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Updated: June 12, 2025
While Von Hindenburg's army group was occupied with the drive on Vilna and Von Mackensen's forces advanced against Pinsk, Prince Leopold's regiments, as we have learned, fought continuously in the sector between the Niemen and the Jasiolda Rivers.
For the rest of the month Mackensen's huge machine of destruction was moving forward to the second stage of its journey on the San. Its progress was delayed by Russian counter-attacks on the Austrians under Von Woyrsch in Poland and on Mackensen's other wing which was advancing from the Carpathians on to the Dniester.
Von Mackensen's men captured two trenches near Fort No. 11 "they had to pay a heavy price in blood for every yard of their advance." Heavy batteries are also spitting fire against Forts Nos. 10 and 12. When the curtain of night fell over the scene of carnage and destruction, two breaches had been made in the outer ring of the forts.
Parts of Von Mackensen's army kept up its attack against the Russians around Biala, forced them across the Bug and into the very forts of Brest-Litovsk and at the same time began the bombardment of the outlying forts with the heavy artillery that had been brought up. Other parts, on that day, August 19, 1915, crossed the northern part of the Cholm-Brest-Litovsk railway east of Vlodava.
The diplomatic crisis grew to a climax as Mackensen's forces reached the northern bank of the Danube, for the arrest of the German offensive in Russia was not entirely due to German difficulties or Russian valour and strategy, and by the middle of August German divisions were already being diverted from the Russian front.
The Dniester was indeed the scene of stubborn fighting for many days, and on the 18th the Russian Government announced that the enemy had lost between 120,000 and 150,000 men in their efforts to cross it on a front of forty miles. But the Russian stand on the Dniester only left it to Mackensen's centre and left to turn the Grodek position and ensure the fall of Lemberg.
If the Allies at Saloniki could stop the Bulgarian movement, the Serbians might face again the Austro-Germans. They expected this help from the Allies. At Nish the town was decorated and the school children waited outside the station with bouquets to present to the coming reinforcements. But the Allies did not come. Von Mackensen's plan was simple enough.
The "phalanx" was compelled to travel slowly, for it carried about 2,000 pieces of artillery with ample munitions, and the railroads had been wrecked by the retreating Russians. What has been described by military writers as "Von Mackensen's phalanx" was a concentration of troops along the lines on which the strongest resistance was expected or where the quickest advance was intended.
There was a three-fold reason why I did not share Germany's opinion on this question. In the first place, my point of view was that it was not our duty to mete out divine justice and to inflict punishment, but, on the contrary, to end the war as quickly as possible. Therefore my duty was to seize every means possible to prevent a continuance of the war. I must mention here that the idea prevailing in many circles that the Roumanians were quite at the end of their strength, and were compelled to accept all the conditions, is entirely false. The Roumanians held very strong positions, the moral in the army was excellent, and in the last great attack on Maracesci, Mackensen's troops had suffered very severely. This success turned the Roumanians' heads, and there were many leading men in the ranks of the Roumanian army who sided entirely with those who wished to carry on the war
Nothing now could save his small force from those grim lines of gaping muzzles turned against his positions. The overture began on April 28, 1915, with an advance on the Upper Biala toward Gorlice, by Von Mackensen's right. Here some minor attacks had been previously made, and the gradually increasing pressure did not at first reveal the intent or magnitude of the movement behind it.
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