It was, therefore, a surprise to every one when, towards the end of the second week in October the official bulletin from St. Petersburg admitted that Von Hindenburg had forced his way up to the left bank of the middle Vistula and overrun all Western Poland--this, too, at a time when all the rest of Europe believed that the Germans were still on the frontiers of Poland and Galicia, and busy preparing the fortresses of Thorn and Posen for a siege. It was afterwards explained that the Russian retirement to the Vistula was a deliberate “strategic” movement intended to lure the Germans to destruction. But it is fairly certain that the Russians had sent such large masses of men northwards and southwards for the operations in East Prussia and Galicia, besides providing for an army they were concentrating on the Black Sea coast and the Caucasus, that their forces in Central Poland had been considerably reduced. During Von Hindenburg’s advance they were busily engaged in reinforcing the army on the middle Vistula and in the Polish triangle of fortresses, and for this purpose they drew in several army corps from their left.
Weakened by this withdrawal, the Russian army in Galicia gave way before the advance of the Austrian armies on the German right. Jaroslav was abandoned, the siege of Przemysl was temporarily raised, and General Brussiloff concentrated his forces to protect Lemberg from recapture.
The right column of the German advance, pushing forward through Radom, reached the river Vistula near Ivangorod, tried to force a passage over it below the fortress, and attacked the outlying defences of the place. The columns of the left and centre, under Von Hindenburg’s personal command, penetrated to within a few miles of Warsaw, where at last they met with serious opposition. The Grand-duke Nicholas began to push a considerable force westward from the city to protect it from even a temporary occupation, while his main line of defence lay along the right bank of the Vistula above and below the city. It was early on the morning of October 11 that the thunder of the guns told the inhabitants of Warsaw that a great battle had begun at the very gates of their city.
During the preceding days there had been rumours not only that the Germans were approaching in great force, but that the Grand-duke was about to evacuate the city.
