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The Russian front now followed the west bank of the Bzura for a few miles, changed to the eastern bank following the river until it met with the Rawka, from there a line of trenches passed south and east, of Balinov and from there to Skiernievice. Von Mackensen concentrated a considerable army at Balinov and had on the 1st of February about a hundred and forty thousand men there.
Each day came the chronicle of contests, some victories, some defeats, and it soon appeared that a strong force was crushing in the Russian outposts from the direction of Thorn and moving toward Warsaw. Ruzsky found himself faced by a superior German force, and was compelled to retreat. The Russian aim was to fall back behind the river Bzura, which lies between the Thorn and Warsaw.
Troops, however, were rapidly being rushed up to Mackensen's help, and on 6 December the Russian left withdrew from Lodz, the industrial capital of Poland with half a million inhabitants. The line selected for defence ran almost due north to south from the Vistula up the Bzura and its tributary the Rawka to Rawa and thence across the Pilitza to Opocznow.
It read: "The line occupied by us in the east runs from the Pilica, along the Rawka and Bzura to the Vistula. From there it runs in an easterly direction through the region to the north of Przasnysz south of Mystinez, south of Kolno to the north of Lomza, and strikes the Bobr at Mocarce.
Below the line of the Vistula, before the Bzura and down to the middle course of the Pilica, operated the Ninth German Army, commanded, at least in the later stages of the Warsaw campaign, by Prince Leopold of Bavaria. The whole group of northern and central armies was acting under the general direction of Field Marshal von Hindenburg.
Floundering around through the mud, we came almost on to the positions, which were suddenly illuminated with fires started by Austrian shells in two villages near by, while the jagged flashes of bursting shells ahead caused us to extinguish the lights of the motor and to turn across the fields, ultimately arriving at the headquarters of a corps which I knew well on the Bzura line in Poland.
Especially along the Bzura the German attacks again became violent in an effort to hold the Russian forces in the district to the west of Warsaw while thrusting at their wings from the south and north. However, fighting was not of great consequence in this middle sector until the middle of June, 1915.
Hindenburg's retreat was masterly, he flowed back upon Cracow and Breslau, pursued by a great Russian army. After terrific fighting and tremendous losses the Russians got back to the Bzura line, which they were to hold for nearly a year and the German advance was beaten down in fighting wholly similar to that in Flanders. Once more the Russian advance in Galicia was resumed.
The command was entrusted to Mackensen, while Ruszky withstood the Germans with his right near Plock on the Vistula, his centre behind the Bzura, and his left stretching out towards Lodz.
It resulted ultimately in the relinquishing by the Russians of the lines of the Rawka and Bzura which had been so stubbornly held against the Germans in the long defense of Warsaw. The troops directly charged here with defending the capital fell back to the Blonie lines about fifteen miles from the city.
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