The Children's Story of the War Volume 4 (of 10): The Story of the Year 1915Parrott, Edward
History
The Children's Story of the War Volume 4 (of 10): The Story of the Year 1915
Parrott, Edward
World War, 1914-1918 -- Juvenile literature
We may divide this very extended battle front as Cæsar divided
Gaul--into three parts. The trenches in the central or Polish zone ran
from the mouth of the Bzura, on the Middle Vistula, to the Upper
Vistula, at its confluence with the Donajetz, in a fairly straight line,
for a distance of about two hundred miles. On either side of this
central zone there were two wings which differed greatly in character.
Both were bent back from the line of the central zone: the north or
right wing followed a sickle shape through a region of lake and marsh
from the Baltic to the Vistula, and was for the most part within the
East Prussian frontier; while the south or left wing ran from the Upper
Vistula to follow the line of the Carpathians.
We will now learn something of the fighting which took place in the
first three months of the year 1915 on the north or right wing. For the
first few weeks there was ordinary trench warfare such as was going on
in the West. Attacks and counter-attacks were frequent, but there was no
action of any great importance. Most of the attacks were made by night,
beneath the light of rockets and star-shells and the glare of
searchlights. On the Bzura River the trenches of friend and foe were
only sixty yards apart, and in this section of the line the Germans
tried a very ingenious method of breaking down the Russian wire
entanglements. They filled barrels with clay, and rolled them down the
slopes towards the Russians, who believed that men with wire-cutters
were hiding behind the barrels and pushing them forward. They therefore
flung their hand grenades at the barrels, only to discover that they
were moving by their own weight, and that there were no men behind them.
When the Russians had thus exhausted their supply of hand grenades, the
Germans pushed forward and tried to rush the trenches. They were only
beaten off after a furious struggle. Shells and bombs containing poison
gases were also used by the Germans on this part of the line.
In Poland there was the same kind of warfare as on the Bzura. Across the
plains the Germans had made a maze of very strong trenches and
earthworks with deep underground chambers, floored and roofed with wood.
In Galicia, towards the end of January the bright sun melted the snows
of the Carpathians, and the streams became roaring torrents which made a
very effective barrier against surprise attacks. Nevertheless the enemy
kept up a very heavy bombardment across the flooded waters. On the
Donajetz River the Austrians broke the rules of war, and fired from
their machine guns explosive bullets, which when they entered a man's
body blew away half his back.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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