A Short History of the Great WarPollard, A. F. (Albert Frederick)
History
A Short History of the Great War
Pollard, A. F. (Albert Frederick)
World War, 1914-1918
to commemorate a national revenge for that defeat at Tannenberg five
centuries before when the Slavonic kingdom of Poland had broken the
power of the Teutonic Order in Prussia.
Russia, however, was a different power from the Teutonic Order, and
Austrian generals were not Hindenburgs; Ruszky and Brussilov, too,
were better leaders than Samsonov, and though Rennenkampf had to
evacuate East Prussia before Hindenburg's advance, the Austrians were
driven like chaff before their enemies in Galicia. The object of
Russian strategy was to straighten the serpentine line of the frontier
for military purposes. Hence, while pushing forward her wings in East
Prussia and Galicia, she would merely stand on guard or withdraw in
the Polish centre, and the Germans encountered little opposition when
they seized Czenstochowa and Kalisch and pushed towards the Warta, or
the Austrians when they advanced by Zamosc towards the Bug. The
advance in East Prussia was also represented as a chivalrous attempt
to reduce the pressure in France by a threat to Berlin, and the real
Russian effort was the sweep westwards from the eastern Galician
frontier, where the Second Russian army under Ruszky and the Third
farther south under Brussilov were already threatening the envelopment
of Lemberg (or Lwow [Footnote: Pronounced and sometimes spelt Lvoff.])
and the Austrians under Von Auffenberg. Ruszky, formerly like Foch a
professor in a military academy, was perhaps the most scientific of
Russian generals; Brussilov showed his strategy two years later at
Luck; [Footnote: Pronounced Lutsk: the Slavonic "c" = "ts" "cz" = "ch"
and "sz" = "sh."] and Radko Dmitrieff was a Bulgarian general, now in
Russian service, who in the Balkan wars had won the battle of Kirk
Kilisse and helped to win that of Lule-Burgas. There was not an abler
trio in any field of the war.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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