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The main forces had already withdrawn in perfect order and fallen back beyond the Wisloka. During the night of May 4-5, 1915, two regiments of the Ninth Austro-Hungarian Army Corps crossed the Biala near Tuchow and moved northward in the direction of the road leading from Tarnow to Pilzno, along which the remainder of the garrison would have to pass in order to retreat.
If this could be effected, the fatal gap between them made by Von Mackensen's battering-ram would be repaired, and they could once more present a united front to the enemy. But from Tarnow southward to Tuchow, a small twenty-mile salient on the Biala, the Russians are still in possession on May 4, 1915, defying the Fourth Austro-Hungarian Army.
Another train of solemn music succeeded; and then the squadrons which the deceased had commanded dismounted, and, leading their horses, closed the procession. On the verge of the plain that borders Biala, and within a few paces of the convent gate of St. Francis, the bier stopped.
At this stage the Russian front on the west of Galicia extended from Opatovie on the Polish frontier along the Dunajec, Biala, and Ropa Rivers by Tarnow, Ciezkovice, and Gorlice down to Zboro in Hungary; from here it runs eastward past Sztropko, Krasnilbrod, Virava, and Nagy Polena to the Uzsok Pass, a distance of about 120 miles.
Only after all cover is destroyed, the enemy's infantry killed or forced to retire, we take up the attack against the positions; the élan of our first attack now usually leads to a favorable result." At Ciezkovice the Germans pushed bridges across the Biala under cover of a furious cannonade. Troops were thrown over, and after a very short struggle the village was taken.
We have seen that Dmitrieff had not provided himself with those necessary safety exits which were now so badly needed. As no artificially prepared defenses were at hand, natural ones had to be found. The first defense was irretrievably lost; the second line was a vague, undefined terrain extending across the hills between Biala in the west and the River Wisloka in the east.
Irritated against Captain Capi, we passed through Beilitz without stopping, went immediately to Biala, the first town in Poland, and from thence sent Capi a challenge to fight me, with sword or pistol, but received no answer; and his non-appearance has ever confirmed him in my opinion a rascal. And here suffer me to take a retrospective view of what was my then situation.
Parts of Von Mackensen's southern group under the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand had even reached Biala, less than twenty miles west of Brest-Litovsk, and still other detachments from this group were advancing along the eastern bank of the Bug.
Here he had deployed the three armies which had held the entire front from the Biala to Uzsok in the beginning of May, 1915, nearly twice as long as the line they were now guarding. These were to fight a holding battle on the center while he adopted a series of vigorous counterthrusts on his right and left wings.
That his mother had received intelligence of the cruel event with such "holy resignation" was the best medicine that could now be applied to his wounds, both of mind and body; and when he was told that on the succeeding morning the body of his grandfather would, be removed to the convent near Biala, he declared his resolution to attend it to the grave.
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