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This was the only section in the range where the Russians held both sides. Boehm-Ermolli had forced the Rostoki and Uzsok, but hitherto had been unable to get very far from their northern exits not beyond Baligrod.
Germanic troops were building a wall against their exits before they had seriously thought of withdrawing. Escape was impossible for many of them; some had managed to get across the Dukla in time, while those left behind would either have to surrender or fight their way through the lines across their path in the north. At the same time they would have Von Bojna and Boehm-Ermolli on their tracks.
From the lower or southern shoulder of the jar the Third Austro-Hungarian Army pushes forward inside, supported on its right by Boehm-Ermolli, who had been just inside a long time, but could get no farther. They began to shepherd the Russian troops around and in the western passes toward the lower double-edged blade of Von Mackensen's terrible scissors.
Farther north another army under the Austrian General Boehm-Ermolli encountered determined resistance along the line Zlochoff-Bialykamien-Radziviloff, where the Russians were supported by very strongly fortified positions.
By July 27, 1917, the Austro-German divisions under General von Boehm-Ermolli had crossed the Jablonica-Horodenka-Zablowow line. Austrian troops on the northern wing were drawing close to the Pruth Plateau below Kolomea. West of Seletyn-Fundul, on the Moldavian Road in the wooded Carpathians, German and Austro-Hungarian troops wrested some heights positions from the still resisting Russians.
The fighting in this region represents one of the important phases of the war, for it prevented the relief of Przemysl; temporarily saved Stryj and Lemberg for the Russians; enabled them to send reenforcements into the Bukowina, and, finally, inspired the German General Staff to plan the great and decisive Galician campaign, which was to achieve the task wherein Boehm-Ermolli and Von Linsingen had both failed.
Similarly, at Mosciska, when Boehm-Ermolli tried to storm the Russian position by mass attacks, his infantry was driven back with such terrible punishment that they could not be induced to make another advance.
By the same night they had repulsed a counterattack near the Rostoki and captured a battalion of Austrian infantry. For the next three days Brussilov attempted to work his way to the rear of the Uzsok position with his right wing from the Laborcz and Ung valleys, while simultaneously continuing his frontal attacks against Boehm-Ermolli and Von Bojna.
The army of the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand was held along the lower San as far as Sieniava. Von Mackensen was advancing east of Jaroslav along the railway toward Rawa-Ruska. Boehm-Ermolli was fighting on the road to Lemberg from Mosciska.
The "phalanx" was pressing against Rawa-Ruska, Magierow, and Janov; Boehm-Ermolli against Grodek, part of which he captured by a midnight assault on June 16. In five weeks the Russian line or front in Galicia had shrunk from 300 miles to about 100. Before Dunajec, when it was united with the northern groups, it had represented the longest battle line in the history of the world.
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