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Threatened by Rennenkampf on the north and Ruszky on the south, the German centre had to abandon Skierniewíce, Lowicz, and then Lodz, destroying every vestige of communication as they withdrew and lavishly sacrificing men in rearguard actions to protect their stores and their equipment.
While some of the larger places, such as Lodz, Plock, Lowicz, Tchenstochow and Petrokov, were spared, the smaller towns, villages, and hamlets in the direct line of battle suffered equally from the defenders and invaders.
Not only did this end for the time the Russian invasion of Germany, but the latter country's armies followed the retreating enemy a considerable distance into his own territory. But although such important points as Lodz and Radomsk were occupied during the last days of August and the first days of September, the German advance into South Poland quickly collapsed.
Examples of it already appeared in the first six months of the war, in the case of Lille and in the case of Lodz; and it is a necessarily recurrent case in all modern warfare. A great modern town, particularly if it has valuable industries, is a lure as powerful over the modern commander as was a capital or the seat of any government or even a fortress for those of earlier times.
The night was filled with terrors, and when at dawn the car stopped, and a soldier brought her a can of coffee she was too stiff and frightened to speak. When at last they reached Lodz, the two men were obliged to lift her to the ground.
They compelled the Russians to withdraw from Eastern Prussia, and from a part of Galicia, later on from Lodz, from the Masurian Lakes and Bukovina. Gradually Roumania saw herself bereft of what would have been her right wing and cover, and her military men, the most influential of whom had been against intervention from the first, now declared the moment inauspicious on strategical grounds.
Some soldiers are getting it ready to go to Lodz tonight. They are going for more munitions. It belongs to the enemy, but thanks to my German mother, I am German at will; so I spoke to them. I told them about my wife and two little children who were going to walk to Lodz. It was great luck. They said you could go with them. "Think of that!" said Martha.
"He may be Russian Polish most probably," added the captain, a tall, fair fellow in gold spectacles, whom I had known when he was third secretary of Embassy at Rome. His opinion was that it was not a German name, for there was a little place called Oberg, he said, on the railway between Lodz and Lowicz.
They began bringing in so many that we had to stop civilians being brought in at all, as it was more than we could do to cope with the wounded soldiers that were being brought in all the time. At midday we went to a hotel for a meal. There was very, very little food left in Lodz, but they brought what they could.
As we grew nearer to Lodz it was sad to see a good many dead horses lying by the roadside, mostly killed by shell-fire. The shells had made great holes in the road too, and the last part of our journey was like a ride on a switchback railway. It began to get dark as we came to Breeziny, where a large number of Russian batteries were stationed.
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