NAROCH LAKE, in Lithuania (formerly in the Russian Government of Vilna), the largest of the numerous lakes in which the tributaries of the Vilya and the Disna have their origin. It is nearly equidistant from Vilna (62 m.) and from Dvinsk (72 m.), and lies 37 m. N. of Molodechno railway junction. The lake, which measures 8 m. by 6 m. at its longest and widest, drains into the small river Naroch, which, receiving another stream from Lake Viszniev at the village of Naroch (21 m. S. of the lake), flows on to join the Vilya E. of Smorgon. In Sept. 1915 this region witnessed the last attempt of Hindenburg to reach the lines of retreat of the Russian armies, and the successful counter-attacks of the latter (battle of Vilna-Molodechno). Next spring it was the scene of the great battle described below.
Battle of Lake Naroch, or Postavy (March 18-27 1916)—The conclusion of the German advance in 1915 had brought the German forces in this quarter on to a general line that ran from Lake Drisvyaty the limit of the Dvinsk front by Bidsy and Postavy to Lake Naroch and thence to Smorgon on the Minsk- Molodechno-Vilna railway, from which place it continued through Baranovichi southward. Although, broadly, this line runs N. and S., its course was really somewhat sinuous, conforming as it did to natural lines of defence, which in the campaigns of the Russian front are of supreme importance owing to the fewness of communications and the low economic development of the country. From Drisvyaty to Smorgon (about 95 m.), along the sinuosities of the actual line, only five gaps of more than about three miles wide exist in the barrier of lakes, rivers and marshes. These gaps lie N. of Vidzy, near Postavy, and on the proximity of Lake Naroch; and it was naturally at these points that the military efforts about to be described focussed themselves.
In the region of Lake Naroch the German line, held defensively since the close of the 1915 campaign, broke out of the general N.-S. direction into a salient, which, though weakened by the circumstance of its having 4 of the 5 gaps above mentioned on its front and flanks, offered a strong protective water-line, and so required relatively few troops to hold it. This salient, having about 45 m. of trench or water front, and a depth at its centre of about 10 m., was in no sense a "pocket," and the chances of its becoming so by pressure on its flanks were limited by the narrowness of the gaps on these flanks that an assailant could use. Indeed, the higher authorities of the German east front seem to have expected an attack, not on the salient itself but further S., about Smorgon, where a rapid western advance by the Russians, with relatively good communications behind them, might have converted this flat salient into a really dangerous bulge. The Russian Command, however, chose otherwise.
In the N. the salient began at Vileity, where the course of the Komaika stream bends sharply westward and ceased to protect the German front. Between Vileity and Moscheiki is a gap 33-4 m. wide, and at Moscheiki, taking contact with another stream, the Olsiza, the line of defence began to follow a chain of small lakes and streams that is only broken by very narrow gaps between lake and lake till the greater Lake Miadzol is reached. Thus the Vileity-Moscheiki gap was the only place between Vidzy and Lake Miadzol at which the conditions were favourable to a great offensive. The front available was-narrow, and communications poor, but great forests were available for the concealment of the attack preparations and the artillery. Though the gap is partly marsh, the Germans had preferred to run their line nearly straight across it close up to the edge of these forests rather than withdraw it some miles back to higher ground and leave the Vileity positions, on the one side, and the Moscheiki position, on the other, as dangerously advanced salients. Given sufficient troops and means and an improvement of the routes within the forests, it seemed that the breaking of the German line could be ensured, and once it was broken a vigorous drive south- westwards would take the attackers on to higher ground, where they would envelop the left limb of the salient and reap their harvest of prisoners and materiel.[1] Further, by obtaining control of the railway line Postavy-Novosventsyany, they would be in a position, later, to push an advance against the Vilna-Dvinsk line, the artery of the German N.E. front. Lakes Miadzol and Naroch and the solid ground between them formed the flattened apex of the salient. In front of them, protecting the avenue to some extent, lie other lakes. Approximately at Lake Miadzol lies the watershed between the Disna and Vilya systems. The southern limb of the salient was short (7½ m. in a straight line). It began at Bliznika on the shore of Lake Naroch and ended on Lake Viszniev near Ostrovlani. But the trace of the line, dictated by the ground, was peculiar and considerably influenced the course of the battle. Between the two streams that connect Lakes Naroch and Viszniev with the Vilya basin lies a wide area of marsh, but this area is traversed by two long land-bridges of higher, sandy ground, each 3-4 m. in breadth, which, running in from the E. and the S. respectively, converge in well-marked hills near Nosovice. Between these land-bridges the marsh drives a deep wedge, so that both for attack and for defence the southern face of the salient was divided into two distinct areas, which were connected, for the defence, by a trench-line across the narrowest part of the marsh, and, for the attack, by various islands of dry ground in the midst of the marsh whence enfilade or oblique fire could be brought to bear on the ridge; for, in order to minimize the frontage of his marsh-trenches, the defender placed them far up the wedge, leaving his positions on the sand-ridges as salients. Specially dangerous for the defence was the position on the E.-W. ridge, which ran close to Naroch and could be enfiladed both from the "islands" in the marshes and from the opposite shore of the lake. Here purely local conditions the need of securing possession of what, for the region, are commanding hills brought the German line to a positive apex. On the other hand, though a successful Russian offensive could be pushed along either or both the land-bridges, as far as their junction about Nosovice, advance beyond that village was barred by the Perekop stream, which, rising close to Lake Naroch and emptying into Lake Viszniev, cuts right across the dry land avenue, while, further, a long lake lying behind Viszniev would cramp the left flank of the advancing victor and limit him for many miles to the same frontage as that of his original attack. Thus the most that he could expect from success in this quarter was the seizure of a barrier or anvil (the Perekop), against which the garrison of the salient might be driven by hammer-blows from the Moscheiki gap.
The military features of the Naroch salient, then, afford an ex- cellent example of the way in which strategic and tactical values change according to the scale of the operation contemplated. In the case of quite small operations, the salient must be regarded as very strong, while for a grand offensive on the largest scale the case considered by the German Higher Command the centres of gravity lay not in the salient itself, but away to its flanks, where the possibility existed of converting it into a great strategic "pocket." But, for the intermediate type of operations the large-scale effort aiming at tactical and moral rather than strategic results the attack possibilities, even on the short flanks of the salient itself, were not inadequate; and it was against this type of attack too heavy for the local troops to meet, yet not so heavy that the Higher Command could afford to expend its entire reserves in supporting them that the defence was, in the ensemble, weakest. This was the case that actually occurred, and it imposed the maximum strain both on the German fighting troops, who were called on to make head against great odds, and on the German Higher Command, for which (as Ludendorff's memoirs show) the correct disposition of the reserves was a matter of extreme difficulty and. anxiety.
The choice of this intermediate form of offensive by the Russians was, however, not deliberate, but imposed by unforeseen events. Their original intentions and their first preparations were based on the decisions of the inter-Allied conference, which fixed July 1 as the date at which great offensives would be launched simultaneously on all fronts. But in Feb. the Germans forestalled this plan by attacking Verdun with such power and fury that the western front was thrown into a state of acute crisis. Repeated calls were made by the French for a relief offensive in the east,
- ↑ A switch-line was drawn across this higher ground from Goduzizschki S.E. to the main position just N. of Lake Miadzol. But this line was incomplete at the time of the battle.
