RUSSIAN RETREAT

It is a matter for speculation whether the numerous successes achieved by the Russians against the Austrians and Germans in Galicia and the Carpathians during the first seven months of the war had begotten a spirit of overconfidence among the Russian commanders, or whether it was not in their power to have made more effective preparations than they had done. We have seen that Dmitrieff had not provided himself with those necessary safety exits which were now so badly needed. As no artificially prepared defenses were at hand, natural ones had to be found. The first defense was irretrievably lost; the second line was a vague, undefined terrain extending across the hills between Biala in the west and the River Wisloka in the east. Between Tuchow and Olpiny, the Mountain Dobrotyn formed one of the chief defensive positions, being 1,800 feet high and thickly covered with woods.

Southward, the Lipie Mountain, about 1,400 feet, formed another strong point. Just below Biecz, close to the road and railroad leading to Gorlice, a mountain of 1,225 feet, called Wilczak, is the strategical key to the valley of the lower Ropa. Between Biecz and Bednarka, the line of defense followed the heights of the Kobylanka, Tatarovka, Lysa Gora, and of the Rekaw; hence to the east, as the last defense of the Jaslo-Zmigrod road, lay the intrenched positions on the Ostra Gora, well within Brussilov's sector. Southward of the Gorlice-Zmigrod line lay the mountain group of the Valkova, nearly 2,800 feet high, the last defense of the line of retreat for the Russian forces from Zboro.

The Wisloka was the third line of defense, only a river, and without intrenchments. From Dembica to Zmigrod it runs roughly parallel with the Dunajec-Biala line; its winding course separates it in places from fifteen to thirty-five miles from the latter river. Strong hopes were entertained that the Russians would be able to stem the Germanic torrent by a firm stand on the Wisloka.

A fierce battle raged on the third and fourth of May, 1915, for the possession of the wooded hills between the Biala and the Wisloka. The Prussian Guard stormed Lipie Mountain and captured it on the third; on the fourth they took Olpiny, Szczerzyny and the neighboring hills at the point of the bayonet.

The Thirty-ninth Hungarian Division, now incorporated in the Eleventh German Army under the direct command of Von Mackensen himself, had advanced from Grybow via Gorlice on the Biecz railway line, and were making a strong attack on the Russian positions on Wilczak Mountain with a tremendous concentration of artillery. It seems the Russians simply refused to be blown out of their trenches, for it required seven separate attacks to drive them out. That accomplished, the fate of Biecz was decided and the road to Jaslo—the "key" to the Wisloka line of defense—was practically open to General Arz von Straussenburg. Lying at the head of the main roads leading into Hungary through the Tilicz, Dukla, and Lupkow passes, Jaslo is the most important railway junction in the whole region between Tarnow and Przemysl. It was at Jaslo that Dmitrieff had held his headquarters for four months.

Just south of him, barely fifteen miles away, General von Emmich and General Martiny, with the "Bayonet Bavarians" and the Tenth Austro-Hungarian Army Corps, went pounding and slashing a passage along the Bednarka-Zmigrod road and the auxiliary road from Malastow to Krempna. They were striving hard to reach the western passes before Brussilov had time to withdraw. He began that operation on the fourth. On the same night Von Emmich and Martiny reached Krempna, and the last line of retreat for the Russians around Zboro was imperiled. They have yet to cross the range from Hungary back into Galicia. So subtly potent and effective was the pressure on a flank that the whole line—be it hundreds of miles long—is more or less influenced thereby, as witness:

On the same night, May 4, 1915, the retreat spread like a contagion to the entire west Galician front, compelling the Russians to evacuate northern Hungary up to the Lupkow Pass; in that pass itself preparations are afoot to abandon the hard-earned position. It is not fear, nor the precaution of cowardice that prompted this wholesale removal of fighting men: the inexorable laws of geometry demanded it. The enemy was at Krempna; as the crow flies the distance from Krempna to the northern debouchment of Lupkow is eighty miles; yet Lupkow was threatened, for the "line" or "front" is pierced—the vital artery of the defense is severed. The strength of a chain is precisely that of its weakest link.

The course of events become complex; fighting, advancing and retreating occurred over a widespread area. Apparently disconnected movements by the Austro-Germans or the Russians fall into their proper places in accordance with the general scheme or objective either side may have in view. It is necessary to follow the scattered operations separately. We will therefore return now to the Tarnow-Tucho sector, where we left a small Russian force holding the last remnant of the Dunajec-Biala front. Tarnow had been the supply base for that front, and great stores of provisions and munitions still remained in the town. These the Russians succeeded in removing entirely. The main forces had already withdrawn in perfect order and fallen back beyond the Wisloka. During the night of May 4-5, 1915, two regiments of the Ninth Austro-Hungarian Army Corps crossed the Biala near Tuchow and moved northward in the direction of the road leading from Tarnow to Pilzno, along which the remainder of the garrison would have to pass in order to retreat. On the hills west of Pilzno the Russians still held a position to protect that road. By the morning of the sixth everything had gone eastward, and the Austrians had surrounded the town.

The small cavalry detachment that had been left behind as rear guard cut through the Austrian lines and rejoined the main forces on the Wisloka. The Austrians had been bombarding Tarnow for months with their heaviest artillery, destroying parts of the cathedral and the famous old town hall in the process.

On May 7 the Russians withdrew from the Pilzno district, and the Dunajec-Biala Russian front had ceased to exist. From the hour that the Austro-Germans had broken through the line at Ciezkovice, on May 2, 1915, the Russian retreat on the Wisloka had begun. Yielding to the terrible pressure the line had increasingly lost its shape as the various component parts fell back, though it gradually resumed the form of a front on the Wisloka banks, where most determined fighting continued for five days.

The Russians lost much of their artillery; they had to reverse the customary military practice of an army in retreat. If the retreating army is well equipped with artillery and munitions, its guns cover the retreat and are sacrificed to save the men. During their retreat the Russians had often to sacrifice men in order to save their guns for a coming greater battle at some more important strategic point. Many prisoners fell to the Germanic armies; according to their own official reports they took 30,000 in the fighting of May 2-4, 1915. What the Austro-German side lost in that time was not made public.[Back to Contents]