaw on 19 October, when the Germans began to fall back from the city, and the Battle of Ivangorod on 20 October, although the fighting at Dęblin went on until 26–27 October.

The literature also uses the names Warsaw–Ivangorod operation and Warsaw–Dęblin operation. Some authors divide it into two battles: at Warsaw, fought mainly by the Germans, and at Ivangorod, in which from the second half of October the Austro-Hungarian army played the main role.

Background

In September 1914 the armies of Austria-Hungary lost the Battle of Galicia and fell back behind the San, and then as far as behind the Dunajec. The Russians occupied most of Galicia and surrounded the fortress of Przemyśl. The chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, pressed the Germans to come to his aid. The Germans therefore formed a new 9th Army in Silesia, made up largely of corps moved by rail from East Prussia. Command was taken by Paul von Hindenburg, with Erich Ludendorff remaining his chief of staff.

The plan was for the 9th Army to strike from the area of Częstochowa and Upper Silesia through the Kingdom of Poland towards the middle Vistula, into the flank and rear of the Russians fighting in Galicia. On its right wing, south of Kielce, the Austro-Hungarian 1st Army of General Viktor Dankl was to attack. At the same time Conrad’s other armies went over to a counter-offensive in Galicia in order to reach the San and relieve besieged Przemyśl.

The Russian high command, headed by Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, was itself preparing a great offensive into Silesia and the Posen region. At the end of September, when it detected the German concentration, it decided to base its defence on the Vistula. Three armies of the South-Western Front of General Nikolai Ivanov were moved north from the San to the eastern bank of the Vistula, and further corps, including Siberian units, were brought up to Warsaw.

Forces

According to various estimates, from about 300,000 to over 320,000 soldiers fought on the side of the Central Powers. The German 9th Army comprised several corps, including the XVII Corps of General August von Mackensen, the XX Corps, the XI Corps and the Guards Reserve Corps, as well as a Landwehr corps and cavalry divisions. Dankl’s Austro-Hungarian 1st Army was of similar size. Within it fought the 1st Regiment of the Polish Legions under the command of Józef Piłsudski.

The Russians fielded, according to various sources, about 470,000–490,000 soldiers. At Warsaw stood the 2nd Army of General Sergei Scheidemann and the 5th Army of General Pavel Plehve, supported by the garrison of the Warsaw fortified area. The stretch of the Vistula at Ivangorod and Kozienice was defended by the 4th Army of General Alexei Evert, and further south, towards Sandomierz, by the 9th Army of General Platon Lechitsky. The numerical advantage lay with the Russians, but the Germans had more heavy artillery and more efficient command.

Course

28 September – 8 October. The 9th Army and the 1st Army moved north-east through the Kielce and Radom regions. They advanced slowly, because the autumn rains had turned the roads of the Kingdom into mud, and before leaving the Russians had destroyed many bridges and stretches of railway. Only weaker Russian detachments offered resistance. At the beginning of October they were beaten at Opatów and withdrew behind the Vistula. Around 6 October Dankl’s cavalry reached Sandomierz, and by 8–9 October the forces of the Central Powers stood on the Vistula along the stretch from Sandomierz to Dęblin.

9–12 October. The Germans tried to seize the crossings at Ivangorod and Kozienice, but the Russian 4th Army and the fortress garrison held bridgeheads on the left bank of the river. At roughly the same time Russian orders fell into German hands, revealing that much larger forces than expected were being moved to the left bank of the Vistula. Hindenburg therefore sent his northern wing, Mackensen’s group, straight at Warsaw. Around 9–10 October the Germans beat approaching Siberian units at Grójec, and on 12 October they reached the approaches to the city. Fighting took place, among other places, on the outskirts of Pruszków. Sources state that the German vanguards came within 12–20 kilometres of Warsaw.

12–19 October. Panic broke out in Warsaw, and the Russian offices prepared to evacuate. German airships and aeroplanes appeared over the city and dropped bombs on the streets. Yet further Russian corps kept arriving in the city by rail, including Siberian ones, which went into battle almost straight from the wagons. As early as about 10 October Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich placed the 2nd and 5th Armies under the commander of the North-Western Front, General Nikolai Ruzsky, and ordered them to go over to the attack. From mid-October the Russians attacked Mackensen frontally and crossed the Vistula onto his eastern flank. South of Warsaw the Guards Reserve Corps spent several days trying to push the Russian units on the bridgehead at Kozienice into the river.

19–27 October. Faced with the threat of encirclement, Mackensen began to withdraw from Warsaw around 19–20 October. To free his own forces, Hindenburg asked the Austrians to take over the stretch of the Vistula at Ivangorod. Conrad agreed and intended to let the Russians cross the river and then push them back into it. The Russians, however, crossed the Vistula at several points with much larger forces. Around 20–21 October the 4th Army advanced from the bridgeheads at Kozienice and Ivangorod towards Radom. From 22 October Dankl attacked in front of the fortress. On 22–26 October Piłsudski’s legionaries fought in the Battle of Laski and Anielin near present-day Pionki, one of their first large battles with the Russians. They suffered heavy losses and on the night of 26/27 October had to abandon the positions they had taken so as not to be encircled. Dankl’s attack collapsed, and on 27 October the Central Powers began a general retreat.

27 October – 8 November. The Germans and Austrians fell back to the west and south-west. German sappers systematically destroyed the railway lines, bridges, stations and roads behind them to delay the pursuit. The pursuing Russians recovered, among other places, Radom and Łódź, but the further they advanced, the harder it was for them to bring up food and ammunition. By the end of October the 9th Army was back near the positions from which it had set out, and Dankl’s 1st Army was withdrawing towards Kraków. At the beginning of November the Russian armies halted on the line Uniejów – Przedbórz – Miechów.

Losses

Estimates of losses vary widely. The Polish Wikipedia gives about 65,000 killed, wounded and missing on the Russian side and nearly 140,000 on the side of the Central Powers. English-language studies give from about 80,000 to 150,000 men for the Central Powers, including 50,000 to 75,000 Austrians, and for the Russians from 65,000 to as many as 150,000. According to one set of figures, the German 9th Army alone lost about 40,000 soldiers in this campaign. Whatever the numbers, the losses of the Austro-Hungarian 1st Army were especially severe, as they came only a few weeks after the defeat in Galicia.

The war on Polish lands

For the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Poland the battle meant the front passing through their homes twice within a month. The armies of both sides requisitioned food, horses and carts, and the villages on the lines of fighting along the Vistula, at Kozienice, Grójec and Warsaw, lay in ruins. Shells also fell on the suburbs, among them Pruszków. Warsaw experienced bombing from the air for the first time. In the most tragic of the raids, on 19 October, 18 people were killed according to the Polish Wikipedia. The retreating Germans destroyed railways and bridges, which paralysed communications in the western part of the country for many months. Many Poles fought on both sides, in the Russian army, in the German and Austro-Hungarian armies, and in the Legions.

Significance

The Battle of Warsaw and Dęblin was the first serious defeat of Hindenburg and Ludendorff in the east. They failed to take Warsaw or to destroy the Russian armies, although they drew them away from Galicia. Thanks to this, the Austrians were able briefly to relieve Przemyśl and recover some of the lost territory. For the Russians the victory was an important success after the defeat at Tannenberg and restored their belief that they could beat the Germans. They recovered almost the whole Kingdom of Poland, but the destroyed railways and roads did not allow them to enter Silesia straight away.

The failed campaign did not discourage the Germans. On 1 November Hindenburg became supreme commander on the Eastern Front, and Mackensen took command of the 9th Army. His troops were moved by rail to the area of Thorn (Toruń), from where in November they struck the flank of the Russian armies preparing to march west. This led to the Battle of Łódź, another great clash on Polish lands.