Roadside History Lessons. The Battle of Rawka 1915-2015

Between 1914 and 1915 the region was the frontline of the First World War, also known as the Great War, the Total War, or the European War. One of the most important episodes of the conflict was the Battle of Rawka, also known as the Battle of Bolimów.

It was a continuation of the large-scale battle fought to the east of Warsaw since September 1914.

In the Battle of Łódź that took place in late November 1914, also known as Operation Łódź , the Russian army aimed to fortify the Eastern Front by taking advantage of the difficult lay of the land in the area. Between Warsaw and Łódź, the rivers of Rawka and Bzura provided considerable natural barriers. Their banks, boggy on one side and steep on the other, shaped a terrain that greatly facilitated defence efforts and hindered any attempt of a charge. In the area between the villages of Mogiły and Zakrzew, where the land near the Bzura was too boggy, the Russians built their main positions 3 km from the river Rawka.

Here, the frontline passed through the fortified villages of Wola Szydłowiecka, Humin, Dołowatka, Borzymów (today Borzymówka), and continued in the direction of the river Sucha.

Reports from the fierce battles fought by the Rawka, near Bolimów and Borzymów were front page news all over the world at the time.

Gas Attacks in the Vicinity of Bolimów.

  Of all the horrific events that took place in those days, the gas attacks were undoubtedly the most dramatic. The first, unsuccessful attempt to use chemical irritants on the Eastern Front was the deployment of tear gas near the Rawka river on 31 January 1915.

The attempt was thwarted, however, by low temperatures which prevented the gas from reaching sufficient volatility, and the Russian troops were not harmed.

The Germans’ next attempt, this time with chlorine, took place in the spring of 1915. The first mass-scale military use of poisonous gases took place in Ypres, Belgium on 22 April 1915. A little over a month later, on 31 May 1915, chlorine was deployed in the area between Majdan (today the vicinity of the forester’s lodge in Joachimów Mogiły) and Zakrzew. The Germans placed 1,200 steel canisters along the frontline and released 240 tonnes of heavier-than-air chlorine. This new form of attack took the Russians by surprise. Over 1,100 soldiers were killed and several thousand poisoned. Nonetheless, the German troops failed to make any significant headway and breach the enemy lines. The wind carried the gas over the Russian frontlines and the poison only affected the soldiers of the second line and those stationed in the support area. On 12 June 1915, a three-times smaller amount of chlorine deployed in the area between the villages of Sucha and Zakrzew resulted in a 6 km long and 3 km deep breach in the Russian lines. This time 3,100 Russian troops were affected, with over 1,000 killed. The German army also suffered the effects of their own attack, in the area of the Sucha river approximately 350 own soldiers were inadvertently poisoned.

The last gas attack deployed in the region took place during the night of 6/7 July 1915. This time the cloud of poisonous chlorine was released in the broad section of the frontline between the village of Wola Szydłowiecka and Zakrzew. Approximately 5,000 Russian troops were affected and many killed on the spot. However, a sudden change of wind pushed the cloud back towards German positions, poisoning 1450 soldiers and killing 139. Ten days after the July attack, the Russian army withdrew from the Rawka with the following Germans in hot pursuit.

Almost immediately, the residents of the ruined farmsteads started coming back to their villages. Their present descendants can still tell the stories of their grandparents who distinctly recalled the devastation caused by World War I as the most dramatic event of the 20th century in the region.

When passing one of the many wartime cemeteries in the area, one should bear in mind that around 3 million Poles, usually forcefully drafted into one of the partitioners’ armies, fought on all WWI frontlines and over 500 thousand of them lost their lives. Many of their names can still be read on the surviving tombstones.

+++

The Battle of Rawka fought in 1914 and 1915 was among the bloodiest engagements on the WWI Eastern Front. The tragic uniqueness of this encounter is partially due to the fact that it was where the Germans first resorted to gas warfare on the Eastern front as they found themselves unable to otherwise breach Russian defences. There has always been a particular dread associated with chemical weapons. Each time they were used in the area of Bolimów constituted a blatant violation of the Hague Convention of 1899. At first (on 31 January 1915) the Germans tried to deploy tear gas, but the attempt was unsuccessful. Next (on 31 May, 12 June and 6/7 July) they resorted to lethal chlorine which was released in the form of a poisonous cloud from thousands of cylinders. In the area of Bolimów, the gas was used along the section of the frontline extending from the today’s village of Joachimów-Mogiły, through Wólka Szydłowiecka, Humin, Borzymów (today Borzymówka), to Zakrzew and Kozłów Biskupi. The exact number of casualties was never determined. It can be assumed, however, that over 3 thousand Russian troops were killed in the direct aftermath of the attacks, with several thousand more were severely poisoned. As a result of sudden changes in wind direction, approximately 1,500 German soldiers were also affected, around 150 of whom died. At the same time, the harm caused to the civilian population and the natural environment (local fauna, flora, water reservoirs, etc.) was completely beyond measure. For long years after the war, the plant life typical for the area could not be restored on the banks of the Rawka river and even today, 100 years after these events, there are still places where only the sturdiest and least demanding trees and shrubs are able to survive.

Among the thousands of soldiers on both the Russian and the German side, many bore Polish sounding names. These can still be found on the tombstones of the local cemeteries. It is estimated that in total around 3 million Poles fought on the frontlines of the First World War and approximately 500 thousand were killed. How many of that number lost their lives on the Rawka river remains unknown. Many of the casualties, including those of Polish descent, will forever remain anonymous, partially due to the fact that Russian soldiers often did not wear identification tags. Another reason is the fact that through the passage of time and human influence many of the inscriptions that were placed or could have been placed on military graves have long been erased. Ever scarcer memories, some source documents and a few yellowed photographs are all that remains of the soldiers’ life and death in the trenches.

The Great War left its bitter mark on the region along with various subtle, material traces of the events. The latter include remains of trenches, dugouts, field hospitals, shells, and graves of unnamed soldiers scattered throughout the countryside along the former frontlines, today found mainly in the area of the Bolimów Landscape Park. The traces also include several tenement houses from the period that survive in the Boilimów town square, military cemeteries (such as these in Bolimowska Wieś, Wólka Łasiecka, or Joachimów Mogiły), and churches (e.g. St Anna’s, which a hundred years ago served as military barracks and whose facade is decorated with WWI shells built into the walls). All these traces constitute a very particular Roadside History Lesson, which may offer a chance for us to better understand the People and the Things that surround us.

The educational routes proposed as part of the  Roadside History Lessons Programme bring us closer to the key aspects of the 1914-1915 military action on the river Rawka and make us more sensitive to the (natural and cultural) processes that have taken place in the region (1914-2014).

They both start from Bolimów and are planned in such a way so as to represent two distinct aspects of life on the frontlines.

route I:  Life and death in World War I trenches by the river Rawka.

route II: Life behind the lines – the support area of the Rawka frontlines in 1914-1915.

The information boards  and the publication are the outcomes of the project entitled ARCHAEOLOGY AS AN ANTIDOTE TO OBLIVION AND VANDALISM. WORLD WAR I IN THE VICINITY OF THE RAWKA AND BZURA RIVERS (1914-1915). TOWARDS A ROADSIDE HISTORY LESSON (RHL).

The project is co-financed by the  the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation

and is under the auspices of Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology (IAE PAN) .

In terms of content and design RHL information boards were prepared by Anna Zalewska (archaeologist and historian), Stanisław Kaliński (author of the book Ataki gazowe w bitwie pozycyjnej 9. Armii Niemieckiej nad Rawką i Bzurą [„Gas attacks during the German 9th Army’s positional battle of the Rawka and Bzura in 1914-1915”] and Jacek Czarnecki (polemologist, journalist).

A more exact identification of traces of military conflict by precisely tracing the frontlines, tunnel warfare, trench architecture, etc. will be possible in the course of non-invasive archaeological research conducted as part of the research grant entitled ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESTORATION OF THE MEMORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

Material remnants of life and death in the trenches of the Eastern Front and transformations of the battlescape in the region of the Rawka and Bzura rivers (1914-2014) by the National Science Centre.

The Originator and Supervisor of both projects

Anna Zalewska.

            All material traces of the past constitute a very particular Roadside History Lesson, which may offer us a chance to better understand the People and the Things that surround us.

There are many reasons behind our limited knowledge about the positional warfare in the region of the Rawka that took place a century ago.

If you are interested in learning more and staying up-to-date with the current state of our knowledge on these matters, we encourage you to visit http://archeopressja.wordpress.com/ and read „Wielka Wojna  nad Rawką 1914-1915 i materialne po niej pozostałosci”, by Zalewska A., Kaliński S., Czarnecki J.  [The Great War on Rawka 1914-1915 and its material remains].