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Under cover of night Colonel Planckh led his heroic men toward our advanced posts northwest of Zaleszczyki, where he arrived early this morning." During the next few days the fire from the Russian batteries increased still more in violence.
By the 8th the Austrians captured the bridgehead of Zaleszczyki; on the 9th the Russians drove them out again, capturing 500 men, 3 big guns, 1 field gun, and a number of machine guns.
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.
Early in April, 1915, a Russian force threw a bridge across the Dniester near the village of Filipkowu and moved along the road running from Uscie Biskupie via Okna and Kuczurmik on to Czernowitz, the intention being to turn the Austrian positions south of Zaleszczyki from the rear.
"There remained for our brave troops, composed of the Kaiser Dragoons and sappers, only one outlet if they were to evade capture. They had to cut their way through Uscieszko, which was strongly occupied by the enemy, to our troops ensconced on the heights north of Zaleszczyki. The march through the enemy position succeeded.
Lechitsky was also compelled to withdraw from the Bukowina between Zaleszczyki, Onut, and Czernowitz, where the Austrians were moving along the Dniester in the north, the Pruth in the south, and over the hills in the center against the village of Szubraniec.
Being a junction of six roads and a railway station on the curved line from Kolomea to Zaleszczyki, Horodenka is considered to be the most important strategic point along the Dniester-Czernowitz front. It was undoubtedly a severe blow to the Austrians. During the night of May 11, 1915, and the next day they evacuated a front of about eighty-eight miles, and retired south of the Pruth.
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