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To that sector we will now turn to review the course of events. On May 4, 1915, the Russians began to evacuate the positions they held south of the range when Von Mackensen's extreme right approached Krempna. Forging along at high speed the Germans and Austrians occupied the towns of Dukla and Tylava, and arrived at Rymanow still farther east on the following day.

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.

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.

We left Von Emmich and General Martiny with the Bavarians and the Tenth Austro-Hungarian Army Corps on their arrival at Krempna on the night of the 4th, during which time the Russians were making desperate efforts to evacuate northern Hungary and the western passes. The main forces of Von Mackensen's "phalanx" were meanwhile pushing on toward Jaslo, still in Russian possession.

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.