i: The battle
In the words of Novoye Vremya,
Came accounts of fighting in Poland,
Within the heart of the country
Centering on the city of Łódź -
Caught between the army's
Of Germany and Russia.
Since Germany moved to war,
Field Marshal Von
Hiddenburg,
Returned from retirement
-
Being given command,
of the Eastern Front.
In gaining Russian
Intelligence
Of Russian maneuvers to
Silesia –
He had a chance, maybe,
Again to crush a Russian
Flank
As happened at Tannenberg.
With these intentions,
the Marshall
Planned out a campaign -
General August von Mackensen,
With the German ninth army,
Headed for the Polish
sector -
With the ultimate aim
for Warsaw.
In defence of Poland's
Captial,
General Nikolai Ruzski
was chosen,
As Warsaw's defence
Commander.
North of the River
Vistula,
General Paul von
Rennenkampf,
Held Russia's First Army
-
With one corps sitting,
On the south bank of the
river.
Ruzski had placed
the Russian Second Army,
before Łódź - to be led
by
General Scheidemann.
With General Pavel Plehve
Given orders to abandon
The Silesia offence, Ruzski
Recalled the Russian Fifth Army -
To assist resistance offensive,
Set by Hindenburg army's.
From the town of Kutno
Marched strong numbers,
Of a great German army -
Under General Mackensen.
Moving from Tusyn to Bresin -
The Guards went east to Rawa
Encountering the Russians
Coming from Loviez and Glovno.
Reacting they started retreating.
On 11 November,
South of the river Vistula,
Russia’s first army,
Then in isolation,
Started to scatter - with vast
numbers of prisoners taken –
With a gap made between
The First and Second Armies,
Russian forces lost contact.
Now under threat,
of being encircled,
The Siberian Second Army,
Moved back towards Łódź.
From abandoned Silesia,
General Pavel Plehve -
Came in a charging force.
moving 70 miles in 48 hours -
This Siberian Fifth Army,
Appeared on 18 November -
crashing into the German Army’s
Right Flank - Fights broke,
In bitter winter conditions.
Moving to retreat the Germans
Found in Strikof, a salient
Had formed, as Russian troops
Now blocked their movements.
Turning to the South to Tusyn,
And Petrokof, the troops
Of Germans faced a front,
Of marching Russian bayonets.
With three corps already hit,
General Mackensen
Had no choice but go to Bresin –
They turned,
In hopeless sight of Russians,
And exposed to all attacks.
With men falling on the roads,
They had to clear them aside -
Their hands covered,
With the blood of their own.
General Mackensen once again
Moved from Bressin to Tusyn -
And in need to lighten his troops,
Abandoned transports
And conceal their ammunition.
Still under Russian fire, orders
Turned them from the roads,
To move out across open fields.
In the town of Bressin the fight
Fell into desperate exchanges,
As town moved between hands -
As in a nightmare, it was possible
To drift as death’s angel, to see
The dead strewn all around,
The houses splattered
Scarred with fighting blood.
Within the buildings, Germans
Took refuge, to find selves
Trapped - without any pity from
Their enemy, the Russian bayonet
Outnumbered cornered Germans.
In one pitiful sight was a Teuton
Pinned to the floor like an insect.
Within the Bessin woods,
Marked a massacre on the 23rd -
With German regiments,
Dispersing, to leave three corps
Behind, cut mercilessly to pieces.
With his remaining men,
General Mackensen again tried
To move to Sgersch and Strikof -
Sending in silent troops,
In advance without support -
To attack Łódź -
At last came cover of some
Heavy guns, back in action.
The Russians later realised
That this had been possible
From their being trapped
In a cul-de-sac - the Germans
Had managed to bury shells,
And even their guns.
Over a week the Lodz battle
Had lasted -The German task
Had been to get to Warsaw
And surround a Russian army -
That plan had gone -
The Germans were exhausted,
Dejected and nearly defeated.
Now they only sought escape.
The Sgersch highway
Offered such a route -
To protect their rearguard -
Yet corps that had been sent
Out, were no longer the same -
Little more than an eighth,
Remained of Guard reserves,
And two other corps -
Those that stayed behind,
Were the dead - totaling over
70,000 of their men.
ii: The aftermath
After the struggle, the ordinary
People emerged, to see
How the woods, fields and villages
About scarred with the fierceness
Of battle’s rapid movements.
The land, vacated of fighters,
Became the picking grounds
Of civilian curiosity – for a week
People had moved about
Littered military belongings -
Broken wheels and wagons
Of ammunition – tracks,
Measured out in Russian ‘versts’
Made for deep ruts, where
Heavy guns broken, abandoned
Littering highways and fields.
Soldier’s bodies lay around –
Some half in hurried graves,
While their knapsacks lay about
The contents scattered -
Blowing about in bitter winds,
Flapped the remnants
From German newspapers,
And soiled letters - written by
The words of the dead.
In moving about the Polish city
Of Łódź, came impressions,
From the evidence and sights,
Not just off troops retreating -
But that of a massive battle.
The German armies, cornered
Had tried to break through -
Initially at the North East,
Then to the South West, -
Swinging about to the North
In a desperate flight,
Trying to make a break out.
Succeeding in preventing attack
On Silesia, the German failed
To make progress on Warsaw -
The Russians had reformed,
About the city in solid lines.
There was in effect, no real
Winner of Łódź - as both sides
Just suffered great losses.
by Jamie Mann.
Anon.,1914. Graphic Account of the Battle of Lodz – Enormous German Losses. The Daily
Telegraph [online] 9 Dec. p.10.
Col.2. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11275722/Daily-Telegraph-December-9-1914.html
[Accessed: 9 December
2014].
Mann, J., 2014. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal
communication, 9 December 2014).
#WW1 #WW1centenary #GreatWar #WW1poem #GreatWar #ww1centenary
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