Page:EB1922 - Volume 31.djvu/796

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756
LEMONNIER—LENIN

of the Russian concentration of forces at Vladimir Volhynsk and Grubieszow and the great extension of his front which must re- sult from any further advance, resolved to stop the pursuit by the XI. Army and only to resume the further offensive north- wards when Puhallo's army had joined him. The right wing of the XI. Army therefore ceased to attack. The left wing, on the other hand, had to continue its advance in order to keep pace with the progress of the Archduke's attack; it pushed forward to Czernieczin and Staw, while the centre had to repulse violent counter-attacks. On its right wing a new group from the II. Army under Szurmay took over the sector between Kamionka Strumilowa and the Rata from the Beskiden Corps.

On the 4th Roth's group met with complete success. Pressing forward into the line Stara Wies-Wilkolaz it carried with it the XVII. Corps on its right beyond Tarnawka, while the X. Corps on its left, with part of the VIII. Corps, reached Urzedowka.

Next day the attack was successfully continued along the whole front of the IV. Army. The XVII. Corps reached Gilczew and the left wing of the XI. Army the Zolkiewka.

On the 6th the X. and VIII. Corps had very hard fighting. The Russians now really seemed to be pulling themselves to- gether for a counter-blow, and they began by offering a desperate resistance to the attack of the two corps. The Command of the IV. Army followed their attack with considerable anxiety, for they had made very little headway up to the present, while on the front of Roth's group and the XVII. Corps a cessation in the fighting was ordered so as to allow of regrouping the forces and preparing for a continuance of the break-through.

During this pause, on July 7 a serious set-back occurred. On the sth an intercepted Russian wireless message had notified the presence of the VI. Siberian Corps and a grenadier div., both consisting of entirely fresh troops. On the 6th the Russian resistance noticeably stiffened and on the yth the Siberian VI. Corps energetically attacked the inner wings of the XIV. and X. Corps. The io6th Inf. Div. and the X. Corps were driven back to the heights N. of Krasnik and behind the Wyznica, and the right wing of the VIII. Corps had to retire in conformity. During the next few days the Russians secured further successes, forcing back the XVII. Corps and the 47th Reserve Div. of the VIII. Corps. But by the loth the IV. Army, which had been hastily reenforced by two cavalry divisions and some Landsturm forma- tions from the I. Army, had overcome the crisis by its own strength. The 4th Inf. Div. from the I. Army, which had been sent to Zolkiew, had, it is true, now been placed under it, but before its arrival the Russian attacks had died down and even showed signs of turning into a retreat.

This counter-blow, thus fortunately parried, had no serious effect on Mackensen's army, of which the regrouping could be carried out as planned, under cover of the activity on the IV. Army's front, almost without the enemy noticing it.

After the capture of the Tarlow bridgehead the transfer of the I. Army proceeded rapidly. The Army Command arrived in Zolkiew by one of the earliest trains, and there took over the command of Szurmay's group and superintended the assembly of the army on the Rata and the Bug as far as Krylow. The German High Command was at the same time arranging for the forma- tion of a new German army, " the Army of the Bug, " under Gen. von Linsingen, which was to operate between the XI. and I. Armies, and to consist of 7 infantry and one cavalry divi- sions from the XI. Army and one infantry and one cavalry divi- sion from the Southern Army.

The Russians, in the meantime, had also undertaken a re- grouping of their forces. At the beginning of the battle of Krasnik the German XI. and Austro-Hungarian IV. Armies were faced by the Russian III. Army, which had been gradually brought up to a strength of 26 infantry and 6 cavalry divisions. This force, already too large for effective handling from a single centre, had further been increased by the arrival of two fresh corps in the Wlodawa area, of which the one was to reenforce the III. and the other the IV. Army. In order to simplify the prob- lem of command the Grand Duke Nicholas resolved to break up the III. Army, the five western corps forming the new III. Army, and the other six being reorganized into a new XIII. Army. After completion of the regrouping, Mackensen's command con- sisted of the IV., XI., Bug, and I. Armies. With these he was to subdue Russian Poland by means of a new offensive to the N. i in conjunction with Woyrsch and the IX. German Army W. of the Vistula. (E. J.)

LEMONNIER, ANTOINE LOUIS CAMILLE (1844-1913), Bel- gian poet (see 16.415), published among his later works L'Amant passionne (1905) ; Tante Amy (1906); La maison qui dort (1909) and La chanson du carillon (1911); as well as L'ecole bdge de peinture, 1830-1905 (1906). He died at Brussels June 13 1913.

See L. Bazalgette, Camille Lemonnier (1904).

LENIN (originally OULIANOV), VLADIMIR ILICH (1870- ), Russian Communist leader, was born in Simbirsk in 1870, his father being an official of middle rank a district inspector of schools. His elder brother, Alexander, was an active member of the terrorist party of the " Will of the people." In 1887 he planned with some friends to assassinate Emperor Alexander III. by the explosion of an infernal machine: the plot was dis- covered and Alexander Oulianov was hanged together with four of his accomplices. Vladimir entered the university of Kazan as a student of law, but was expelled for taking part in revolu- tionary agitation. He went to St. Petersburg and passed his bar examination there. He did not practise long, but joined a secret organization of professional revolutionists. Towards the end of the 'nineties he was arrested, escaped and went abroad. He had joined the Social Democratic movement which in those days was spreading widely in Russia. Plekhanov and Struve were at that time the chief exponents of Marxism: they adopted the teaching of Karl Marx as regards the necessary sequence of economic stages feudalism, bourgeois individualism, capital- ism, proletarian upheaval. In that scheme the rise and growth of capitalism was considered to be a necessary preliminary to social revolution, and it was thought that Russia had hardly entered that stage: therefore it was not ripe for a social upheaval. Lenin was in agreement with these views for some time. But while Struve, and to a less degree Plekhanov, were induced by this admission to seek an alliance with Liberal intellectuals in their struggle against Tsarism, Lenin (as he had taken to calling himself), together with Martov, Axelrod and other fiery spirits, forsook the Liberal platform and strove for a violent outbreak of a downright class war. This produced a split in the ranks of Social Democracy between the Majority and Minority sections (Bolsheviks and Mensheviks). This split, first apparent in the Congress of 1903, gradually widened. At the third Congress in 1905 it led to the formation of two parties, the Bolsheviks meeting in London, and the Mensheviks in Geneva.

The revolution of 1905 saw Lenin again in St. Petersburg, and he worked a good deal behind the scenes, inciting to violence, advising a boycott of the Duma, hostility to the Cadets, etc. But he did not play any part in the Soviet of workmen, and disappeared as soon as it became clear, after the crushing of the outbreak in Moscow, that the troops and the people were not on the side of the revolutionaries.

During his second stay abroad (1906-17) Lenin published several pamphlets and books which attracted a good deal of attention. In the Two Tactics (1905) he had announced that terrorism was inevitable as a weapon in the hands of revolutionists. He said among other things: " The Jacobins of contemporary social democracy the Bolsheviks desire that the people, that is the proletarians and peasants, should settle the reckoning of Monarchy and Aristocracy in plebeian fashion by ruthlessly annihilating the enemies of freedom."

The disillusionment as regards material means for improving the life of mankind had given rise in many minds to a quest for religion, and this mystic current had attracted men like Struve, Bulgakov, Berdiayev and others. Lenin regarded such strivings as a betrayal of the claims of the labouring class. His book on Materialism and Empiric Criticism (1909) heaps abuse on idealistic philosophers and religious teachers of all schools and creeds. He does not enquire 'into the abstract right and wrong of any case, but subjects it to the acid test of proletarian interests.