United States or Comoros ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Austrians also came from the Tyrol and the Balkans, and Ludendorff was sent to restore confidence in the command. Kovel was the southern key to Brest-Litovsk; the northern flank could look after itself since Ewarts was making little progress, and Bothmer had barred the way for the time to the other essential points at Lemberg and Stanislau.

The losses of the Austrians and Germans, in killed and wounded up to this time, were placed at 500,000 men, the Russian offensive having lasted one month, with no evidence of slackening. General von Bothmer then began a retirement westward, while General Brusiloff advanced between the Pruth and Dniester rivers, and a concerted push toward Lemberg was begun.

The Austro-German forces were divided into four groups under Generals Puhallo, Boehm-Ermolli, Von Bothmer, and Von Pfanzer-Ballin. During the first few days of August, 1916, the fighting along this entire line, though continuous and severe, was not particularly well defined and was more or less split up into comparatively small and local engagements.

The command of the Galician front was in the hands of the Bavarian general, Count von Bothmer, while the forces fighting in the Bukowina were directed by General Pflanzer. On the Russian side of the line General Kuropatkin, well known from the Russo-Japanese War, was in command of the northern half of the front.

Under another clause of the Regency Act the Sovereign was entitled to nominate a number of Lords Justices. Baron von Bothmer, the Hanovarian Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of St. James's, opened the sealed packet containing the Commission of Regency, drawn up by George after the death of his mother.

Farther south the armies of Generals von Bothmer and Pflanzer-Baltin, too, had to withstand continuous attacks of the Russians and more or less fighting went on all along the southeastern front as far down as Nova-Sielnitsa, a few miles southeast of Czernovitz at the point where the borders of Rumania, Galicia, and Bessarabia meet.

Further north in Galicia the army group of General Count von Bothmer, southeast of Thumacz, in a quick advance, forced back the Russians on a front more than twelve and a half miles wide and more than five and a quarter miles deep.

From Kolki northwards the Pripet swamps made progress difficult, and Bothmer offered a stubborn resistance on the Strypa. But in the Volhynian triangle and the Bukovina the attack achieved a surprising success. The infantry advance began on the 4th and by noon the Austrian front was completely broken.

On August 28, 1915, German and Austro-Hungarian forces under Count Bothmer broke through the Russian line along the Zlota-Lipa River, both north and south of the Galician town of Brzezany, about fifty miles southeast of Lemberg, and in spite of determined resistance and repeated counterattacks drove the Russians some distance toward the Russo-Galician border.

Scherbachev was less successful against Bothmer in front of Tarnopol; but his left wing carried Buczacz, farther south, and crossed the Strypa, while beyond the Dniester Lechitsky outdid Kaledin's success at Lutsk.