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All during the 15th and the 16th the fighting in the passes continued desperately, the battle being especially obstinate before the railroad terminus at Campulung, up in the foothills. At about this same time the Russians in the Dorna Vatra district, where they joined with the Rumanians, began a strong offensive, in the hope of relieving the pressure on the Rumanians farther down.

Meanwhile, what had Von Pflanzer-Baltin accomplished with Army C the third column? His path lay through Jablonitza, Kirlibaba, and Dorna Vatra; his task was to clear the Russians out of the Bukowina, and either to force them back across their own frontiers, or to turn the extreme end of their left flank.

On November 5, 1916, the Germans regained Rosca heights, which the Rumanians had taken on the 3d. On the 7th the Russians were pressing the Germans hard below Dorna Vatra, while southeast of Red Tower Pass and near the Vulkan Pass the Rumanians suffered reverses, losing a thousand men as prisoners, according to the Vienna and Berlin dispatches.

Suddenly on October 14, 1916, simultaneously with the increased vigor shown by the Russians in Volhynia and Galicia, the Central Powers launched a violent offensive movement along the entire Carpathian front, from the Jablonica Pass down to the Rumanian border, on a front of some seventy-five miles. Especially heavy fighting occurred near Kirlibaba, in the Ludova sector, and south of Dorna Vatra.

Just as on the other parts of the eastern front the Carpathian sector showed comparatively little activity during the month of November, 1916. Only at one point, in the region south of Dorna Vatra, did there occur an action of somewhat greater importance. The Russians there had gradually gained some ground by a series of small engagements.

Numerous local engagements took place on September 1, 1916, none of which, however, brought any successes to the attacking Russians. They were more successful on the following day, September 2, 1916. South of Rafailov, in the region of Kapul Mountain and also near Dorna Vatra, the Austro-Germans lost some strongly fortified positions and the Russians thereby captured some heights.

The Russians registered some successes on the following day, September 8, 1916, west and southwest of Shypoth as well as near Dorna Vatra. On the same day the Austro-Germans were also forced to retreat northwest of Mount Kapul, a neighborhood in which more or less fighting had been in progress ever since July, 1916. This mountain peak is about 5,000 feet high.

Over the slushy roads of the valleys and into the snow-laden passes the Germanic armies advanced, each of the widely deployed columns with a definite objective: From Dukla, Lupkow, and Rostoki to relieve Przemysl; from Uzsok through the valley of the Upper San to Sambor; through Beskid and Vereczke northward to Stryj, thence westward also to Sambor; over Wyszkow to Dolina; via Jablonitza to Delatyn; and across Kirlibaba and Dorna Vatra into the Bukowina.

With the beginning of December, 1916, the severity of the cold weather became so pronounced that activities at the eastern front had to be reduced to a minimum by both sides. During the first week of December, 1916, considerable fighting, however, continued in that part of the Carpathians just north of the Rumanian border, especially in the vicinity of Dorna Vatra and Kirlibaba.