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Pivoting on Sieniava, Von Mackensen swung his right toward Mosciska, which Von Marwitz captured on June 14, 1915. The same night the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand's entire army was slowly wheeling from the San toward the Tanev, facing due north. On June 16, 1915, the left of this line was already inside the borders of Russian Poland, and its right wing along the entire Tanev front.

South of the village of Naklo, between Przemysl and Mosciska, a hill 650 feet high was violently attacked; it commanded the only line of retreat from the fortress still left open. To the south of the town the Russian counteroffensive tried to outflank the Austrian troops which had approached close to the fortress and the railroad to Lemberg.

They could only delay matters until the stores and material were removed from the fortress. It was now a salient threatened with encirclement on the north and south. Russian counter-attacks at Sieniawa and Mosciska relieved the pressure for some days, but before the end of May Mackensen's howitzers were at work, and Przemysl was evacuated by the Russians on 1 June.

But on May 17, 1915, these trenches near Hussakow were recaptured by the Russians. The Austrians returned to the charge, however, and by May 19 were within six miles of Mosciska.

Similarly, at Mosciska, when Boehm-Ermolli tried to storm the Russian position by mass attacks, his infantry was driven back with such terrible punishment that they could not be induced to make another advance.

German troops were reported marching south toward Poland to assist the Austrians. The Russian successes in Galicia gave them command of the Galician oil-fields, upon which Germany largely depended for her supply of gasoline, which is a prime necessary in modern war. On September 21 the Russians began the bombardment of Przemysl, having previously occupied Grodek and Mosciska, west of Lemberg.

In the neighborhood of the town of Kalusz the Austrians made two attacks from the direction of Mosciska and near Gartenel and attempted to dislodge the Russian troops occupying Kalusz, but were repulsed. The Russians occupied, after fighting, the village of Novica, southwest of Kalusz. Heavy rains prevented extensive fighting at other points south of the Dniester.

The Russians could still offer an effective resistance between Krukienice and Mosciska, but the pressure of continuous attack against their positions around Hussakow grew fiercer every hour. The enemy was knocking at the outer ring of the forts; from the west the heaviest cannons were pouring shot and shell with such violence that the fall of Przemysl could no longer be prevented.

From Jaroslav their front ran in almost a straight line for thirty miles southeastward to the outer and northern forts around Przemysl, described nearly a complete circle around the western and southern forts to Mosciska on the east, thence south to Sambor, and from Sambor to Stryj. From Stryj eastward to the Bukowina the line remained unaltered.

Supplies were essential before any more could be undertaken to cut a passage through the strong double set of Russian lines that lay between the Carpathians and Przemysl; but that these supplies were stored at Mosciska was a pure speculation. Further, considering that the whole country was in their opponents' hands, a strength of 30,000 men was insufficient to attempt so hazardous an adventure.