The fight for Warsaw began Friday, October 16th, and continued for three days, von Hindenburg being personally in command.  On Monday the Germans found themselves in trouble.  A Russian attack on their left wing had come with crushing force.  Von Hindenburg found his left wing thrown back, and the whole German movement thrown into disorder.  Meanwhile an attempt to cross the Vistula at Josefov had also been a failure.  The Russians allowed the Germans to pass with slight resistance, waited until they arrived at the village Kazimirjev, a district of low hills and swampy flats, and then suddenly overwhelmed them.

Next day the Russians crossed the river themselves, and advanced along the whole line, driving the enemy before them, through great woods of spruce out into the plains on the west.  This forest region was well known to the Russian guides, and the Germans suffered much as the Russians had suffered in East Prussia.  Ruzsky, the Russian commander, pursued persistently; the Germans retreating first to Kielce, whence they were driven, on the 3d of November, with great losses, and then being broken into two pieces, with the north retiring westward and the south wing southwest toward Cracow.

Rennenkampf’s attack on the German left wing was equally successful, and von Hindenburg was driven into full retreat.  The only success won during this campaign was that in the far south where Austrian troops were sweeping eastward toward the San.  This army drove back the Russians under Ivanov, reoccupied Jaroslav and relieved Przemysl.  This was a welcome relief to Przemysl, for the garrison was nearly starved, and it was well for the garrison that the relief came, for in a few days the Russians returned, recaptured Jaroslav and reinvested Przemysl.  As von Hindenburg retreated he left complete destruction in his wake, roads, bridges, railroad tracks, water towers, railway stations, all were destroyed; even telegraph posts, broken or sawn through, and insulators broken to bits.

It was now the turn of Russia to make a premature advance, and to pay for it.  Doubtless the Grand Duke Nicholas, whose strategy up to this point had been so admirable, knew very well the danger of a new advance in Galicia, but he realized the immense political as well as military advantages which were to be obtained by the capture of Cracow.  He therefore attempted to move an army through Poland as well as through Galicia, hoping that the army in Poland would keep von Hindenburg busy, while the Galician army would deal with Cracow.

The advance was slow on account of the damaged Polish roads.  It was preceded by a cavalry screen which moved with more speed.  On November 10th, the vanguard crossed the Posen frontier and cut the railway on the Cracow-Posen line.  This reconnaissance convinced the Russian general that the German army did not propose to make a general stand, and it seemed to him that if he struck strongly with his center along the Warta, he might destroy the left flank of the German southern army, while his own left flank was assaulting Cracow.  He believed that even if his attack upon the Warta failed, the Russian center could at any rate prevent the enemy from interfering with the attack further south upon Cracow.