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Updated: May 23, 2025
Between Telepovce and Zuella, two villages south of the Lupkow, the Russians noiselessly approached the Austrian barbed-wire entanglements, broke through, and after a brief bayonet encounter gained possession of two heights and captured the village of Nagy Polena, a little farther to the east.
Of the actual fighting that took place in this region very few details were published by the Russian official communiqué. One of these documents, dated April 18, 1915, announced that on March 23, "our troops had already begun their principal attack in the direction of Baligrod, enveloping the enemy positions from the west of the Lupkow Pass and on the east near the sources of the San.
Of the latter, none was attained. The Russians had not been expelled from Galicia; Przemysl was no nearer to relief than before, and Lemberg had not been retaken. With the exception of Dukla and Lupkow, all the passes were in Austrian hands; but the Russians dominated the northern debouchments of all of them excepting Jablonitza.
While the elements were battling, the weary human fighting machine rested and bound its wounds. But not for long. Scarcely had the last howls of the blizzard faded away when the machine was again set in motion. South of Dukla and Lupkow and north of Uzsok fighting was resumed with intense vigor.
The forests which cover these mountains offer special facilities for the construction of strong fortifications." March 25: "The woods in the Lupkow region are a perfect entanglement of barbed wire... surrounded by several layers of trenches, strengthened by deep ditches and palisades.
The Laborza district was held by the Archduke Joseph with the Seventh Army Corps; on his left stood a German corps under Von Marwitz, and on his right the Tenth Army Corps, north of Bartfeld, with some additional forces in between. Around the Lupkow and Uzsok passes the Second Austro-Hungarian Army under Boehm-Ermolli was stationed where it had been since February, 1915.
These gigantic preparations were not unknown to the Russians; they, also, strained every nerve to throw all available reenforcements behind and into the battle line, strengthening every position except one. South of the Lupkow the Germanic forces opened their counteroffensive on April 6, 1915. Official reports on the first day's fighting differ somewhat.
Severe fighting raged round this district for over a month, the Russians finally capturing Lupkow, as well as Smolnik at the southern exit of Rostoki. Had the Russians succeeded in getting between Uzsok and the Austrian line of communication, as was undoubtedly their aim, the Austrians would have been compelled to relinquish the pass without even a fight.
It is not fear, nor the precaution of cowardice that prompted this wholesale removal of fighting men: the inexorable laws of geometry demanded it. The enemy was at Krempna; as the crow flies the distance from Krempna to the northern debouchment of Lupkow is eighty miles; yet Lupkow was threatened, for the "line" or "front" is pierced the vital artery of the defense is severed.
In the course of the day, March 23, 1915, we captured more than 4,000 prisoners, a gun, and several dozen machine guns." On March 24, 1915, the battle was in full progress: "Especially severe is the fighting for the crest of the mountain south of Jasliska and to the west of the Lupkow Pass.
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