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and some other divisions, of which the XIV. Corps was presently taken to form the Army-group of Archduke Josef Ferdinand and placed N. of Lemberg to maintain liaison between the IV. and III. Armies, intervening as required by either.-

On the left of the I. Army, along the N. side of the upper Vistula (i.e. in the Polish salient) an Army -group under von Kum- mer, formed of Landsturm troops, and to the left of Kummer, the German Landwehr Corps of Woyrsch, were to advance in the direction of Sandomir and Ivangorod respectively, driving back such Russian mounted forces as remained in this region. These formed an echelon protecting the left rear of the I. Army, but were primarily intended to form a rallying-point for an insurrection in Poland. This hope was not realized, or realized only to a small extent, and the " Polish Legion " that was formed in fact consisted largely of Galician Poles.

The Archduke Friedrich was commander-in-chief, with Conrad as chief of staff and effective director of operations. The campaign which ensued constituted in reality a chain of battles and as such is described elsewhere. Here it need only be summarized very broadly. Apart from the movement of Kummer and Woyrsch, who started early, in order to be in position at the date of the general advance, the campaign opened on Aug. 20. Prior to that date, the Austrian cavalry divisions had made many attempts to ascertain the Russian movements in the " southern corridor " and the adjacent parts of Bessa- rabia, but without obtaining much information. The Russian masses were in fact still in the stage of rail transport, and their mounted troops, trained to fire action and favoured by the country, easily kept the screen intact. The Austro-Hungarian offensive was therefore in its first stages carried out according to the a priori scheme.

The objective of the I. Army was Lublin, that of the IV. Chelm ; they therefore aimed at the concentration centres of the

IV. and V. Russian Armies respectively, and the conditions of this concentration led to a series of encounter battles in which the Austrian left was constantly echeloned forward, with the result on the other side that the Russian V. Army's tended to strike south-westward rather than southward, and so in turn exposed a flank to the Austro-Hungarian IV. Army. This army, again, depended for security on its right upon the Army- group (Josef Ferdinand), which was itself attracted now to the N. for intervention in Auffenberg's battle, now to the E. to protect Brudermann's exposed left. On the one side, therefore, an advance in echelon, on the other successive detrainments, pro- duced a battle of marked day-to-day fluctuations. The I. Army in a series of combats collectively called the battle of Krasnik reached the line S. of Chodel-Borzechow-Turobin by Aug. 26, against increasing Russian resistance especially on the left nearest Lublin, where it was found necessary to bring Kummer and Woyrsch E. of the Vistula in order to strengthen the forces aiming at that place while the right advanced to Krasnostav. On Dankl's left, meanwhile, Auffenberg was advancing into the area between the Wieprz and the Huczwa, and on Aug. 26 the battle of Komarov began. In this, between Aug. 26 and Sept. i the Austrian IV. Army broke the Russian

V. Army into two fractions, the more important of which, half- surrounded, only escaped through a maladroit withdrawal of that part of the Austrian army which had seized its line of retreat. The withdrawal of the one Russian fraction to Chelm and the other to Hrubieszow on the Bug, with heavy losses, constituted a signal victory, and would have had great results but for events in E. Galicia.

There, in accordance with the prevailing doctrines and also in order to keep Russian influences as far as possible from the Ruthenian capital, Brudermann III. Army and Bohm-Ermolli II. Army (in reality Army-group Kovesz) had been sent for- ward to carry out an offensive defence, although in the one army Josef Ferdinand's group was limited in its range by its liaison task, 1 and in the other the IV. and VII. Corps were still on their way to the theatre of war. This numerically weak offen-

1 In fact, it was wholly absorbed in the battle of Komarow.

sive encountered the Russian III. and VIII. Armies in full force as has been mentioned above, these armies had been given priority in equipment and otherwise and was brought to a standstill in the battle of Zloczow (Aug. 26-27) fought on the line upper Bug-Zlota-Lipa. On Aug. 29-30 a new battle, defensive this time, was accepted and lost on the Gnila Lipa (battle of Przemyslany) and the III. Army fell back on Lem- berg itself, which the supreme command thereupon decided to give up. It was evacuated on Sept. 2.

Thus Conrad was confronted with new problems. His left army (I., Kummer, Woyrsch) was already close upon Lublin, the victorious IV. Army pushing towards Chelm with its main body and Hrubieszow with its lesser half. In the region of Sokal and Rawa Ruska only cavalry activity had occurred, and Ruzsky's right wing was trending to the S.W. in the Lemberg direction. The beaten III. and II. Armies were assembled in good order on the strong line of the Grodek lakes (near Wereszyca), while no important attack had developed on the Dniester. There were, substantially, three courses open to pursue the northern of- fensive, trusting to distance and water to make interference with the right flank impossible during the necessary time; to take down the whole northern front and .come back to the Vistula-San-Dniester position; and to use the advantageous po- sition of the IV. Army for a manceuvre on interior lines against Ruzsky's right flank. In principle, he preferred the first course, and as we have seen, he invited Hindenburg's cooperation in I the still valid Siedlce scheme. But Hindcnburg declined, as ' Renncnkampf had not yet been dealt with, and opposition in tive had obvious advantages and disadvantages; in the existing conditions, the disadvantages which had weighed heavily in peace-time that E. Galicia was thereby abandoned no longer applied since that region was now lost, and the preservation of the only -available armies of the Dual Monarchy was of the highest importance. Nevertheless, Conrad chose the manceuvre on interior lines, as the VIII. German army had done. It may be that Tannenberg contributed to the decision.
 * front of the I. Army had visibly stiffened. The second alterna-

The germ of this idea appeared in the orders for Sept. 2, in which the IV. Army was ordered to suspend its offensive and change its front from N. to S. in readiness for a south-westward attack towards Lemberg, or for a south-eastward retreat towards the San. At the same time the lines of communication of each army were shifted westward, so that the base of the system be- came the region between Cracow and the Carpathians. The effort of the I. Army to gain ground northward was not given up, so that in effect, at this date, the supreme command had not made up its mind. In the orders for Sept. 4, on the other hand, the choice was definitely made in favour of a IV. Army offensive in the Lemberg direction, though the I. Army, Kummer and Woyrsch, were still left with their mission unchanged.

On the 6th, the complicated manceuvre of the IV. Army was completed, but in its southward progress it had developed con- siderable opposition on the E. flank, while the W. and centre passing by Rawa Ruska and Niemirow met little or none. The result was that the army practically swung into line with the III. instead of striking from N. to S. against the assailant of that army. On the 7th, therefore, Conrad changed his plan again. The Austrian leader now proposed to take down the northern front by degrees, to use the IV. Army as a fixed pivot between Rawa Ruska and Magierow and to swing up the II. and III. Armies against Brussilov. This plan came to nothing. Russian pressure increased on the front of Woyrsch, Kummer, Dankl, and the Russian V. Army, beaten at Komar6w, resumed the offensive against the group of divisions under Josef Ferdi- nand which had been left by the IV. Army to protect its rear. Finally, Ruzsky's right, augmented by a process of regrouping which had been going on at the same time as that of the Austro- Hungarians, emerged in great strength on and beyond Auffen- berg's left, N. of Rawa Ruska. There was no surprise, as marked indications of such a move had been discovered in the southward advance of the northern army. But when the Russian V. Army, joining the general offensive, began to drive