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Updated: May 17, 2025
Some twenty miles northwest of Czernowitz, sheltered in a loop of the Dniester, lies an important fortified town called Zaleszczyki. It had a population of over 76,000, and is a station on the branch line connecting Czortkow junction with the Kolomca-Czernowitz railway.
On the Pruth sector, between Doyan and Niepokoloutz, the Russian troops approached the left bank of the river, near the bridgehead of Czernowitz. The only point at which the Austrian line held was near Kolki in northern Volhynia, south of the Styr. There attempts by the Russians to cross that river failed and some 2,000 men were captured by the Austro-Hungarians.
This seriously threatened the brave garrison which held the capital of the Bukowina, as it put the Russians in a position where they could sweep southward and cut off the defenders of Czernowitz, if they should hold out to the last. In fact the entire Austro-Hungarian army in the Bukowina was now facing this peril.
Containing battles were fought along the Strypa and the Styr, and Czartorysk passed once more into Russian hands and Kolki was added to their gains. But the main object was not attained. The Russians seized the heights between Toporoutz and Rarancze and threw some shells into Czernowitz, but they failed to capture the crucial point at Uscieczko on the Dniester.
A height at the mouth of the Strypa, called Tomb of Popoff, fell into the hands of the Russian troops. Both Austrian and Russian aeroplanes dropped bombs, without however inflicting any serious damage, even though the Russians officially announced that as many as fifty bombs fell on Zuczka about half a mile outside of Czernowitz and on North Czernowitz.
In the first few days of the offensive we took one of the principal positions between Okna and Dobronowce, southeast of Zaleszcyky. Dobronowce and the surrounding mountains, which are thickly covered with forests, were regarded by the enemy as a reliable protection against any advance on Czernowitz. The country beyond offers no such opportunities for defense.
It brought them once more into possession of the Bukowinian capital, Czernowitz. Czernowitz is one of the towns whose people have suffered most severely from the fluctuating tide of war. Its cosmopolitan population, the greater part of whom are Germans, have seen it change hands no less than five times in twenty-one months.
Forcing the passage of the Dniester near Okna on that same 4th of June, he broke the Austrian front and drove one half of it west to Horodenka and the other half south-east towards Czernowitz. The latter portion was now an isolated and disorganized fragment of the Austrian army which could do nothing but escape across the Pruth and the Carpathians leaving Lechitsky to overrun the Bukovina.
Crossing the River Pruth opposite Ludihorecza, which lies about 600 feet high, and where the Czernowitz waterworks are situated, the Russians occupied the place and threatened the Austrian position in the town, around which pressed laborers were digging trenches night and day for the defenders. Along the line between Sadagora and Old Zuczka the Russians had been settled for over six months.
Three important railroad towns fell into their hands, on that day, of the left wing of the Russian army, Gurahumora in the south, Straza in the center, and Vidnitz in the northwest. Gurahumora lies fifty miles south of Czernowitz, and is situated on the only railway in the southern part of the crownland. The town is ten miles from the Russian border.
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