LAND AND WATEE 
October 10, 1914 
is very miicli Lir^or and the whole scheme of them and 
ihoir KUiTOuading maitihes and forests very much more 
complicated. But even from so elcmentarj a sketch 
one cau see that the few roads available to an armj' in 
its advance upon the Niemen are here of capital impor- 
tance. Every one of them (and particularly the 
causeway by \\hic'h the main advance was made from 
Suwalki to Seiny) is a series of ckjilcs : tliat is, of 
pLices where an army cannot march upon any but a 
vcrv narrow front :* a place where tlie columns are 
confined to one road only and camiot spread out upon 
either side. 
It was on September 23rd, that is, a fortnight 
ago, the AVednesday before lust, that the Russian 
Clenei-al IJenneukampf, retreating from before the 
Gei-man advance, got his last troops over the Niemen 
and waited the ap]n-oach of the enemy to that ri\er. 
'J'he point at which they proposed to cross, or at least 
the chief of the several points, was Drusskeniki. They 
had already throA\Ti their pontoons across when the 
counter-offensive upon the part of the llussians began. 
'I'hc opening of it was no more than the shelling of the 
German pontoon bridges as the Prussians were 
crossing them upon the Friday, the 2yth, and the 
next phase after the success of this check given to the 
invaders was a violent ai-tillcry duel between the 
massed guns of either army firing from positions 
facing each other across the river. In the hope that 
their artiUerj' had sufficiently dominated the enemy's, 
the Crermans began their preparations for a second 
crossing. This second attempt was made at the end 
of the day ; before night it had failed as the first had. 
Ei-om this check at Drusskeniki the Germans fell 
back upon what has been throughout all the inter- 
vening days a retreat, sometimes so pressed as to 
involve local disasters. By Monday, September ~8th, 
after foiu' days of this retreat, the rearguard of the 
German retirement was at Seiny, which means that 
the main body had been covering quite fifteen miles 
u day. The whole business in its rapidity and reverse 
was not unlike the general retreat which we call in the 
"W^est the battle of Marne. The retreat was also of 
course being carried out along the whole front, not 
only in the centre with the main columns through 
Seiny, but up North as far as Mariampoland Southward 
as far as Augustowo. Inhere are no railways in this belt 
between the Niemen and the German frontier. The four 
German Army Corps which, according to the French 
Official Communique, were involved, could not there- 
fore receive rapid reinforcement even 'if such rein- 
forcement could be spared either from the Southern 
field or from elsewhere. Two days later, therefore, by 
Thursday, October 1st, the mass of the German forces 
fell back upon a line Marlarapol-Suwalki-Augustowo, 
the retreat of the central portion which had to follow^ 
the causeway through the marshes from Seiny to 
Suwalki being particularly painful and expensive. ' The 
Iiussians advancing from the lino Simno-Sereje-Lipny 
on the centre drove the German centre right down 
this nan-o\v defile. 
The decision in this extended action was reached, 
liowever, not in the centre, but, as seems necessary 
iiowadaj-s in any extended and lengthy modern 
action, upon one of the wings. The operative wing 
hero was, of course, the Southern one, the Eussian 
left and German right. For to get round this wing 
Avas to cut the Germans off from, or at least to 
endanger, their communications with their own 
country. There is, however on this wing a gi-eat 
mass of wood as well as of lake country, Icnown as 
the Forests of Augustowo. It i? nearly a week's 
march across by its few soft and sodden rosul?. 
This was the i)rincipal impediment to the general 
llussian movement, but apparently upon the Tluu'sday, 
October 1st, the obstacle was sunnounted, or turned, 
and Augustowo was occupied, the Eussian advance 
then proceeding to Eatchki, which was also taken at 
the point of the bayonet, and it seemed as though the 
German retreat in "this direction would have to proceed 
not by the way the (fcrman advance had come, but 
northward and separate from the retreat of another 
group of German forces whose action I will now 
describe. 
This subsidiary gi-oup in the ad- ;ice on tho 
Niemen had undertaken to protect tl.. right fiank 
of the advance, the investment of the fortress of 
Osowiecs. 
This separate ojieration upon the Southern or 
right fiank of the general German advance upon the 
Niemen came a little behind the central main part of 
that advance. We have seen that the attempt to 
cross the Niemen at Drusskeniki belonged to 
September 23th. It was not until the morrow tliat 
the attack upon the forts of Osowiecs began. The 
bombardment of those forts continued apparently for 
no more than two da3's. Indeed, the retreat of tl e 
centre from Niemen must have involved hasty orders 
from the German headquarters to the troojis on 
the extreme right in front of the fortress, and 
these began their reti-eat towards Prussia again. 
In this retreat they had the advantage of a railway 
which their fellows in the main bodies to the North 
had not. But it Avas just as heavily pressed as the 
retirement of the main bodies of the North. The 
Eussian cavahy were in CJrajcwo with the first of 
the month, and on the next day, Friday the 2nd, they 
were over tho frontier. 
All these operations, therefore, in Northern 
Poland and in the valleys of the Bobr and the Niemen 
(to which the Eussians have given the name of the 
"Battle of Augustowo," which were fought over a 
front of more than a hundred miles and which occu2)ied 
altogether more than ten davs) have resulted in the 
retirement of the four invading German Army Corps 
back over their own frontier, and it is probable that at 
the moment of writing, though fighting is still going 
on just west of Suwalki, all the German forces have 
been withdi-aAvn from that part of Northern Poland 
which lies over the artificial frontier between the 
Eussian Empire and East Prussia. 
THE OPERATIONS IN SOUTHERN 
POLAND UPON THE UPPER 
VISTULA. 
It wUl be seen from what has just been said that 
the Eussian siiccess in Northern Poland is locally 
decisive, not that avc have any account of great captures 
of men or material, biit that the German object de- 
liberately undertaken has not been reached and the 
German plan has failed. But this failure, as avc have 
seen, only concerns four Army Corps. 
The operations in Southern Poland, which have 
not yet come to a decision and in which the two main 
forces have not yet even thoroughly taken contact, 
must be watched Avith far greater interest and will 
have far more effect upon the campaign as a Avhole. 
In order to grasp the way in Avhich this great 
action is being approached, the way in Avhich the 
opposing forces are manoeuvi-ing for position, and the 
nature of the gi-ound over Avhich the shock will take 
place, Ave must master the very simple elements of the 
field, remembering that the forces that will join battle 
in the field, and that have perhaps already done 
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