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General von Gallwitz's troops in this assault were supported by the forces of General von Scholtz, on their left, who were pressing the Russians from the direction of Kolno. On July 16, 1915, the Russians were retreating on the whole front between the Pissa and the Vistula, toward the Narew.
When finally they retired just as the main body of the advancing foe was coming up, they left behind them hundreds of enemy dead, the fallen literally covering the ground in heaps. The mixed forces of Kövess, keeping in touch with Gallwitz's right wing, had been advancing more or less in line with the Germans, marching along the railroad from Belgrade and Obrenovatz toward the Western Morava.
To all these points they hurried large bodies of reserves to push their advantages and so continue a vigorous offensive east, south, and west of Belgrade, in a wide, sweeping movement along the entire front. The main effort was made in the east, to secure possession of the Morava Valley and its railroad. Near Semendria, Gallwitz's right wing was in touch with Kövess's left.
The fighting along the Lublin-Cholm line, and the strenuous resistance the Russians offered on the 26th to Gallwitz's renewed attacks on the Narew, were intended not to save Warsaw, but the armies defending and the stores within it. On 4 August the troops abandoned the Blonie lines and marched through the city, blowing up the bridges across the Vistula.
At Dobrin, according to German report, they took 2,500 prisoners. General von Gallwitz's plan, however, was of more ambitious scope. It was his intention, by encircling the Russians in the territory before him from both wings, to sweep clear of enemies the entire stretch of country in the Polish triangle between the Vistula and the Orczy rivers.
As will be seen by a glance at the map, the Serbians were therefore bearing the concentrated attack of four armies; that which operated from Vishegrad, the mixed forces under Kövess, Gallwitz's army and the main Bulgarian forces. The pressure was incessant. Reenforcements had been hurried through from Germany to make good the heavy losses which had been sustained during the campaign.
Similarly Mackensen found himself held up between Zamosc and Krasnostav, and for a week the struggle for the Lublin- Cholm railway resolved itself into an artillery duel. The attack was resumed on the 16th simultaneously with Von Gallwitz's movement against the other side of the triangle.
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