Central Powers take Ivangorod

On 5 August 1915 the Austro-Hungarian war communiqué announced that the long series of Central Powers victories since the Battle of the Dunajec in May had been “crowned by the occupation of Ivangorod and Warsaw”. “Yesterday our troops occupied Ivangorod,” Vienna reported. The fortress of Ivangorod, that is, the Dęblin Fortress at the confluence of the Wieprz and the Vistula, did not, however, fall to an assault. The Russians abandoned it themselves, as part of the general retreat from the Kingdom of Poland, and their forts and bridges were blown up before the Austro-Hungarians entered them. The British chronology of the war records the fall of the fortress under 5 August. In reality the fortress was occupied in two stages: the forts on the left bank of the Vistula on 4 August, and the citadel on the right bank a few days later.

The assault of 1 August

From 22 July the Austro-Hungarian group of General of the Infantry Hermann Kövess, part of the army of General Remus von Woyrsch, had been closing off the fortress from the west. Woyrsch’s German divisions had forced the Vistula below Ivangorod, near Ryczywół, during the night of 28/29 July, and had since been fighting heavy battles against Russian counter-attacks on the eastern bank. Kövess meanwhile had an independent task: to take the fortress as soon as the heavy artillery arrived.

The first blow was directed at the western front of the fortress. Kövess handed over all the howitzer batteries to the 35th Infantry Division, and its commander, Major General Podhoránszky, formed an assault group of eight and a half battalions. On 1 August, after a four-hour bombardment, it broke through the advanced position at Słowiki Nowe, fortified with multi-storey, partly concrete strongpoints. The Transylvanian 50th Infantry Regiment particularly distinguished itself. Some of the attackers then turned south-east and took the Russians from the rear, forcing them to lay down their arms. The 16th Infantry Division joined the attack. The breach was 6 kilometres wide. According to the Austrian official history, over 2,300 prisoners and 32 guns were taken, and the Russians fell back to their second field position. From the statements of prisoners the Austrians learned that the fortress garrison consisted of two regiments of the 47th Infantry Division, two militia brigades and fortress artillery.

The Russians leave

The commandant of Ivangorod, Major General Aleksei von Schwarz, who had already defended the fortress in the autumn of 1914, was ordered to prepare an evacuation as early as 22 July. According to Russian works, he removed the garrison and equipment, including the fortress guns, and then prepared the demolition of the fortifications. He himself considered the evacuation premature and believed the fortress could have been defended further. Its fate, however, was decided by the situation of the whole front. On 3 August the commander-in-chief of the North-Western Front, General Mikhail Alekseyev, decided to withdraw the 2nd and 4th Armies behind the Vistula and give up Warsaw. Ivangorod was no longer needed.

The Austrians guessed what was coming. The statements of prisoners, the absence of counter-attacks and airmen’s reports of 3 August pointed to an imminent evacuation. Kövess ordered his troops to advance immediately as soon as they noticed the Russians withdrawing, while at the same time preparing another assault, this time from the south. During the night of 3/4 August the besiegers heard numerous explosions in the fortress and saw fires. In the morning the Russian positions were empty. Both of Kövess’s Transylvanian divisions occupied the forts and reached the Vistula. The bridges had been destroyed, and the Russians on the other bank fired on every attempt to cross.

The citadel

According to the Austrian official history, the Russians held the right bank with the citadel for several more days and abandoned it only on 8 August, after blowing up the fortifications. That day the Austro-Hungarian communiqué reported that the Russian corps that had remained in the Vistula area north-west of Ivangorod had begun to fall back to the north-east. Russian works date the demolition of the citadel and the right-bank forts as early as noon on 4 August. Only after the Russians had gone did the 16th Infantry Division cross the Vistula and occupy the eastern ring of forts.

The fortress that had withstood the Germans and Austrians in the autumn of 1914 fell this time almost without a fight for its main fortifications. The Austrian official history stresses that, together with Warsaw, occupied by the Germans on 5 August, the Russians had lost both “sally ports” from which their “steamroller” had set out westwards in the autumn of 1914. The capture of the left-bank part of Ivangorod was one of the achievements for which Kövess later received the Commander’s Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa, the highest Austrian war decoration.