while the 83rd below and the 37th above were to make feints as
far up as Ostrolenka. But the Russians were on the alert all along
the line. In the night of July 23-24 the leading troops of the
German 2nd Div., covered by an intense artillery fire, waded the
Narew, under fire from the hostile machine-guns, by an imper-
fectly known ford. At the cost of heavy losses they secured a
foothold on the further heights, but no reinforcements or supplies
could reach them. The Russians high-quality Siberian troops
counter-attacked fiercely, but, being armed in the main only with
hand grenades, they were ^beaten down, time after time, by the
rifle-fire of the small German force, though one reckless onset
was nearly successful. In the night of July 24-25 more German
forces were got across piecemeal, till in all there were six deci-
mated battalions in a bridgehead i ,500 yd. wide and 500 yd. deep,
unable to advance or retreat. The feint-crossings on the fronts of
the other divisions had been discontinued, though at Modzele a
small foothold had been gained by part of the 83rd Div.
Next day, July 26, while at Kamionka the isolated struggle went on as before, the long-expected Russian counter-attack in force broke out along the whole line from lie Novogeorgievsk railway to Chelsty above Rozhan.
Battle of the Orz, or Goworowo (July 26- Aug. 5). In accordance with orders from " General Headquarters, East," von Gallwitz had planned, for July 26, a general offensive against the line Wyszkow-Ostrow, while continuing to hold the line S. of Pultusk defensively. He intended that the XVII. Res. Corps (86th and ist Guard Res. Divs.) and XI. Corps (soth Res. and 38th Divs.) should break out over the Prut, along the S. side of the Bagno Pulwy, while the XVII. Corps (38th and 39th Divs.) pushed E. from their Ostrykol bridgehead, and the 26th Div. by a flank movement from the S. assisted the rest of the XIII. Corps to clear the woods E. of Rozhan. Menges's Div. was in reserve and the 54th Div. due to arrive from France. The I. Corps' attacks increasingly important in the general scheme of battle in propor- tion as the Russians in West Poland gave ground were to be intensified by adding to them the expected 54th Division. But when, on the morning of July 26th, these movements had not reached the stage of infantry activity, some 16-18 Russian divisions rushed to the assault, covered by a fire which was made possible by a hitherto husbanded ammunition supply. On the Prut front, delivered by forces probably not greatly exceeding those of the Germans, the assault failed to penetrate except momentarily at Pniewo on the Pultusk-Wyszkow highroad; and on the dangerous W. flank of Gallwitz's Army, the line Karniewek- Blendostwo-Nasielsk, held only by the 85th Landwehr Div. and Pfeil's Landwehr Bde., the onset of three Siberian and Turkestan divisions was checked after a crisis near Blendostwo. The " sympathetic " attack of a division against the German 86th Div. on the lower Prut was equally heavy and equally unsuc- cessful. But the effort of the battle, and especially the risk of its renewal on the front W. of the Narew, made the Germans post- pone their offensive from the Prut front for two days.
Against the front of the German XI. Corps and 26th Div. some two and one-half to three Russian divisions, attacking regardless of losses, promptly brought to an end the forward movement begun from the Ostrykol bridgehead, and prevented the German 26th Div. from intervening in the flank of the woods E. of Rozhan. There, so far from being able to progress eastward, the Germans were repulsed by the onset of three to four divisions assembled W. of Goworowo and were in danger of being thrown back on to their bridges, only 15 m. behind the line of battle. An accidental reinforcement from the I. Corps, viz. the arrival of part of the 83rd Div. seeking a way round to the rear of Kamionka by using the 4th Guard Div.'s bridge at Sielun, enabled the German XIII. Corps to regain the lost ground at Dombrowo and Kaszewic and the Russian attack died away. At the bridgehead of Kamionka, infantry counter-attacks were less vehement, but artillery effect upon the gradually increasing mass of Germans in a confined space was terrible, and the Higher Command decided to discontinue the effort to push eastward from so unpromising a base. Already the commander of the 83rd Div. had as noted above sought a way round, and prepara-
tions were made to profit by this initiative by passing the un- committed forces of the 2nd and 37th Divs. over a bridge to be thrown near Kolaki as soon as the 83rd Div. should have passed that point. Meanwhile, the newly arrived 54th Div. was to attempt another passage at Ostrolenka, while, further up, the VIII. Army was to force a crossing near the Skwa mouth, pre- paratory to an advance against the Lomzfta-Bialystok region.
On July 27 the Russian attacks, instead of increasing in vio- lence, began to break down into local and spasmodic efforts, though these efforts continued S., S.E. and E. of Pultusk till July 29. On this front the German Command decided, on July 27, to stand henceforth on the defensive, for Ludendorff, ever pressing for maximum results, was striving to keep the centre of gravity of the offensive well N. of the Bug, in spite of the smallness of the tactical gains that had been secured at Ostrykol, Lomzha and above. On this and the following days there was little change in the situation at Ostrykol bridgehead, but E. of Lomzha the Ger- mans reacted with great vigour. In the centre the 3rd Div., on the left the 4th Guard Div. supported by part of the 83rd Div. of the I. Corps, and on the right the 26th Div. working its way N.E. from the Ostrykol line to rejoin its corps, swept the Russians back to the line Josefowo-Goworowo-Rembisze by nightfall on July 27, while the main portion of the 83rd Div. struck out northward according to its original purpose, and reached Cisk, Lipianka and even the S. edge of Kamionka village, thus opening the passage at Kolaki for the mixed forces of the 2nd and 37th Divs. gathered there, and freeing the worn-out troops in the Kamionka bridgehead.
From that point the battle N. of the Bagno Pulwy became, in the main, the slow driving of an enemy who, although his fighting energy was becoming exhausted by disaster, was holding ground to gain time for the safe passage of his retreating frontal armies. Besides this resistance, difficulties of communication and supply made the follow-up much slower than it had been from Przasnysz to the Narew. On July 28 the 54th Div. made its attempt at Ostrolenka and failed, and it was brought round next day to the Kolaki bridge, over which the mixed elements of the 2nd and 37th Divs. were then streaming to join the 83rd. On July 30, after the last Russian counter-attacks on the S. front had died away, Gallwitz withdrew the ist Guard Res. Div. which was sent to join the forces N.E. of Rozhan. By July 31 there were between the Ostrykol and the Kamionka bridgeheads, on a line passing through Josefowo-Goworowo-Cisk-Narew below Kor- dowo, ten divisions against not more than four of the Russians. But some of these ten divisions were worn out; and a Russian counter-stroke on July 3r, which at Cisk fell upon and broke the Landsturm and Ersatz units of the 83rd Div., which had already lost over 3,000 men, imperilled the whole German offensive for a time. Nor was it till the evening of this day that the Russians finally gave up the pressure on the Kamionka bridgehead.
This, however, was the last offensive effort of the Russians on the Narew front; and a continuance of the German movement northeastward led, on Aug. 3, to their giving up the defence at Ostrolenka, which was the less tenable as von Scholtz's VIII. Army had by this time crossed the Narew in two places higher up.
The final situation (Aug. 4) of the Germans after the Goworowo battle, which was also the initial situation of the battle of Ostrow, was as follows: XVII. Res. Corps (Pfeil, 8sth, 86th Divs.), Nasielsk-Pniewo; XI. Corps (38th Div. and Menges's Div.), Pniewo-Bagno Pulwy; Guard Cav. Bde., Bagno Pulwy; XVII. Corps (35th and 36th Divs.), 2 m. W. of Wyszkow-Ostrolenka railway, from Siezychy to Kobylin; XIII. and I. Corps (26th, 3rd, 4th Guard, ist Guard Res., soth Res., 54th, 83rd, 2nd and 37th Divs.), on the line Josefowo-Czernie-Nogawki-Troszyn- Kurpie Dworskie on the Ostrolenka-Bialystok railway. The left, on the Ruz, was in touch with the right of Scholtz's Army.
In the three weeks of the German Narew offensive (July 13 Aug. 3), the Gallwitz Army Group captured in all about 50,000 prisoners, and with them only 14 guns and 150 machine-guns an unusual disproportion, which clearly indicates the way in which the Russians, in the summer of 1915, conducted their defence. (C. F. A.)
