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CARPATHIAN BATTLES 1915

LJ^UAustpian Front begnng of Feb

Russian

- middle

.. end. ,

Russian retreat. and attacks before 2(Tfeb.

attacks after 20' K Feb

KIHibeb:

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LILIENMOF"

FIG. B.

by a counter-offensive W. of the Mezolaborcz railway, and from the 28th onwards this spread eastwards.

The Southern Army managed to hold its hard-won gains; the III. Army E. of Wola-Michowa still contrived to defend Hun- gary in Galicia behind the Upper San and on the hills N. and W. of Cisna; but the pressure of hostile masses (some 100,000 strong) astride the Mezolaborcz railway and in the Dukla valley forced it back towards the Hungarian plains to the line Wola-Michowa, Stropko, upper course of the Ondava.

The arrival on the 8th of the XVII. Corps from the IV. Army and the VIII. from the Serbian theatre brought some relief. The XVII. Corps came into line W. of the VII.; of the VIII., the one division (the 2ist Landwehr) was sent to the X. Corps, the other (the gth) to the XIX. and XVIII. Corps which were most in need of assistance. After the arrival of these fresh forces, Gen. von Boroevic commenced on Feb. 10 an attempt to recover the lost ground at Mezolaborcz. This did not prosper, as the Russians here and in the Dukla valley, strongly reenforced, poured ever- fresh masses into the attack. The position of the III. Army grew daily more serious.

Meanwhile Gen. von Pflanzer-Baltin's army group suc- ceeded, in a series of continuous actions from Jan. 31 to Feb. 20, in bearing its standards victoriously through the Bukovina and S.E. Galicia as far as Stanislau. Its Eastern group (three divisions) had liberated the Bukovina and then moved by way of Kolomea to the N.W. in order to join the Western group (three divisions) which had advanced along the Marmarossziget- Kolomea railway and north-westwards to Nadworna. The Russians, despite their violent counter-attacks, had by the i7th been defeated at Kolomea and their group, fighting stubbornly at Nadworna, was compelled by the increasing pressure on its flank to fall back towards Stanislau on the igth. This town was occupied on the 2oth by the main body of Pflanzer-Baltin's com- mand, which had been reenforced on the I7th by two cavalry divisions; meanwhile the left wing on the Lomnica wheeled in towards Dolina in order from the rear to open up for the Southern Army the issue from the mountains. Already, however, the concentration N. and W. of Stanislau of powerful Russian forces the leading troops of Lechitski's IX. Army made it evident that the Russians were here preparing a counter-offensive. The

well-developed railway system in Galicia facilitated the rapid reenforcement of the Russian eastern wing. With this the Aus- trian higher command was unable to compete successfully, for on the mountain railway by Marmarossziget only three divisions (5th from the I. Army, XI. Corps from the III. Army) could be brought up by the early days of March.

It was this circumstance, and the limited time during which the fortress of Przemysl could hold out, which had meanwhile determined the Austrian higher command, in spite of the experi- ences of winter in the Carpathians, to assemble behind the right wing of the III. Army the forces made available by the weakening of the Russian forces in Poland and the fortifying of positions there, although here none but a frontal attack was possible, and although to the Austrian higher command the offensive of the Pflanzer-Baltin army group seemed to promise the most decisive result. Since, however, a direct support of this group was impossible within the necessary time limit, the plan was to divert by a new attack over the Carpathians, such strong Russian forces as to enable the eastern wing to continue the offensive.

The Southern Army was reenforced by the German 4th Infan- try Division. In order to build up the II. Army behind the right wing of the III., from Feb. 6 onward three divisions (a7th Inf. Div. and IV. Corps 3ist and 32d Inf. Div.) were withdrawn from Poland and the 4ist and half the 38th Honved Divisions from West Galicia. On Feb. 15 Gen. von Bohm-Ermolli took over the command of these forces, together with the eastern half of the III. Army (Szurmay's group, consisting of the V., XVIII. and XIX. Corps) which numbered 60,700 rifles.

The left wing of the II. Army as now constituted was fighting with its last reserves of strength. The troops were exhausted almost to the point of collapse by continuous fighting and the severities of the weather. The Russian divisions, on the other hand, were in a better position in that they could usually allow two regiments to rest while two others attacked. It was only owing to the most strenuous exertions that the Austro-Hungarian troops succeeded, without reliefs, in holding the crests and pre- venting the successive waves of the Russian assault from sweep- ing away the thin line of defence. Again and again reserves drawn from the front itself came to the support of the points most in danger, a process which exhausted the strength of the