Attack of the Dead 1915. Legend of Osovets Fortress

In 1915, the world gazed with admiration at the defense of Osovets, a small Russian fortress 23.5 km from what was then East Prussia. The main task of the fortress was, as S. Khmelkov, a participant in the defense of Osovets, wrote, “to block the enemy from the nearest and most convenient way to Bialystok ... to make the enemy lose time or to conduct a long siege, or to look for workarounds.” Bialystok is a transport hub, the capture of which opened the way to Vilna (Vilnius), Grodno, Minsk and Brest. So for the Germans through Osovets lay the shortest route to Russia. It was impossible to get around the fortress: it was located on the banks of the Beaver River, controlling the entire district, in the vicinity there were solid swamps. “There are almost no roads in this area, very few villages, individual courtyards are connected to each other along rivers, canals and narrow paths,” the publication of the USSR People’s Commissariat of Defense described the area as early as 1939. “The enemy will find no roads, no housing, no closures, no positions for artillery here.” The Germans made their first onslaught in September 1914: having transferred large-caliber guns from Koenigsberg, they bombarded the fortress for six days. And the siege of Osovets began in January 1915 and lasted 190 days. The Germans used all their latest achievements against the fortress. They delivered the famous "Big Berts" - siege guns of 420-mm caliber, 800-kilogram shells of which broke through two-meter steel and concrete ceilings. The crater from such an explosion was five meters deep and fifteen in diameter.

Fortress Osovets. Fort №1

The Germans calculated that to force the surrender of a fortress with a garrison of a thousand people, two such guns and 24 hours of methodical bombardment were enough: 360 shells, a volley every four minutes. Four "Big Berts" and 64 other powerful siege weapons were brought near Osovets, a total of 17 batteries.

The most terrible shelling was at the beginning of the siege. “On February 25, the enemy opened fire on the fortress, brought it to a hurricane on February 27 and 28, and so continued to smash the fortress until March 3,” S. Khmelkov recalled. According to his calculations, during this week of terrifying shelling, 200-250 thousand heavy shells alone were fired at the fortress. And in total during the siege - up to 400 thousand. “Brick buildings fell apart, wooden ones burned, weak concrete ones gave huge spalls in the vaults and walls; the wire connection was interrupted, the highway was spoiled by funnels; trenches and all the improvements on the ramparts, such as: peaks, machine-gun nests, light dugouts, were wiped off the face of the earth. Clouds of smoke and dust hung over the fortress. Together with artillery, the fortress was bombed by German airplanes.

“The appearance of the fortress was terrible, the whole fortress was shrouded in smoke, through which, in one place or another, huge fiery tongues escaped from the explosion of shells; pillars of earth, water and whole trees flew up; 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 hurricane of fire and iron, ”wrote foreign correspondents.

The command, believing that it required almost impossible, asked the defenders of the fortress to hold out for at least 48 hours. The fortress stood for another six months. And our gunners during that terrible bombardment even managed to knock out two "Big Berts", poorly camouflaged by the enemy. Along the way, they also blew up an ammunition depot.

August 6, 1915 was a black day for the defenders of Osovets: the Germans used poison gases to destroy the garrison. They prepared the gas attack carefully, patiently waiting for the right wind. We deployed 30 gas batteries, several thousand cylinders. On August 6, at 4 am, a dark green mist of a mixture of chlorine and bromine flowed onto the Russian positions, reaching them in 5-10 minutes. A gas wave 12-15 meters high and 8 km wide penetrated to a depth of 20 km. The defenders of the fortress did not have gas masks.

“Every living thing in the open air on the bridgehead of the fortress was poisoned to death,” recalled a member of the defense. - All the greenery in the fortress and in the nearest area along the path of the gases was destroyed, the leaves on the trees turned yellow, curled up and fell off, the grass turned black and lay on the ground, the flower petals flew around. All copper objects on the bridgehead of the fortress - parts of guns and shells, washbasins, tanks, etc. - were covered with a thick green layer of chlorine oxide; food items stored without hermetic sealing - meat, butter, lard, vegetables, turned out to be poisoned and unfit for consumption.

“The half-poisoned wandered back,” this is another author, “and, tormented by thirst, bent down to the sources of water, but here the gases lingered in low places, and secondary poisoning led to death.”

The German artillery again opened massive fire, following the fire shaft and the gas cloud, 14 landwehr battalions moved to storm the Russian advanced positions - and this is at least seven thousand infantrymen. On the front line after the gas attack, hardly more than a hundred defenders remained alive. The doomed fortress, it seemed, was already in German hands. But when the German chains approached the trenches, from a thick green chlorine fog, they fell upon them ... counterattacking Russian infantry. The sight was terrifying: the soldiers walked into the bayonet with their faces wrapped in rags, shaking from a terrible cough, literally spitting out pieces of the lungs on the bloodied tunics. These were the remnants of the 13th company of the 226th infantry Zemlyansky regiment, a little more than 60 people. But they plunged the enemy into such horror that the German infantrymen, not accepting the battle, rushed back, trampling each other and hanging on their own wire barriers. And from the Russian batteries shrouded in chlorine clubs, what seemed to be dead artillery began to hit them. Several dozen half-dead Russian soldiers put three German infantry regiments to flight! The world military art did not know anything like this. This battle will go down in history as the "attack of the dead".

Russian troops nevertheless left Osovets, but later and by order of the command, when its defense lost its meaning. The evacuation of the fortress is also an example of heroism. Because everything had to be taken out of the fortress at night, during the day the highway to Grodno was impassable: it was constantly bombed by German airplanes. But the enemy was not left with either a cartridge, or a shell, or even a can of canned food. Each gun was pulled on straps by 30-50 artillerymen or militias. On the night of August 24, 1915, Russian sappers blew up everything that had survived from German fire, and only a few days later the Germans decided to occupy the ruins.

In 1924, European newspapers wrote about a certain Russian soldier (his name, unfortunately, is not known), discovered by the Polish authorities in the Osovets fortress. As it turned out, during the retreat, sappers bombarded the underground warehouses of the fortress with ammunition and food with directed explosions. When the Polish officers descended into the cellars, out of the darkness came a Russian voice: “Stop! Who goes?" The stranger turned out to be Russian. The sentry surrendered only after it was explained to him that the country he served was long gone. For 9 years, the soldier ate stewed meat and condensed milk, having lost track of time and adapted to existence in the dark. After he was taken out, he lost his sight from sunlight and was admitted to the hospital, after which he was handed over to the Soviet authorities. On this, his trace in history is lost.

Ruins of the 2nd fort of the Osovets fortress

prof. K.I. Velichko. Excerpt from the publication "The role of fortresses in connection with the operations of field armies". (1925)

Osovets Fortress - a fortress-outpost. She blocked the railway from Lyk through Graevo to Bialystok when crossing this road over the bridge over the Beaver River, which flows in a wide and swampy valley. It consisted of a large central fort No. I, connected by a fence with water ditches with fort III, and also had a fort - II - Zarechny on the enemy's right bank, covering the bridge. fort III. The presence of Fort II on the right bank of the Beaver gave Osovets a certain significance in the sense of allowing the possibility of playing not only a passive, but also an active role.

There were no other ways, except for the Osovets fortress blocked by the fortress from East Prussia through the border town of Graev to the important railway junction in Bialystok, as a result of which the stubborn resistance of Osovets, in the event of attacks, became especially important, since with the unreliable state of the 10th Army and the management of its operations revealed , the army of the right-flank, which the Hindenburg attack was supposed to fall on, with the aim of first breaking it and then covering the rights. flank of the entire Russian front, the Germans could reach the message of our center. But for this it was necessary to break the resistance that this army could provide on the middle Neman, with the support of the two fortresses of Kovno and Grodno. According to German sources, the difficulties associated with capturing these fortresses forced Hindenburg to extend his coverage to the north through the 8th army of Bülow. Another way to break the rear communications was through the upper Narew and Beaver along the Lomza-Osovets front to the Bialystok railway junction.

After the battles on 25 Dec. and 16 Jan. on the line of Johannisburg, Lisken, Vincent, part of the Russian forces (one division) retreated to Osovets, becoming part of its garrison, while parts of the 10th army that occupied Johannisburg, pressed by the enemy, exposed Art. Graevo, which has not yet completed the evacuation and the right flank of the left-flank units of the army. The commandant of Osovets organized the Graevsky detachment from the garrison under the head. regiment. Kataev, who occupied Graevo, where he fortified in order to block the Shchuchin-Graevo-Graygorod highway, which the enemy could use for his movements along the front. From that day, on January 30, the garrison began a wide-active work throughout the entire space from Graev to Zarechny Fort (25 versts), where a number of fortified positions were created, from which the Sosnenskaya position closest to the fortress was already advanced and could receive the support of fortress heavy artillery . This stubborn struggle for the terrain ahead managed to pull over significant German forces and force (due to the experience of the unsuccessful 1st bombardment in September 1914) to bring up to 68 heavy, siege-type guns, including 16-8 dm., 16-12 dm. and 4-16 dm. Despite the insignificant bridgehead represented by the fortress, this second bombardment, launched on 9 Feb. and lasted until the beginning of March, had no effect on the resistance of the fortress. Judging by the reports, these are the results achieved by the enemy in a month's time: all concrete structures of a vital and combat nature have been preserved, as a result of which the garrison located in the forts and the bridgehead suffered negligible losses; all the efforts of the Germans to destroy (as Emperor Wilhelm, who arrived at the front, put it in one of his orders) a toy fortress within 10 days did not lead to this goal. According to the results of the bombardment, we can say with confidence that the Osovets fortress will withstand the same bombardment, in which the number of shells fired reached 80,000. Thus, the properly organized and skillfully conducted defense of Osovets (commandant of Art. Gen. Brzhozovsky), in the presence of appropriately arranged concrete casemated structures, was not afraid of 42 cm mortars and 30.5 cm howitzers in opposition to the Belgian fortresses, but, like Verdun, confirmed that "long-term fortification in the world war passed the test." In the description of the defense of Osovets (M. Svechnikov and V. Bunyakovsky) it is said: "Osovets was the first to debunk the prevailing belief about the action of German heavy artillery and proved that as long as the garrison is strong in spirit, nothing can force the surrender of the fortress." Didn't Ivangorod show the same thing? It must be added that the enemy did not fail to act with suffocating gases, but he himself perished from them (up to 1,000 people) and did not achieve success, due to the desperate counter-attacks of the garrison. Its repeated assaults were repulsed with heavy losses, and attempts to bypass the fortress from the north and south were unsuccessful, timely warned by the flank operations of the garrison, which stretched its front behind Beaver for almost 48 miles. Stubborn defense of advanced rights. careful bridgehead, up to 12 versts deep, increased the strength of the frontal resistance of the fortress and created extremely favorable conditions for going on the offensive in an extremely important direction to Graevo-Lyk, across the gap between enemy groups operating against the armies adjacent to the fortress. Osovets blocked the 50-verst interval between the armies of the front and supported them under the skillful and courageous leadership of the commandant, General. (gunner) Brzhozovsky, who replaced the gene. Shulman, who just as valiantly beat off the first 4-day assault in 1914. By order of the Chief command 9 Aug. 1915 at 11 o'clock. At night, the garrison left the fortress, forming a consolidated corps under the command of the same general. Brozhozovsky, destroying the fortress, and took up a field position 13 miles to the east.

The defense of the "toy fortress" Osovets is as brilliant as the French defense of the large maneuverable fortress of Verdun, and the role it played in tactical and strategic respects, in turn, justified the costs incurred for the construction and the sacrifices that its valiant garrison suffered.

The feat of Vladimir Kotlinsky, who led the "attack of the dead"

The described attack was led by Vladimir Karpovich Kotlinsky. He was born on July 10, 1894, a native of the peasants of the Minsk province, later lived in Pskov. In World War I, he was a second lieutenant of the corps of military topographers, seconded to the 226th Zemlyansky Regiment of the 1st Brigade of the 57th Infantry Division of the Russian Imperial Army. He died at the age of 21 during the "attack of the dead".
Awarded:
As an ensign: the Order of St. Stanislaus with swords and a bow of the 3rd degree, the Order of St. Anne of the 3rd and 4th degrees.
As a lieutenant: Order of St. Stanislav with swords and a bow of the 2nd degree, Order of St. George 4th degree (posthumously).

Here is what the Pskovskaya Zhizn newspaper wrote, No. 1104 of November 28, 1915, about the "attack of the dead":

“In the Russian Word, a participant in the defense of the Osovets fortress tells about the heroic deed of a Pskovite, second lieutenant V.K. Kotlinsky, who died untimely in one of the valiant attacks on the enemy. VK Kotlinsky was born in Ostrov and graduated from the Pskov Real School.
“It is unlikely that any of the defenders of Osovets,” says the author of the memoirs, “will forget about the assault on July 24, when the Germans used asphyxiating gases for the first time on the Osovets front.
I cannot describe the bitterness and fury with which our soldiers marched against the German poisoners.
Strong rifle and machine-gun fire, densely bursting shrapnel could not stop the onslaught of the enraged soldiers. Exhausted, poisoned, they fled with the sole purpose of crushing the Germans. There were no laggards, no one had to rush. There were no individual heroes here, the companies marched as one person, animated by only one goal, one thought: to die, but to take revenge on the vile poisoners.
However, no, I know one hero - an outstanding hero - of this attack. At the beginning of the war, a young man, lieutenant Kotlinsky, who had just graduated from the military topographic school, was seconded to the N-sky regiment at the beginning of the war. This man seemed to have absolutely no idea what a sense of fear or even a sense of self-preservation was. Already in the past work of the regiment, he did a lot of good, commanding one of the companies.
Now, heavily poisoned with gases, he received an order to lead a company in a counterattack, went ahead of the soldiers, carrying only binoculars.
In a moment of hellish, incredible shelling, he, orienting himself, calmly examined individual places of battle and gave the appropriate orders.
And along with this insane, selfless courage, he protected the lives of his people. When we passed the section of the railway bed, when the Germans were 300-400 steps away, Kotlinsky ordered the company to lie down under the hill, and he himself went out under the enemy’s hurricane fire to an open place and examined the disposition of his forces through binoculars. He sacrificed himself to his company. The place chosen by him for the attack turned out to be successful. The Germans could not withstand the frenzied onslaught of our soldiers and rushed to flee in a panic. They did not even have time to carry away or damage our machine guns in their hands.
But Lieutenant Kotlinsky himself was wounded by an explosive bullet in the side and died by the evening of the same day.
The victory of Lieutenant Kotlinsky's company is also his personal victory. For a glorious military feat, he was posthumously presented to the St. George Cross.

Conclusion of the military publishing house of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR on the reasons for the stubborn and long-term defense of the Osovets fortress. Written in 1939.

The Osovets fortress, unlike other Russian fortresses - Novogeorgievsk, Kovna, Grodna - fulfilled its purpose - it forbade the enemy's access to Bialystok for 6 months, withstood the bombardment by powerful siege artillery shells, repulsed all small attacks and repulsed the assault with the use of poison gases.

The table below gives an idea of how the huge first-class Novogeorgievsk fortress, surrounded by 45 Landwehr battalions, surrendered after 10 days of resistance, while the small “toy” Osovets fortress, attacked by almost the same forces, resisted 190 days and was left by the garrison only on the orders of the highest command.

Forces and means of the besieged German corps	Forces and means of fortresses	Notes
1. Against the Novogeorgievsk fortress a) infantry battalions - 45 b) heavy artillery - 84 guns c) including 305- and 420-mm - 15 guns	Garrison and armament a) forts - 33 b) infantry battalions - 64 c) heavy artillery - 1000 guns	Surrendered, leaving the enemy 80,000 prisoners and 1,200 guns
2. Against the Osovets fortress a) infantry battalions - 40 b) heavy artillery - 68 guns c) including 305- and 420-mm - 18 guns	Garrison and armament a) forts-4 b) infantry battalions - 27 c) heavy artillery - 71 guns	The fortress was destroyed, evacuated by order of the high command

The reasons for such a stubborn defense of the Osovets fortress are as follows:

1. The fortress had a combat-ready garrison. The Osovets fortress was not a circular position adapted to isolated struggle; it was a long-term fortified zone with a strong front, well-provided flanks and an open rear, connected by a railway, highway and a network of dirt roads with the rear of the front (Bialystok railway junction).

The free rear made it possible at the right time to reinforce the garrison of the fortress with priority combat regiments, which, together with the regiments fired at in the battles near Joganisburg and Graevo, the 57th Infantry. divisions represented a real force capable of resisting parts of the besieged German corps with its powerful siege artillery.

If we compare the defense of the advanced positions of Novogeorgievsk and the Osovets fortress, then the combat effectiveness of the infantry of Osovets will be clearly emphasized.

The relatively strong advanced positions of Novogeorgievsk, fired upon for several hours by heavy artillery, fell ingloriously, for their defenders fled; the infantry of the Osovets fortress held the advanced positions for 6 months, repelling all enemy attempts to capture them.

The personnel of the fortress artillery of Osovets knew their job quite satisfactorily; the commission, which checked the trial mobilization of the fortress in 1912, emphasizes that among the “dreary picture of the material part of the fortress artillery”, a good fact is the good training of the fortress artillerymen in a special respect.

Concerning the moral state of the fortress garrison, it should be mentioned that a depressed mood was observed only in the militia units during the performance of combat missions. It is impossible not to mention the bitterness that gradually accumulated among the units of the garrison against the enemy: in the letters sent by the Germans to the Sosnenskaya position, it was said that it was time for the Russians to stop resistance, since they could not fight against the Germans, and that they would soon be under the rule of the Germans. Kaiser.

The garrison of the fortress was especially impressed by the poisoning of the peasants of the villages closest to the fortress during a gas assault and the mockery of the Germans over the corpses of poisoned shooters in the trenches of Sosnya: “The bear is a terrible beast, and he does not touch the dead, and these are worse than animals, wait a minute, let me catch on,” - said the arrows of the 226th Zemlyansky regiment.

The fortress had a workable headquarters, experienced chiefs of artillery and engineers; at the head of the fortress was a decisive, energetic commandant, whose moral qualities were opposite to those of the commandants of Novogeorgievsk and Kovna, of whom the first ordered to clear the entire first line of defense after the fall of two forts (out of 33), and a few days later surrendered the fortress, giving the Germans 80,000 prisoners , 1,200 guns and several tens of millions of rubles of various property, and the second, in the midst of the fighting near the fortress, “dropped out of the fortress” with his headquarters, leaving the garrison without leadership.

2. The fortress had a financially secure base. The free rear made it possible to supply the fortress with the necessary means for a stubborn defense. Almost every night, even during the bombardment, trains and vehicles arrived at the fortress, delivering guns, ammunition, food and even building material. The fortress did not lack anti-assault artillery, machine guns, rifles and ammunition, as was the case in isolated Novogeorgievsk, where about half of the garrison had no rifles at all, and the rest were armed with Berdan rifles with 300 rounds per rifle.

The French author Grancourt, describing the state of armament of the Novogeorgievsk infantry, exclaims: “There were not even Berdan rifles, and in peacetime Sukhomlinov ordered the destruction of 600,000 Berdans and about a billion rounds of ammunition for them under the pretext that there was nowhere to store them.”

The fortress of Osovets was supplied with food and basic necessities; the garrison of the fortress did not starve and was not exhausted, as was the case in the isolated Przemysl, where the troops ate horsemeat and surrogates for a long period and were eventually forced to surrender to the besiegers after an unsuccessful breakthrough of the Russian positions on March 18, 1915.

The garrison of the fortress was also provided with sanitary supplies - dressings, medicines and other things - and could use sanitary trains that delivered the wounded, sick and poisoned to the rear hospitals.

3. The fortress had the required number of casemated structures, provided with 30.5 cm bombs. Loans issued in 1912 - 1914 to eliminate those defects in the fortification equipment of the fortress, which were noticed during the trial mobilization of the fortress in 1912, made it possible to pay attention to strengthening the structures of fortifications and to provide the latter with 30.5 cm of siege artillery from fire. Without listing all the work done that was mentioned, it can be noted that the fortification went not only along the path of constructing new powerful reinforced concrete structures, but also along the path of reinforcing the old solid brick barracks with concrete, which gave good results, and the forts of the fortress had by the beginning of the bombardment a sufficient number of barracks and shelters, safe from 21 - 30.5 cm bombs.

The old brick barracks, reinforced with concrete according to the idea of \u200b\u200b"layered construction", turned out to be stronger than the shelters of the fortresses of Liege and Namur, where the vaulted coverings were filled with solid concrete, which, with 30.5-cm and 42-cm bombs, either made its way through, or gave dangerous spalls. for people's lives.

4. Of great importance for the successful defense of the fortress were those significant mistakes that were made by the enemy during the siege.

The first mistake was that the Germans did not dare to storm the fortress on February 22 - 24, when the frost held Beaver, its swamps and water ditches of the fortress, and the garrison was overworked by fighting in the advanced positions and had not yet mastered their long-term positions.

The second mistake was the extremely hasty removal of the 42-cm guns from the position; the reasons for this order are completely incomprehensible, especially since the firing range of 42-cm guns exceeded the firing range of Canet's 15-cm fortress guns.

Finally, the third mistake was that the Germans, even at the height of the bombardment of the fortress, February 25 - March 3, did not shoot at night; this circumstance allowed the garrison to repair all daytime damage at night; in the Central Fort alone, about 1,500 people turned around at work in 8 nights. A night's respite made it possible, as was said, to bring all the necessary means of struggle to the fortress.

But the Germans did not give up. In July 1915 they went on the offensive again. This time the enemy decided to use poisonous substances against the defenders of the fortress. In the Osovets area, 30 gas-balloon batteries were deployed. Early on the morning of August 6, they released a cloud of chlorine.

The gas penetrated to a depth of 20 kilometers. The Russians did not expect a gas attack, and they did not have any protective equipment against it. This led to heavy losses on the part of the 226th Zemlyansky regiment defending the fortress. About 1,600 people were completely disabled.

The Germans did not stop there, they also began to shell the fortress, and some of the guns fired chemical charges. Then the German infantry, numbering about 7,000 people, rushed to the assault. The first two lines of Russian defense were occupied.

Then the commandant of the fortress, Lieutenant-General Nikolai Brzhozovsky, gave the order to conduct a bayonet counterattack. It was headed by the commander of the 13th company of the Zemlyansky regiment, lieutenant Vladimir Kotlinsky, who gathered under his command several dozen fighters who were the least affected by the gas.

From the side it seemed that the dead were going into battle: the faces of the soldiers were earthy, wrapped in rags, ulcers from burns were visible on the skin. Some were spitting up blood, and instead of the usual cries of “hurrah”, an eerie wheezing was heard from the soldiers’ throats ...

However, a handful of these goons managed to put the numerous German infantry to flight. Lieutenant Kotlinsky was mortally wounded in battle, but by eight o'clock in the morning the defense breakthrough was eliminated, and by 11 the attack was completely repulsed.

A few days later, the General Staff issued an order to stop the fighting and evacuate the military garrison of the fortress - its further defense was inappropriate from the point of view of the general situation at the front.

In September 1916, Lieutenant Kotlinsky was posthumously awarded the Order of St. George 4th degree for the defense of the Osovets fortress. The names of ordinary participants in the defense, alas, have not been preserved in history.

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the famous "Attack of the Dead" - an event unique in the history of wars: the counterattack of the 13th company of the 226th Zemlyansky Regiment, which survived the German gas attack during the storming of the Osovets fortress by German troops on August 6 (July 24), 1915. How it was?

It was the second year of the war. The situation on the Eastern Front was not in favor of Russia. On May 1, 1915, after a gas attack near Gorlitsa, the Germans managed to break through the Russian positions, and a large-scale offensive of German and Austrian troops began. As a result, the Kingdom of Poland, Lithuania, Galicia, part of Latvia and Belarus were left. The imperial army of Russia alone lost 1.5 million people as prisoners, and the total losses for 1915 amounted to about 3 million killed, wounded and captured.

But was the great retreat of 1915 a shameful flight? No.

About the same Gorlitsky breakthrough, the prominent military historian A. Kersnovsky writes the following: “At dawn on April 19, the 4th Austro-Hungarian and 11th German armies attacked the IX and X corps on Dunajtse and near Gorlitsa. A thousand guns - up to 12-inch caliber inclusive - flooded our shallow trenches on a front of 35 versts with a sea of fire, after which the infantry masses of Mackensen and Archduke Joseph Ferdinand rushed to the assault. Against each of our corps there was an army, against each of our brigade - a corps, against each of our regiments - a division. Encouraged by the silence of our artillery, the enemy considered all our forces wiped off the face of the earth. But from the destroyed trenches, groups of people half-covered with earth rose up - the remnants of the bloodless, but not crushed regiments of the 42nd, 31st, 61st and 9th divisions. The Zorndorf Fusiliers seemed to rise from their graves. With their iron chest, they spring back the blow and prevented the catastrophe of the entire Russian armed force.

The Russian army retreated because it experienced shell and gun hunger. Russian industrialists, for the most part, are liberal jingoistic patriots who shouted in 1914 "Give me the Dardanelles!" and demanding to provide the public with power for a victorious end to the war, were unable to cope with the shortage of weapons and shells. At the breakthrough sites, the Germans concentrated up to a million shells. For one hundred German shots, Russian artillery could only respond with ten. The plan to saturate the Russian army with artillery was thwarted: instead of 1500 guns, it received ... 88.

Weakly armed, technically illiterate in comparison with the Germans, the Russian soldier did what he could, saving the country, atoning for the miscalculations of the authorities, laziness and self-interest of the rear with his personal courage and his own blood. Without shells and cartridges, retreating, Russian soldiers inflicted heavy blows on the German and Austrian troops, whose cumulative losses in 1915 amounted to about 1,200 thousand people.

In the history of the retreat of 1915, the defense of the Osovets fortress is a glorious page. It was only 23 kilometers from the border with East Prussia. According to S. Khmelkov, a participant in the defense of Osovets, the main task of the fortress was "to block the enemy from the nearest and most convenient way to Bialystok ... to make the enemy lose time either to conduct a long siege, or to look for workarounds." And Bialystok is the road to Vilna (Vilnius), Grodno, Minsk and Brest, that is, the gate to Russia. The first German attacks followed already in September 1914, and from February 1915 systematic assaults began, which fought back for 190 days, despite the monstrous German technical power.

They delivered the famous "Big Berts" - siege guns of 420-millimeter caliber, 800-kilogram shells of which broke through two-meter steel and concrete ceilings. The funnel from such an explosion was 5 meters deep and 15 in diameter. Four "Big Berts" and 64 other powerful siege weapons were brought near Osovets - a total of 17 batteries. The most terrible shelling was at the beginning of the siege. “On February 25, the enemy opened fire on the fortress, brought it to a hurricane on February 27 and 28, and so continued to smash the fortress until March 3,” S. Khmelkov recalled. According to his calculations, during this week of terrifying shelling, 200-250 thousand heavy shells alone were fired at the fortress. And in total during the siege - up to 400 thousand. “The appearance of the fortress was terrible, the whole fortress was shrouded in smoke, through which, in one place or another, huge fiery tongues escaped from the explosion of shells; pillars of earth, water and whole trees flew up; 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 unharmed from this hurricane of fire and iron.”

The defenders were asked to hold out for at least 48 hours. They survived 190 days

And yet the fortress stood. The defenders were asked to hold out for at least 48 hours. They held out for 190 days, knocking out two Berthas. It was especially important to hold Osovets during the great offensive, in order to prevent Mackensen's legions from slamming the Russian troops into the Polish bag.

Seeing that the artillery was not coping with its tasks, the Germans began to prepare a gas attack. Note that poisonous substances were banned at one time by the Hague Convention, which the Germans, however, cynically despised, like many other things, based on the slogan: "Germany is above all." National and racial exaltation set the stage for the inhuman technologies of the First and Second World Wars. The German gas attacks of the First World War are the forerunners of the gas chambers. The personality of the "father" of German chemical weapons, Fritz Haber, is characteristic. He liked to watch from a safe place the torment of poisoned enemy soldiers. It is significant that his wife committed suicide after the German gas attack at Ypres.

The first gas attack on the Russian front in the winter of 1915 was unsuccessful: the temperature was too low. In the future, gases (primarily chlorine) became reliable allies of the Germans, including near Osovets in August 1915.

The Germans prepared the gas attack carefully, patiently waiting for the right wind. Deployed 30 gas batteries, several thousand cylinders

The Germans prepared the gas attack carefully, patiently waiting for the right wind. We deployed 30 gas batteries, several thousand cylinders. And on August 6 at 4 am, a dark green mist of a mixture of chlorine and bromine flowed into the Russian positions, reaching them in 5-10 minutes. A gas wave 12-15 meters high and 8 km wide penetrated to a depth of 20 km. The defenders of the fortress did not have gas masks.

“Every living thing in the open air on the bridgehead of the fortress was poisoned to death,” a participant in the defense recalled. - All the greenery in the fortress and in the nearest area along the path of the gases was destroyed, the leaves on the trees turned yellow, curled up and fell off, the grass turned black and lay on the ground, the flower petals flew around. All copper objects on the bridgehead of the fortress - parts of guns and shells, washbasins, tanks, etc. - were covered with a thick green layer of chlorine oxide; food items stored without hermetic sealing - meat, butter, lard, vegetables - turned out to be poisoned and unfit for consumption.

“The half-poisoned wandered back,” another author writes, “and, tormented by thirst, bent down to the sources of water, but here the gases lingered in low places, and secondary poisoning led to death.”

The German artillery again opened massive fire, following the fire shaft and the gas cloud, 14 Landwehr battalions moved to storm the Russian advanced positions - and this is at least 7 thousand infantrymen. Their goal was to capture the strategically important Sosnenskaya position. They were promised that they would meet no one but the dead.

Aleksey Lepeshkin, a participant in the defense of Osovets, recalls: “We did not have gas masks, so the gases caused terrible injuries and chemical burns. When breathing, wheezing and bloody foam escaped from the lungs. The skin on the hands and faces was blistering. The rags with which we wrapped our faces did not help. However, the Russian artillery began to act, sending shell after shell from the green chlorine cloud towards the Prussians. Here the head of the 2nd department of defense of Osovets Svechnikov, shaking from a terrible cough, croaked: “My friends, do not die for us, like Prussian cockroaches, from poison. Let's show them to remember forever!

Shout "Hurrah!" there was no strength. The fighters were shaking from coughing, many were coughing up blood and pieces of the lungs. But go to the enemy

And those who survived the terrible gas attack rose up, including the 13th company, which had lost half of its composition. It was headed by Lieutenant Vladimir Karpovich Kotlinsky. Towards the Germans were "living dead", with faces wrapped in rags. Shout "Hurrah!" there was no strength. The fighters were shaking from coughing, many were coughing up blood and pieces of the lungs. But they went.

One of the eyewitnesses told the Russian Word newspaper: “I cannot describe the anger and fury with which our soldiers went against the German poisoners. Strong rifle and machine-gun fire, densely bursting shrapnel could not stop the onslaught of the enraged soldiers. Exhausted, poisoned, they fled with the sole purpose of crushing the Germans. There were no laggards, no one had to rush. There were no individual heroes here, the companies marched as one person, animated by only one goal, one thought: to die, but to take revenge on the vile poisoners.

The combat diary of the 226th Zemlyansky Regiment says: “Approaching the enemy at 400 steps, Lieutenant Kotlinsky, led by his company, rushed to the attack. With a bayonet blow, he knocked the Germans out of their position, forcing them to flee in disarray ... Without stopping, the 13th company continued to pursue the fleeing enemy, with bayonets knocked him out of the trenches of the 1st and 2nd sections of the Sosnensky positions occupied by him. We occupied the last one again, returning back our anti-assault gun and machine guns captured by the enemy. At the end of this dashing attack, Lieutenant Kotlinsky was mortally wounded and transferred command of the 13th company to Lieutenant of the 2nd Osovets sapper company Strezheminsky, who completed and completed the work so gloriously begun by Lieutenant Kotlinsky.

Kotlinsky died by the evening of the same day. By the highest order of September 26, 1916, he was posthumously awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree.

The Sosnenskaya position was returned and the situation was restored. Success was achieved at a high price: 660 people died. But the fortress held out.

By the end of August, holding Osovets lost all meaning: the front rolled back far to the east. The fortress was evacuated in the right way: the enemy was left not only with guns - not a single shell, cartridge, and even a tin can went to the Germans. At night, the guns were pulled along the Grodno highway by 50 soldiers. On the night of August 24, Russian sappers blew up the remains of the defensive structures and left. And only on August 25, the Germans ventured into the ruins.

Unfortunately, Russian soldiers and officers of the First World War are often accused of a lack of heroism and sacrifice, considering the Second Patriotic War through the prism of 1917 - the collapse of power and the army, "treason, cowardice and deceit." We see that this is not so.

The defense of Osovets is comparable to the heroic defense of the Brest Fortress and Sevastopol during the Great Patriotic War. Because in the initial period of the First World War, the Russian soldier went into battle with a clear consciousness of what he was going for - "For the Faith, the Tsar, and the Fatherland." He walked with faith in God and a cross on his chest, girded with a sash with the inscription "Alive in the help of the Most High", laying down his soul "for his friends."

And although this consciousness was clouded as a result of the rear rebellion of February 1917, it, albeit in a slightly altered form, was revived after many sufferings in the terrible and glorious years of the Great Patriotic War.

The history of Russia knows many examples of fearlessness, contempt for death and the triumph of the Russian spirit. The First World War was going on ... In 1915, the world looked with admiration at the defense of the heroic Osovets - a small Russian fortress built in 1882-1884, 50 km from the city of Bialystok, the capture of which opened the Germans the shortest route to Russia - to Vilna, Grodno, Minsk and Brest. The “immortal garrison” of Osovets for 190 days kept the siege of the many times superior enemy troops, showing miracles of courage, stamina and heroism.

The Germans applied all their latest achievements against the defenders of the fortress. Delivered the famous "Big Bert" 420-mm caliber and other powerful siege weapons, a total of 17 batteries. Powerful calibers of siege artillery were supposed to crush the “toy fortress” with bombardment and force the bloodless and exhausted Russian garrison to surrender. From February 25 to March 3, 1915, only 200-250 thousand heavy shells were fired at the fortress. And in total during the siege - up to 400 thousand. Together with artillery, the fortress was bombed from the air by German airplanes.

Correspondents of Russian and French publications compared the fortress to hell and an active volcano, from which not a single person can get out alive. And here is what one of the Polish magazines reported: “The appearance of the fortress was terrible, it was shrouded in smoke, through which, in one place or another, huge fiery tongues escaped from the explosion of shells; pillars of earth, water and whole trees flew up; the earth trembled, and it seemed that nothing could withstand such a hurricane of iron and fire.

Contrary to German calculations, the heroic Osovets held on - with faith, courage and weapons. On August 6 (July 24), 1915, the third assault began, which entered the name of the fortress in the history of Russia and all mankind. For ten days, the Germans waited for the wind in the right direction, installing 30 gas batteries in several thousand poison gas cylinders. At 4 o'clock in the morning, a dark green fog of a mixture of chlorine and bromine flowed onto the Russian positions, reaching them in 5-10 minutes. A huge gas wave, 12–15 meters high and 8 km wide, penetrated to a depth of 20 km. The defenders did not have gas masks ...

“Every living thing in the open air was poisoned to death. The leaves on the trees turned yellow, curled up and fell off, the grass turned black, the flower petals flew around. The copper parts of the guns and shells were covered with a thick green layer of chlorine oxide, ”recalled Osovets, a participant in the defense. The effect of gases on combat positions and in the rear of the fortress was terrifying. The 9th, 10th and 11th companies of the 226th Zemlyansky Infantry Regiment were completely killed, about 40 people remained from the 12th company; from the three companies that defended Bialogrondy - about 60 people. The fortress artillery leading the battle also suffered heavy losses in personnel. At the same time, the enemy opened heavy fire along the entire front.

By order of General Ludendorff, 14 battalions of the 8th Army of the Landwehr, with a total number of 7 thousand people, moved to “clean up” the doomed fortress.

There were "civilized Germans" in gas masks, armed with cave clubs with nails - to finish off the poisoned "Russian barbarians". But when the enemies approached our trenches, from the green chlorine hell with cries of "Hurrah!" counterattacking Russian infantry fell upon them. These were the remnants of the 13th company of the 226th infantry Zemlyansky regiment - just over 60 people. The fighters of the "immortal garrison" of Osovets went into a bayonet counterattack with their faces wrapped in bloody rags, shaking from a terrible cough and deadly suffocation ... Not accepting the battle, the German warriors faltered and rushed back in a panic, trampling each other and hanging on wire fences. Many of them died from the fire of the "resurrected" Russian artillery. This battle went down in world history as an "attack of the dead", when several dozen half-dead Russian soldiers put three German infantry regiments to flight!

Our enemies also testified to the enormous endurance, amazing endurance and fortitude of the Russian miracle heroes. “The Russian soldier knows how to fight very well, he endures all sorts of hardships and is able to be persistent, even if certain death is inevitable!”, - noted the German war correspondent R. Brandt. Another German description of the Russian soldier was published in the article "Our Enemy" in February 1915. “The Russian soldier,” writes the German author, “is an adversary who must be very, very reckoned with. He is brave, well fed, excellently armed, full of personal courage and contempt for death. In the onslaught, he is violently swift, in defense he is extremely persistent. He knows how to use the nature of the terrain well, is incredibly easy to climb, quickly digs into the trenches, turning them into permanent fortifications, the offensive against which requires a lot of time and sacrifices. Russian batteries are camouflaged so skillfully that it is very difficult for our pilots to track them down.

On August 18, 1915, the evacuation of the Osovets garrison began. They took out fortress artillery, ammunition, food. Nothing left for the enemy! Armor batteries, fortifications, residential buildings, barracks and warehouses were destroyed by directed explosions.

On August 25, the Germans entered the destroyed but not conquered citadel, and the undefeated garrison took up new positions. Sovereign Nicholas II expressed special gratitude to all the valiant defenders and heroes of Osovets.

The words of the order of the commander of the Osovets fortress artillery, General N.A., addressed to contemporaries and descendants, sounded prophetic. Brzhozovsky: “In the ruins of explosions and the ashes of fires, a fabulous stronghold proudly rested, and, dead, it became even more terrible for the enemy, constantly telling him about the valor of protection. Sleep in peace, not knowing defeat, and inspire the entire Russian people with a thirst for revenge on the enemy until it is completely destroyed. Your glorious, high and pure name will pass into the care of future generations. A short time will pass, the Motherland will heal her wounds and, in unprecedented greatness, will reveal her Slavic strength to the world; commemorating the heroes of the Great Liberation War, it will put us, the defenders of Osovets, not in the last place.”

People's Artist of Russia Vasily Nesterenko dedicated his epic painting to the 100th anniversary of the feat of the heroes of the legendary Osovets (1915 - August 6, 2015). The title of the painting is “We are Russians. God is with us!" - repeats the motto of the invincible Russian commander Alexander Suvorov. “I wanted to emphasize the connection between times and generations - the heroes of the defense of Osovets (1915) and the defenders of the Brest Fortress (1941), the exploits of officers and sisters of mercy of the First World War (1914-1918) and the mass heroism of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945), - says the artist . - At the same time, my picture is about today - the heroic defense of Slavyansk and Novorossia. And the "dead" in the picture are not Russian miracle heroes, but "cultural" European poisoners in gas masks with cave clubs - the bearers of "progress, humanism and democracy."

In Russian periodicals for 1915 one can find the following lines: “What does 'enlightened Europe' tell us? Suffocating gases, this truly Cain smoke, clubs for finishing off poisoned Russian soldiers. Cultural barbarians!

Such barbaric methods were used by "enlightened, democratic and civilized Europe" during the Second World War. The "enlightened West" is silent even today when prohibited weapons are used against the civilian population of countries that are not included in the "golden billion". We see the same thing now in the Donbass. Elderly people, women and children are deliberately destroyed with prohibited cluster and phosphorus munitions - at the behest and with the approval of "progressive" America and European "humanists".

Heroes of the Great War (1914-1918) - pure in heart and sublimely spiritualized, faithful to the oath and duty, who laid down their souls "for their friends", like an eagle rose to the bright expanse of God. Giving their lives for the Honor and Greatness of the Motherland, they believed in the salvation and the coming victory of Russia over the forces of world evil. The names of the heroes, defenders and saviors of the Fatherland are inscribed in golden letters in the military chronicle of Russia, immortalized on the marble walls of the Georgievsky Hall of the Moscow Kremlin, in bronze and granite of monuments and obelisks. Their bright images and deeds are still illuminated by the blessed rays of the people's Memory and Love and the brilliance of eternal, unearthly Glory!

Vladimir Maksimov - head of the military-historical association "Young Russia" (Moscow)

Attack of the Dead. Artist: Evgeny Ponomarev

August 6 marks the 100th anniversary of the famous "Attack of the Dead" - an event unique in the history of wars: the counterattack of the 13th company of the 226th Zemlyansky Regiment, which survived the German gas attack during the assault of the Osovets fortress by the German troops on August 6 (July 24), 1915. How it was?

But was the great retreat of 1915 a shameful flight? No.

Osovets fortress garrison

The Russian army retreated because it experienced shell and gun hunger. Russian industrialists, for the most part, are liberal jingoistic patriots who shouted in 1914 “Give me the Dardanelles!” and demanding to provide the public with power for a victorious end to the war, were unable to cope with the shortage of weapons and shells. At the breakthrough sites, the Germans concentrated up to a million shells. For one hundred German shots, Russian artillery could only respond with ten. The plan to saturate the Russian army with artillery was thwarted: instead of 1500 guns, it received ... 88.

German gun Big Bertha

German gas battery

Seeing that the artillery was not coping with its tasks, the Germans began to prepare a gas attack. Note that poisonous substances were banned at one time by the Hague Convention, which the Germans, however, cynically despised, like many other things, based on the slogan: "Germany is above all." National and racial exaltation set the stage for the inhuman technologies of the First and Second World Wars. The German gas attacks of the First World War are the forerunners of the gas chambers. The personality of the "father" of the German chemical Fritz Haber is characteristic. He liked to watch from a safe place the torment of poisoned enemy soldiers. It is significant that his wife committed suicide after the German gas attack at Ypres.

German gas attack

The Germans prepared the gas attack carefully, patiently waiting for the right wind. We deployed 30 gas batteries, several thousand cylinders. And on August 6, at 4 am, a dark green mist of a mixture of chlorine and bromine flowed into the Russian positions, reaching them in 5-10 minutes. A gas wave 12–15 meters high and 8 km wide penetrated to a depth of 20 km. The defenders of the fortress did not have gas masks.

“Every living thing in the open air on the bridgehead of the fortress was poisoned to death,” recalled a member of the defense. - All the greenery in the fortress and in the nearest area along the path of the gases was destroyed, the leaves on the trees turned yellow, curled up and fell off, the grass turned black and lay on the ground, the flower petals flew around. All copper objects on the bridgehead of the fortress - parts of guns and shells, washbasins, tanks, etc. - were covered with a thick green layer of chlorine oxide; food items stored without hermetic sealing - meat, butter, lard, vegetables - turned out to be poisoned and unfit for consumption.

The German artillery again opened massive fire, following the fire shaft and the gas cloud, 14 landwehr battalions moved to storm the Russian advanced positions - and this is at least 7 thousand infantrymen. Their goal was to capture the strategically important Sosnenskaya position. They were promised that they would meet no one but the dead.

Attack of the Dead. Reconstruction

Lieutenant Vladimir Kotlinsky

Kotlinsky died by the evening of the same day. By the highest order of September 26, 1916, he was posthumously awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree.

The Sosnenskaya position was returned and the situation was restored. Success was achieved at a high price: 660 people died. But the fortress held out.

By the end of August, holding Osovets lost all meaning: the front rolled back far to the east. The fortress was evacuated in the right way: the enemy was left not only with guns - not a single shell, cartridge, and even a tin can was left to the Germans. At night, the guns were pulled along the Grodno highway by 50 soldiers. On the night of August 24, Russian sappers blew up the remains of the defensive structures and left. And only on August 25, the Germans ventured into the ruins.

Portal for the student. Self-training

prof. K.I. Velichko. Excerpt from the publication "The role of fortresses in connection with the operations of field armies". (1925)

The feat of Vladimir Kotlinsky, who led the "attack of the dead"

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