End of the Battle of Łódź

A British chronology of the war records under 15 December 1914 the end of the Battle of Łódź. Most studies, however, end it earlier. The fighting for Łódź itself ceased on 6 December, when German troops entered the city, which the Russians had abandoned during the night. This date is used, among others, by the English Wikipedia (the Polish one gives 24 November or 6 December), and it is also how we date the Battle of Łódź on our site: from 11 November to 6 December.

Why 15 December

The British chronology does not explain its date, but it most probably understands the battle more broadly, as the whole campaign in the central part of the Kingdom of Poland, which began with the German offensive in November and ended only when the front came to a standstill again. For after the loss of Łódź the Russian armies did not stop for long. On 29 November Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich ordered the troops to withdraw to a shorter defensive line, closer to Warsaw, along the Bzura, Rawka, Pilica and Nida rivers. The retreat lasted almost three weeks, with the Germans pressing on the retreating Russians.

By mid-December this stage was coming to an end. According to the Russian collection of documents on the Łódź operation, the First Army withdrew behind the Bzura between 12 and 17 December. In the north, near Łowicz, the Battle of the Bzura was still going on; according to German lists it ended on 17 December. Some sources state that all Russian units took up their new positions only around 19 December. The date of 15 December is therefore a convention, but it captures well the moment when the Łódź campaign passed into a new stage.

Balance

The Battle of Łódź was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of manoeuvre of 1914 on the Eastern Front. The Germans failed to encircle the Russian Second Army, and their own group under General Scheffer barely broke out of the pocket at Brzeziny. Strategically, however, Paul von Hindenburg gained. The Russian offensive into Silesia and deep into Germany was halted and never again took place on such a scale. The Russians gave up Łódź and a sizeable part of the western half of the Kingdom of Poland. Estimates of losses vary widely: Polish studies often cite about 110,000 men on the Russian side and about 90,000 on the German side, while some Russian historians give much higher figures.

Warsaw, however, remained in Russian hands. The new line on the Bzura and Rawka ran only a few dozen kilometres from the city, but it was shorter and easier to defend. The Germans tried to break through it in the second half of December, without success. The front froze in the trenches until the summer of 1915, and the inhabitants of the surrounding villages found themselves on the front line for many months.