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To make matters worse, they were also being pressed severely from the Hungarian plains by the troops which hitherto stood inactive. Through Rostoki they attempted to separate the Russians around Zboro from those situated farther east at Nagy Polena. We have stated elsewhere that the Forty-eighth Division was severely handled.
This was the only section in the range where the Russians held both sides. Boehm-Ermolli had forced the Rostoki and Uzsok, but hitherto had been unable to get very far from their northern exits not beyond Baligrod.
The Russians again advanced along their whole front on April 4, 1915; forcing their way along the Rostoki stream, they carried the village of Rostoki Gorne with the bayonet and penetrated the snow-bound Rostoki Pass. Their first line arrived at a Hungarian village called Orosz-Russka, five miles from Nagy Polena, at the foot of the pass.
Army A, under Boehm-Ermolli, crossed Uzsok and Rostoki, and forced part of the Russian line back upon Baligrod, but Brussilov held it fast on Dukla and Lupkow, strongly supported by Dmitrieff on his right. Here the attack failed with severe losses; the Germanic forces were thrown back into Hungary, and the Russians commanded the southern ends of the passes around Dukla.
By the same night they had repulsed a counterattack near the Rostoki and captured a battalion of Austrian infantry. For the next three days Brussilov attempted to work his way to the rear of the Uzsok position with his right wing from the Laborcz and Ung valleys, while simultaneously continuing his frontal attacks against Boehm-Ermolli and Von Bojna.
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.
The Dukla and Lupkow passes were still in Russian hands; these were the only two that the Germanic offensives of January, February, and March, 1915, had failed to capture; all the others, from Rostoki eastward, were held by the Austrians and Germans.
They got well to the south of the Dukla, made substantial progress in the centre through the Rostoki pass, and by the middle of April held the crests for a continuous seventy miles; cavalry penetrated much farther down the slopes, and the Austrians prepared to evacuate the Ungvar valley.
For the time being, with Dukla and Lupkow in their hands and the exits of Uzsok and Rostoki strongly guarded, the defense of Koziowa held Galicia safe from reconquest. The attacks against Koziowa continued beyond the middle of March, 1915.
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