Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 12, 2025
Jan. 11 Germans cross the Rawka, thirty miles from Warsaw. Jan. 24 British win naval battle in North sea. Jan. 29 Russian army invades Hungary; German efforts to cross Aisne repulsed. February 1 British repel strong German attack near La Bassee. Feb. 2 Turks are defeated in attack on Suez canal. Feb. 4 Russians capture Tarnow in Galicia.
A very fierce German attack was going on, and the bullets were pattering like hail on the trees all round us. We could see nothing for some time but the smoke of the rifles. The Germans were only about a hundred yards away from us at this time, and we could see the river Rawka glittering below in the moonlight. What an absurd little river to have so much fighting about.
The great line of fortresses along the Narew were now exposed to bombardment by German howitzers; the Russians in front of Warsaw withdrew from their winter defences along the Rawka and Bzura to the inner lines of Blonie; and south of Warsaw they retired from Opatow, then from Radom, and then to the great fortress of Ivangorod on the Vistula.
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.
There was a fresh advance towards the Masurian lakes in East Prussia, and far to the south Alexeiev captured a Carpathian pass at Kirlibaba. Mackensen took advantage of this dispersion to organize a strenuous attack on the Russian lines near the confluence of the Bzura and the Rawka.
The territory abandoned was well worth the security gained on this line, and for three weeks the Germans stormed against it in vain. A flank attack from the north of the Vistula was driven back by the Russians at Mlawa, and no better success attended the German frontal onslaughts at Sochaczew, where the main road to Warsaw crosses the Bzura, and at Bolimow, where another crosses the Rawka.
He exists in millions and has abiding faith in his companions, in his officers, and in his cause." Writing of the desperate fighting in Poland in midwinter when the Germans made a tremendous effort to pierce the Russian lines on the Bzura and Rawka front, with Warsaw as their objective point, an American correspondent, Mr. John F. Bass, said: "The fighting was terrific.
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.
We found things fairly quiet this time when we went up. The Germans had been making some very fierce attacks, trying to cross the river Rawka, and therefore their losses must have been very heavy, but the Russians were merely holding their ground, and so there were comparatively few wounded on our side.
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.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking