The history of the defense of the Osovets fortress - do not surrender and do not die
In any ancient historical name, there is usually a certain mysticism, a divine finger pointing to past or future great events. The Osovets fortress is a clear confirmation of this. It got its name on a purely geographical basis - from the name of a huge, high island, lost in the swamps between the Narev and Beaver rivers, on which they decided to build it. However, in the Western Ukrainian dialect, this word means "hornet's nest" - old, perennial, overgrown, as if glued together from tissue paper. And in 1915, terrible for the Russian army, this old small fortress became for the German command a true "hornet's nest" - the crash site of German hopes for the triumphant Drang nach Osten (March to the East).
In Russian military history, the defense of Osovets has forever remained not only as a brilliant, but also as a very rare page, proving that with the proper level of command, the Russians are able to fight not only in numbers, "throwing corpses on the enemy", but also by skill.
Strategic position of Osovets
The Osovets fortress was at the same time very old - by the time of its foundation (1795), and new - by the state of the fortifications, which were constantly being built and completed at the slow pace that the Russian military department was accustomed to. The defenders of the fortress during the Great War composed a touching song about their citadel. It contains such artless, but sincere lines:
Where the world ends
There is a fortress Osovets, There are terrible swamps, -
The Germans are reluctant to get into them.
Osovets was indeed built on a high, dry island among swamps, which stretched with a wide sleeve for many tens of kilometers to the north and south of the fortress. The construction of fortifications began in 1795, after the so-called Third Partition of Poland. According to the general plan of 1873, the fortress was significantly expanded so that it could control all the crossings across the Bobr River and provide reliable protection of the transport hub of the city of Bialystok from a possible strike from the north - from East Prussia.
The construction of powerful fortifications to defend against the Germans was led by a German, the Courland nobleman Eduard Johann (who became simply Eduard Ivanovich in the Russian service) von Totleben, a talented military engineer who for a long time headed the entire military-engineering department of the Russian Empire. The famous Belgian military theorist, the builder of the powerful fortress of Antwerp, Henri Brialmont, called General Totleben in his writings "the most remarkable engineer of the 19th century."
Count Edward Totleben. Photo: RIA Novosti
Totleben knew where to build and how to build. It was almost impossible to bypass Osovets from the flanks - the flank fortifications of the fortress ended in deserted swamps. “There are almost no roads in this area, there are very few villages, individual farmsteads' yards communicate with each other along rivers, canals and narrow paths. The enemy will not find here any roads, no shelter, no positions for artillery, - this is how the area around Osovets was described for the period of 1939 in a geographical summary on the Western theater of operations (TVD) prepared by the USSR People's Commissariat of Defense.
The Osovets fortress was of great strategic importance: it blocked the main routes Petersburg-Berlin and Petersburg-Vienna. Without the preliminary capture of this citadel, it was impossible to capture Bialystok, the capture of which immediately opened the shortest routes to Vilno (Vilnius), Grodno, Brest-Litovsk and Minsk.
A class 3 fortress that fought first class
According to the existing engineering and fortification rank of the Russian Empire, Osovets belonged to the fortresses of the 3rd class (for comparison, the most powerful citadels of Kovna and Novogeorgievsk, which ignominiously surrendered after 10 days of the German assault, belonged to the fortresses of the 1st class).
In the Osovets fortress there were only 4 forts (in Novogeorgievsk - 33). The manpower of the citadel was 27 infantry battalions with a total number of bayonets less than 40 thousand (in Novogeorgievsk - 64 battalions or more than 90 thousand bayonets). In terms of super-heavy and heavy artillery, Osovets did not at all stand up to any comparison with Novogeorgievsk: there was no super-heavy artillery (305-mm and 420-mm calibers) in the fortress, and heavy artillery (107-mm, 122-mm and 150-mm calibers) totaled only 72 barrels. Against this background, the potential of Novogeorgievsk looked like an artillery Armageddon: only 203-mm guns, there were 59 barrels here, and there were also 152-mm guns - 359 barrels.
The training mobilization of the Osovets fortress, carried out in 1912, revealed significant gaps in artillery armament: the shortage of serf-type guns (heavy, anti-assault, caponier), a shortage of shells, a lack of communications and optical devices for firing. In the report on the conducted exercises, it was noted that the location and equipment of the batteries did not even meet the minimum modern requirements: of 18 long-range batteries, only four were professionally covered and well applied to the terrain, the remaining 14 batteries could be easily detected by the brilliance of the shots.
Before the outbreak of hostilities, some flaws in the artillery armament of the citadel were corrected: six new concrete batteries were built, one armored battery, armored observation posts were built on the vectors of a possible enemy offensive, and ammunition was significantly replenished. However, the main armament of the fortress could not be replaced or even substantially replenished: the basis of the combat power of Osovets was still the old 150-mm cannon of the 1877 model.
True, in the period 1912-1914. to the northeast of the main fort No. 1, on the so-called Skobelevsky hill, a new artillery position was built, equipped at a modern level. On the top of the hill was built the only armored artillery pillbox at the beginning of the Great War in Russia. It was equipped with a 152 mm cannon, which was covered by an armored turret manufactured by the French firm "Schneider-Creusot". Below the hill was a field artillery battery and rifle positions with powerful reinforced concrete shelters.
Outdated artillery weapons, not the most powerful casemates and caponiers, not too numerous garrison did not prevent the Osovets command from organizing proactive and volitional defense. For 6 and a half months - from February 12 to August 22, 1915 - the glory of the courageous heroes of Osovets supported the fighting spirit of the retreating Russian army.
Lieutenant General Karl-August Schulman
The Germans made the first attempt to storm the Osovets Fortress in September 1914 - the advance units of the 8th German Army, about 40 infantry battalions in total, approached its walls. From the Prussian Königsberg, 203-mm cannons (about 60 guns) were hastily delivered. The artillery preparation began on October 9 and lasted two days. On October 11, the German infantry launched an assault, but were driven back by powerful machine-gun fire.
During this period, the garrison of Osovets was commanded by a brilliant military officer, Lieutenant General Karl-August Shulman. He did not, like the commandant of Novogeorgievsk N. P. Bobyr or the commandant of Kovna V. N. Grigoriev, passively wait for the next assault. In the middle of the night, carefully withdrawing the troops from the fortress, General Shulman threw the soldiers into two swift flanking counterattacks. The German assault position was squeezed from both sides, there was a threat to lose all heavy artillery at once. Only thanks to the staunchness of the German soldiers, who took up a perimeter defense, the 203-mm assault cannons were saved. However, the siege of Osovets had to be lifted - it was not in the habit of experienced German generals to risk the most valuable heavy weapons.
Karl-August Schulman. Photo: wikipedia.org
The Germans decided to create a new assault position, moving it 8-10 km further from the outer bypass of the citadel in order to exclude the possibility of unexpected flank attacks and counter-battery fire from the fortress. However, it was not possible to gain a foothold at the new frontier: the offensive of the Russian troops in the late autumn of 1914 indicated the possibility of an invasion of German Silesia by the "wild hordes of Cossacks".
By decree of Nicholas II of September 27, General Karl-August Shulman was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree. Thin, sharp-nosed, far from monumental health, General Shulman cultivated his own style of command in Osovets. His main idea was a daring militant initiative - a style of defense that demonstrates complete contempt for the potential of the enemy. To lead two regiments of soldiers through the swampy swamps at night in order to try to capture the assault artillery of an entire army group with the first ray of the sun with a decisive attack - such a fantastic idea could not even arise in the restless, cowardly minds of the commandants of Kovna and Novogeorgievsk.
Major General Nikolai Brzhozovsky
At the beginning of 1915, General Shulman handed over command of the citadel to the chief of the Osovets fortress artillery, Major General Nikolai Aleksandrovich Brzhozovsky, who came from the Russianized Polish nobles. The new commandant fully shared the ideology of the former commander. In the last days of January 1915, using the forces of the 16th Infantry Division that had retreated to Osovets, General Brzhozovsky created a number of fortified positions on the 25-verst foreground of the fortress - from the Graevo railway station to the fortress # 2 (Zarechny). Thus, the defense system of the fortress received the necessary reinforcement in depth.
In early February 1915, in an attempt to forestall the offensive of the 10th and 12th Russian armies to East Prussia, the commander of the German Eastern Front, Field Marshal Hindenburg decided to inflict a powerful preemptive strike on the Russian positions. He was supposed to deprive the Russian armies of the strategic initiative and prepare the conditions for the offensive actions of the German armies in the spring-summer period of 1915.
The first to go on the offensive was the 8th German army. On February 7, the strike group of this army, consisting of 3 infantry divisions, began to press the Russian 57th infantry division. Since the general balance of forces was not in favor of the Russians (the 57th Infantry Division had three infantry regiments, four artillery batteries and one Cossack regiment), the command of the North-Western Front decided to withdraw this division to Osovets.
Nikolay Brzhozovsky. Photo: wikipedia.org
Since February 12, fierce battles have raged in the foreground of Osovets, prudently fortified by the commandant Brzhozovsky. Until February 22, i.e. those very 10 days, which were enough to compel the surrender of Kovna and Novogeorgievsk, the Germans continued to fight only for the approaches to the citadel.
In these conditions, the new command of Osovets showed itself from the best side. “The troops had to operate under extremely unfavorable conditions,” writes S. A. Osovets, a participant in the defense. Khmelkov, “disgusting weather, swampy terrain, lack of housing, lack of hot food exhausted the strength of the people, while the fortress rendered great help, regularly sending canned food, white bread, warm linen to the shooters, and promptly taking the wounded and sick to the rear hospitals.”
The power of the "toy fortress"
By February 22, 1915, the German troops, at the cost of heavy losses and a complete loss of the offensive pace, finally "chewed" the foreground of Osovets. The German Emperor Wilhelm II, who was at the front at that time, had the opportunity to inspect the fortifications of the Russian citadel with optical instruments. The fortifications of Osovets did not impress him. In one of the subsequent orders, the Kaiser called Osovets "a toy fortress" and set the task of capturing it in a maximum of 10 days.
Following the instructions of the Kaiser, on February 22-25, German troops tried to seize the key part of the outer circumference of the fortress, the so-called Sosnenskaya position, and at the same time to cover the left flank of the fortress in the area of the town of Goncharovskaya gat. This plan failed. The commandant of Osovets figured out the plans of the Germans in time and responded to their concentration for the assault with decisive night sorties.
The most powerful attack was carried out on the night of February 27 by three infantry battalions in the direction of Soichinek-Tsemnoshie. The task was to identify the location of the heavy artillery of the Germans and, if possible, destroy the guns. "Big Berts" were not destroyed, but valuable information was obtained.
By February 25, the Germans had installed 66 heavy guns, caliber from 150 mm to 420 mm, in the foreground of the fortress, and opened massive fire on Osovets. The main targets of the bombing were the Central Fort, the Zarechny Fort, Skobeleva Gora and the outer structures of the citadel from the side of the proposed assault. According to special studies, about 200 thousand heavy shells were fired at the fortress.
“The external effect of the bombing was tremendous,” recalled a participant in the defense of Osovets, military engineer S. A. Khmelkov, - the shells raised the highest columns of earth or water, formed huge craters with a diameter of 8-12 m; brick buildings were smashed to dust, wood burned, weak concrete gave huge splinters in the vaults and walls, wire communications were interrupted, the highway was ruined by craters; the trenches and all the improvements on the ramparts, such as canopies, machine-gun nests, light dugouts, were wiped off the face of the earth."
Major Spalek, a participant in the defense of Osovets, later an officer of the Polish army, described the bombing of the citadel as follows: “The sight of the fortress was scary, the whole fortress was shrouded in smoke, through which huge tongues of fire erupted from shell explosions in one place or another; pillars of earth, water, and whole trees flew upward; the earth trembled and it seemed that nothing could withstand such a hurricane of fire. The impression was that not a single person would emerge whole from this typhoon of fire and iron."
The command of the Russian 12th Army, having received information about the massive German bombing, on its own initiative sent a radiogram to Osovets, in which it demanded to hold out at least 48 hours. Reply telegram from N. A. Brzhozovsky was amazed (especially against the background of the usually panicky telegrams from other commandants) with her absolute composure: “There is no reason for concern. Ammunition is sufficient, everything is in place. The command does not consider the possibility of retreating from the fortress."
The destroyed walls of the forts of the Osovets fortress. Photo: fortification.ru
In the early morning of February 28, the German army tried to storm Osovets. The result was sad: even before the approach to the outer contour of the fortress, the assault columns were scattered by concentrated machine-gun fire.
On the same day, Brzhozovsky's soldiers made it clear to the German command that the "toy fortress" could not only defend itself, but also attack. From the 150-mm guns specially installed in the new position, the Osovets artillerymen destroyed two 420-mm howitzers "Bolshaya Berta", which had been brought to the firing line near the Podlesok railway halt. Together with the cannons, more than three hundred 900-kilogram shells flew into the air towards the Berts, which in itself was a great loss for the Germans.
Thus, neither the bombardment of the citadel, nor desperate assault attempts gave practically any results - Osovets did not surrender, moreover, the morale of the fortress garrison was strengthened every day of the enemy siege. Military engineer S. A. Khmelkov later recalled: “The spirit of the Russian soldier was not broken by the bombardment - the garrison soon got used to the roar and explosions of the enemy's powerful artillery shells. "Let him shoot, at least we'll get some sleep," said the soldiers, exhausted by the fighting in the front lines and the defensive work in the fortress."
Attack of the heroic "dead"
Convinced that it would not be possible to capture Osovets by bombing and head-on assault, the German command switched to another tactic. At the end of July 1915, the enemy brought his trenches 150-200 meters to the barbed wire of the Sosnenskaya defensive position. The defenders of Osovets initially did not understand the plan of the Germans, but later it turned out that the Germans were preparing the line closest to the citadel for a gas attack.
Military historians have established that the Germans put 30 gas batteries at the forefront, each of several thousand cylinders. They waited 10 days for a steady wind and, finally, on August 6 at 4:00 am they turned on the gas. At the same time, German artillery opened heavy fire in the gas attack sector, after which, about 40 minutes later, the infantry went on the offensive.
The poisonous gas led to huge losses among the defenders of Osovets: the 9th, 10th and 11th companies of the Zemlyansky regiment were completely killed, about 40 people remained from the 12th company of this regiment, from the three companies that defended the fortress verk of Bialogronda, no more than 60 people. In such conditions, the Germans had the opportunity to quickly seize the advanced position of the Russian defense and immediately rush to the assault on the Zarechny Fort. However, the enemy's offensive ultimately collapsed.
On the right flank of the German breakthrough, apparently, the wind turned slightly, and the German 76th Landwehr Regiment fell under its own gases and lost more than 1000 people poisoned. On the left flank, the attackers were repulsed by massed fire from Russian artillery, which fired from both closed positions and direct fire.
A threatening situation has arisen in the very center of the breakthrough, in the place of the maximum concentration of the gas cloud. The Russian units that held the defense here lost more than 50% of the composition, were knocked out of their positions and retreated. From minute to minute it could be expected that the Germans would rush to storm the Zarechny Fort.
German soldiers release poisonous gas from cylinders. Photo: Henry Guttmann / Getty Images / Fotobank.ru
In this situation, General Brzhozovsky displayed amazing composure and decisiveness. He gave the order to all the fortress artillery of the Sosnensky sector to open fire on the trenches of the first and second lines of the Russian Sosnensky position, on which German helmets were already sparkling. At the same time, all divisions of the Zarechny Fort, despite the poisoning, were ordered to launch a counterattack.
In the history of the Great War, this heroic attack of Russian soldiers dying of suffocation, swinging from poisoning, but nevertheless rushing at the enemy, received the name "Attack of the Dead" in the history of the Great War. With faces dark green from chlorine oxide, coughing up clots of black blood, with hair instantly gray from the chemical compounds of bromine, the ranks of the "dead" of the 8th, 13th and 14th companies of the Zemlyansky regiment, joining bayonets, walked forward. The appearance of these heroes caused a truly mystical horror in the assault columns of the German 18th Landwehr Regiment. The Germans began to retreat under the massive fire of the fortress artillery and as a result left the already captured, it would seem, the front line of the Russian defense.
The feat of the soldiers of the 226th Zemlyansky regiment does not need argumentation. More than 30% of the soldiers who participated in the bayonet attack of the "dead" subsequently actually died of gangrene of the lungs. The combat crews of the fortress artillery in the gas cloud sector lost 80 to 40% of their personnel to the poisoned, nevertheless, not a single artilleryman left the position, and the Russian guns did not stop firing for a minute. The poisonous properties of chlorine-bromine compounds used by the German command did not lose their strength even at a distance of 12 kilometers from the place of gas release: in the villages of Ovechki, Zhoji, Malaya Kramkovka, 18 people were seriously poisoned.
Nails would be made of these people
The famous phrase of the poet Mayakovsky - "Nails would be made of these people - there would be no stronger nails in the world!" - you can safely address the officers of Osovets and, first of all, the commandant of the citadel Nikolai Brzhozovsky. Emphatically calm, outwardly even cold, in an invariably fresh, ideally ironed tunic, General Brzhozovsky was the true military genius of Osovets. The soldiers on guard, standing at night on the farthest bastions, were never surprised when a calm, quiet response from the commandant suddenly sounded out of the night fog and his tall, thin shadow appeared.
General Brzhozovsky matched himself to the selection of staff officers. There were no cowards, rogues and mediocrity, each staff officer knew his job, had all the necessary powers and clearly understood the full measure of wartime responsibility that would inevitably follow if the task or order was not fulfilled. Pole Brzhozovsky was not a slobber.
The cold, calculating mind of the commandant of the Osovets fortress was perfectly complemented by the indomitable impudence of thought and the propensity for decisive action, which was shown by the senior adjutant of the headquarters Mikhail Stepanovich Sveshnikov (in some sources - Svechnikov). An ethnic Don Cossack from the village of Ust-Medveditskaya, Lieutenant Colonel Sveshnikov never engaged in abstruse reflections, but he was always ready for daring offensive actions.
Russian soldier who died on the battlefield. Photo: Imperial War Museums
The revolutionary catastrophe of 1917 scattered General Brzhozovsky and Lieutenant Colonel Sveshnikov on opposite sides of the barricades. Brzhozovsky became an active participant in the White movement and died in the Cossack autonomous region, granted for the resettlement of the Cossack emigrants by the king of Serbia. Mikhail Sveshnikov in October 1917 ensured victory for the Bolsheviks by capturing the Winter Palace in the fourth assault with a detachment of former grenadiers. Then he fought in 1918-1919. against their former comrades in the Caucasus. Received "gratitude" from the Soviet government in 1938 - was shot in the basements of Lefortovo for "participation in a military-fascist conspiracy."
But on the bastions of the Osovets fortress, these strong-minded people were still together.
Great exodus
The exodus of Russian troops from the Osovets fortress in August 1915 - after a successful defense of more than 6 months - was a foregone conclusion. The “great retreat” of the Russian armies from Poland completely deprived the defense of the Wasp's Nest of strategic importance. The continuation of the defense in complete encirclement meant the destruction of the garrison, the loss of valuable heavy artillery and all property.
The evacuation of the fortress began on 18 August and took place in extremely difficult conditions, since on 20 August the Germans captured the railway line leading to the fortress. Nevertheless, all heavy artillery and all valuable property were removed. On August 20-23, special detachments of soldiers mined all Osovets fortifications with subversive charges of wet pyroxylin weighing 1000-1500 kg.
On August 23, 1915, only military engineers, two sapper companies and a change of artillerymen with four 150-mm guns were already in the fortress. These guns fired intensively all day in order to mislead the enemy and disguise the withdrawal of the garrison. At 19.00 on the same day, sappers set fire to all the buildings assigned to destruction, and from 20.00 the planned explosions of defensive structures began. According to legend, General Brzhozovsky personally closed the electrical circuit for the first explosion, thereby taking full responsibility for the destruction of the Wasp's Nest.
The destroyed forts of the Osovets fortress. Photo: fortification.ru
Simultaneously with the destruction of the fortifications, the four heavy guns remaining in the fortress were blown up, after which the artillerymen and sappers retreated to the rear and joined their units. According to the unanimous opinion of all military experts, the evacuation of the garrison, artillery and material assets from the Osovets fortress was carried out as exemplary as its defense.
The Germans, by the power of the breaks in the fortress, immediately understood the meaning of the events that were taking place and therefore, perhaps, were in no hurry to occupy the citadel. Only in the morning of 25 August did the reconnaissance detachment of the 61st Hanoverian Infantry Regiment enter the smoking ruins of what had been called the impregnable Osovets stronghold two days ago.
