THE CARPATHIAN CAMPAIGN—REVIEW OF THE SITUATION

In the beginning of 1915 comparative calm reigned over the Austro-Russian theatre of war, so far as actual hostilities were concerned. But it was not altogether the variable climatic conditions of alternate frost and thaw—the latter converting road and valley into impassable quagmires—that caused the lull. It was a short winter pause during which the opposing forces—on one side at least—were preparing and gathering the requisite momentum for the coming storm.

During January, 1915, the Russian armies were in a decidedly favorable position. In their own invaded territory of Poland, as we have seen, they held an advanced position in front of the Vistula, which circumstance enabled them to utilize that river as a line of communication, while barring the way to Warsaw against Von Hindenburg. Lemberg, the capital of Galicia, which they had captured in September, 1914, was still in their hands. Sixty miles away to the west there lay the great fortress of Przemysl, invested by the Russians under General Selivanoff, and completely cut off from the outer world since November 12, 1914. At least 150,000 troops and enormous quantities of stores and munitions were locked up in the town and outlying forts, together with a population of 50,000 inhabitants, mostly Polish. In addition to these material advantages, the Russians held all the Carpathian passes leading from Galicia into the vast plains of Hungary, and a strong advanced position on the Dunajec in the west, which, besides threatening Cracow, the capital of Austrian Poland, served also as a screen to the mountain operations. Finally, to the far east of the range, they had occupied nearly the whole of the Bukowina right up to the Rumanian frontier.

Such, briefly, was the situation on the Austro-Russian front when the second winter campaign opened. For Austria the situation was extremely critical. Her armies, broken and scattered after a series of disastrous reverses, could scarcely hope by their own efforts to stem the threatened invasion of Hungary. General Brussilov, however, made no serious attempt to pour his troops through the passes into the plain below; although what was probably a reconnaissance emerged from the Uzsok Pass and penetrated as far as Munkacs, some thirty miles south, while on several occasions small bands of Cossacks descended from the Dukla and Delatyn (Jablonitza) passes to raid Hungarian villages. General Brussilov evidently regarded it inadvisable to risk an invasion of the plain, especially as he did not hold control of the southern exits from the passes, beyond which he would be exposed to attack from all sides and liable to encounter superior forces. The main Austrian anxiety for the moment was the precarious position of Przemysl, to relieve which it was first essential to dislodge Brussilov or to pierce his line. Again, in the hour of her extremity, Austria's powerful ally came to the rescue.

Under the command of the Archduke Eugene the Austrian troops—all that were available—were formed into three separate armies. For convenience sake we will designate them A, B, and C. Army A, under General Boehm-Ermolli, was ordered to the section from the Dukla Pass to the Uzsog. It was charged with the task of cutting a way through to relieve Przemysl. Army B, under the German General von Linsingen, who also had some German troops with him, was to assail the next section eastward, from the Uzsog to the Wyszkow Pass; and Army C, under the Austrian General von Pflanzer-Baltin, likewise supplied with a good "stiffening" of German soldiers, was accredited to the far-eastern section—the Pruth Valley and the Bukowina. These three armies represented the fighting machine with which Austria hoped to retrieve the misfortunes of war and recover at the same time her military prestige and her invaded territories. We have no reliable information to enable us to estimate the exact strength of these armies, but there is every reason to believe that it was considerable, having regard to the urgency of the situation and the bitter experience of the recent past. Hence the figure of 400,000 men is probably approximately correct. Somewhere about January 23, 1914, after a period of thaw and mud the weather settled down to snow and hard frost. Then the machine began to move. A snow-clad mountain rampart lay spread before; over 200 miles of its length embraced the area of the projected operations. Here we may leave this army for a while in order to review some of the political and strategic considerations underlying the campaign, which is the scope of this chapter.

The Russian occupation of the Bukowina, which was undertaken and accomplished by a force far too small to oppose any serious resistance, appears to have been carried out with the definite political object of favorably impressing Rumania, and to guide her into the arms of the Allies. From her geographical position Rumania commands nearly the whole western frontier of the Dual Monarchy. Her fertile soil supplied the Central Powers with grain, dairy produce, and oil. Furthermore, Rumania's foreign policy leaned to the side of Italy, and the general European impression was, after the death of King Carol, October 10, 1914, that if one of the two countries entered the war, the other would follow suit. As subsequent events have shown, however, that expectation was not realized. Rumania, too, had aspirations in the direction of recovering lost territories, but her grievance in this respect was equally divided between Russia and Austria, for, while the one had despoiled her of Bessarabia, the other had annexed Transylvania (SiebenbÜrgen). Hence the Russian tentative conquest and occupation of the Bukowina paved the way for Rumania, should she decide on intervention. The road was clear for her to step in and occupy the Bukowina (which Russia was prepared to hand over), and probably Transylvania as well, which latter the proximity of a Russian force might—at the time—have enabled her to do. But the bait failed, no doubt for weighty reasons. Even if Rumania had favored the Triple Entente, which there is strong ground to presume she would, by entering the war, have found herself in as perilous a position as Serbia, with her Black Sea littoral exposed to hostile Turkey and her whole southern boundary flanked by a neighbor—Bulgaria—whose intentions were as yet unknown. However, on January 27, 1915, the Bank of England arranged a $25,000,000 loan to Rumania—an event which further heightened the probability of her entry into the arena.

We may safely take it for granted that these considerations were not overlooked by the German staff, in addition to the patent fact that the Russians were persistently gaining ground against the Austrians. German officers and men were therefore rushed from the eastern and western fronts to the south of the Carpathians to form the three armies we have labeled A, B, and C. The points of attack for which they were intended have already been stated; but the roundabout manner in which they traveled to their respective sections is both interesting and worthy of notice. At this stage a new spirit seemed to dominate Austro-Hungarian military affairs; we suddenly encounter greater precision, sounder strategy, and deeper plans: a master mind appears to have taken matters in hand. It is the cool, calculating, mathematical composite brain of the German General Staff. As the formation and dispatching of three great armies can hardly be kept a secret, especially where hawk-eyed spies abound, a really astute piece of stage management was resorted to. Wild rumors were set afloat to the effect that the Austrian Government had decided to undertake a great offensive—for the third time—against Serbia, and erase her from the map, with the assistance of four German army corps. The concentration zone for operations against either Serbia or the Russian front in the Carpathians was naturally in the central plains of Hungary. But to cover the real object of Austro-German concentration active demonstrations were made on the Serb border in the form of bombardments of Belgrade, and occupation of Danube islands. These demonstrations made plausible the Teutonic assertion that the concentration of troops was being carried out with a view to an invasion of Serbia. So successful was the ruse, and so well had the secret been kept that on February 1, 1914, a Petrograd "official" gravely announced to an eagerly listening world: "The statement is confirmed that the new Austro-German southern army, intended for the third invasion of Serbia, consists of six Austrian and two German corps or 400,000 men, under the command of the Archduke Eugene(!)" At the very time this appeared the new Austro-German "southern" army had been already, for quite a week, making its presence severely felt in the eastern and central sections of the Carpathians, and still the Russian authorities had not recognized the identity of the forces operating there.

A brief description of the battle ground will enable the reader to follow more easily the course of the struggle. Imagine that length of the Carpathian chain which forms the boundary between Galicia and Hungary as a huge, elongated arch of, roughly, 300 miles. (The whole of the range stretches as a continuous rampart for a distance of 900 miles, completely shutting in Hungary from the northwest to the east and south, separating it from Moravia [MÄhren], Galicia, the Bukowina, and Rumania.) Through the curve of this arch run a number of passes. Beginning as far west as is here necessary, the names of the chief passes eastward leading from Hungary are: into Galicia—Beskid, Tarnow, Tilicz, Dukla, Lupkow, Rostoki, Uzsok, Vereczke (or Tucholka), Beskid[2] (or Volocz), Wyszkow, Jablonitza (or Delatyn); into the Bukowina—Strol, Kirlibaba, Rodna; into Rumania—Borgo. In parts the range is 100 miles in width, and from under 2,000 to 8,000 feet high. The western and central Carpathians are much more accessible than the eastern, and therefore comprise the main and easiest routes across. The Hun and Tartar invasions flooded Europe centuries ago by this way, and the Delatyn is still called the "Magyar route." The passes vary in height from under a thousand to over four thousand feet. The Dukla and Uzsok passes were to be the main objective, as through them lay the straightest roads to Lemberg and Przemysl. The former is crossed by railway from Tokay to Przemysl, and the latter by rail and road from Ungvar to Sambor. A railroad also runs through the Vereczke from Munkacs to Lemberg, and another through Delatyn from Debreczen to Kolomea. So far as concerned means of communication, matters were nearly equal, but geographical advantage lay with the Russians, as the way from Galicia to Hungary is by far an easier one than vice versa.[Back to Contents]