United States or Australia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
On May 18th the German War Office announced their successes in the following terms: "The army under General von Mackensen in the course of its pursuit of the Russians reached yesterday the neighborhood of Subiecko, on the lower Wisloka, and Kolbuezowa, northeast of Debica. Under the pressure of this advance the Russians also retreated from their positions north of the Vistula.
The fate of eastern Galicia was being decided 140 miles away, on the banks of the River San, to which region we will now direct the reader's attention. After the Russian troops retreated from the Lower Wisloka northward toward the confluence of that river with the Vistula they held the two important bridgeheads of Sandomierz and Rozvadov.
By the time the retreating Russians had reached the Wisloka they had to some extent recovered from the first shock of surprise, and were better able to attempt a determined stand against the overwhelming onrush of the Austro-Germanic troops. Ivanoff hurriedly sent reenforcements for Dmitrieff and Ewarts which included the Caucasian Corps of General Irmanoff from the Bzura front.
A fierce battle raged on the third and fourth of May, 1915, for the possession of the wooded hills between the Biala and the Wisloka. The Prussian Guard stormed Lipie Mountain and captured it on the third; on the fourth they took Olpiny, Szczerzyny and the neighboring hills at the point of the bayonet.
On the hills west of the Wisloka the Russian rear guards had intrenched themselves and held their positions till nightfall on May 5, 1915, all with the object of delaying the Germanic advance sufficiently for their comrades to clear the passes. Then they fell back again and made a stand near Tarnoviec, about six or seven miles east of Jaslo, where they dominated an important strategic position.
From the hour that the Austro-Germans had broken through the line at Ciezkovice, on May 2, 1915, the Russian retreat on the Wisloka had begun. Yielding to the terrible pressure the line had increasingly lost its shape as the various component parts fell back, though it gradually resumed the form of a front on the Wisloka banks, where most determined fighting continued for five days.
Most serious of all, Dmitrieff had neglected to construct second and third lines to which he could retire in an emergency. Of the rivers that lay behind him the Wisloka, the Wistok, and the San the first would be useful to cover Brussilov's position at the western passes, but beyond that he could not retreat without imperiling the whole Carpathian right flank.
It seems the Russians simply refused to be blown out of their trenches, for it required seven separate attacks to drive them out. That accomplished, the fate of Biecz was decided and the road to Jaslo the "key" to the Wisloka line of defense was practically open to General Arz von Straussenburg.
The Russian retreat to the Wisloka was a serious disaster for Dmitrieff; he had been caught napping, and had to pay dearly in men and guns for not having created a row of alternative positions. His force had been a cover for Brussilov's operations on both sides of the western passes as well as for the whole Russian line in the Carpathians.
What it meant to the Austrians has been stated; to the Russians its possession offered the only opportunity for a counteroffensive in the east that could possibly affect the course of the main operations on the Wisloka, San, and later the Przemysl lines. But however successful such a counteroffensive might prove, it could not have exerted any immediate influence on the western front.
Word Of The Day