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May 23 Italy declares war on Austria. June 3 Germans recapture Przemysl with Austrian help. June 18 British suffer defeat north of La Bassee canal. June 28 Italians enter Austrian territory south of Riva on western shore of Lake Garda. July 3 Tolmino falls into Italian hands. July 9 British make gains north of Ypres and French retake trenches in the Vosges. July 13 Germans defeated in the Argonne.
From Jaroslav their front ran in almost a straight line for thirty miles southeastward to the outer and northern forts around Przemysl, described nearly a complete circle around the western and southern forts to Mosciska on the east, thence south to Sambor, and from Sambor to Stryj. From Stryj eastward to the Bukowina the line remained unaltered.
Thus fell, on March 22, 1915, Przemysl, "by its own momentum like an overripe fruit," and with a garrison twice as large as would have been adequate to defend it. To Austria the blow was a severe one, for it cost her about four army corps; the immediate advantage it brought to the Russians was the release of Selivanoff's army of 100,000 men, who were urgently required elsewhere.
On Sunday and Monday, the 21st and 22d of March, a number of explosions were heard in and around Przemysl. The Austrians were destroying everything possible previous to surrendering.
West of Lemberg the pleasant country lost its war-time air and in Przemysl the two or three lonely Landsturm men guarding the wrecked fortifications, twice taken and twice blown up by retreating armies, lit candles to take us through the smashed galleries, and accepted a few Hellers when we came out, with quite the bored air of professional museum guides.
When the Austro-German armies reached the line of the San on May 14, 1915, the battle for mid-Galicia was over, and a fresh chapter of the campaign opened with the battle of the San, which might more fittingly be described as the battle for Przemysl.
The Russian counteroffensive was a homeopathic remedy, on the principle of "like curing like:" an enveloping movement against being enveloped themselves at Przemysl; but the case was hopeless. Yet they met with some successes of a temporary nature.
This was a welcome relief to Przemysl, for the garrison was nearly starved, and it was well for the garrison that the relief came, for in a few days the Russians returned, recaptured Jaroslav and reinvested Przemysl.
The only success won during this campaign was that in the far south where Austrian troops were sweeping eastward toward the San. This army drove back the Russians under Ivanov, reoccupied Jaroslav and relieved Przemysl.
Nothing had been done in Galicia to put the captured Przemysl into a state of defence, and even the bridge across the San had not been repaired to provide a direct line of supply to the front on the Dunajec. Offers of skilled labour from other countries to improve the inefficient service of Russian railways and the inept direction of industries and munition factories were ignored.
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