Chapter 12

Przemysl fell to the German arms on June 3, 1915, ten weeks after the Russians had captured the fortress and its Austrian garrison following a six months' investment. The campaign which meant as its first result the recapture of this great fortress of nineteen modern forts and sixteen field fortifications, with innumerable trenches, was continued by the renewal of the "thrust" of General von Mackensen toward Lemberg, the capital of Galicia. Semi-official figures published in Berlin estimated the Russian losses from May 1 to June 18, when the victorious German armies were approaching the gates of Lemberg, at 400,000 dead and wounded and 300,000 prisoners, besides 100,000 lost before Field Marshal von Hindenburg's forces in Poland and Courland. On June 22 Berlin reported five Austro-German armies shelling the last lines of the Russian defenses before Lemberg, which fell on June 23.

The admitted weakness of Russia in this campaign was the exhaustion of her ammunition supplies. The intent of the German thrust was to drive the Russians far back and establish easily defended positions from which the Germans might detach forces for operations against Italy and the Allies in the west. Political consequences, also, were expected from German success in Galicia in deterring Bulgaria and Rumania from entering the war.

On June 21 advices reaching Tokio from Vladivostok indicated that heavy shipments of munitions of war intended for use by Russia's armies had arrived at that seaport, in such quantities that facilities were lacking to forward them by rail through Siberia.

THE WEST GALICIAN "DRIVE."

(Wolff Telegraphic Bureau, Berlin, May 6, 1915.)

_From the Great Headquarters we have received the following in regard to the "drive" in West Galicia:_

To the complete surprise of the enemy, large movements of troops into West Galicia had been completed by the end of April. These troops, subject to the orders of General von Mackensen, had been assigned the task in conjunction with the neighboring armies of our Austrian ally of breaking through the Russian front between the crest of the Carpathians and the middle Dunajee. It was a new problem and no easy undertaking. The heavens granted our troops wonderful sunshine and dry roads. Thus fliers and artillery could come into full activity and the difficulties of the terrain, which here has the character of the approaches of the German Alps, or the Hörsal hills in Thuringia, could be overcome. At several points ammunition had to be transported amid the greatest hardships on pack animals and the marching columns and batteries had to be moved forward over corduroy roads, (artificial roads made of logs.) All the accumulation of information and preparations necessary for breaking through the enemy's line had been quietly and secretly accomplished. On the first of May in the afternoon the artillery began its fire on the Russian positions. These in some five months had been perfected according to all the rules of the art of fortification. In stories they lay one over the other along the steep heights, whose slopes had been furnished with obstacles. At some points of special importance to the Russians they consisted of as many as seven rows of trenches, one behind the other. The works were very skillfully placed, and were adopted to flanking one another. The infantry of the allied [Teutonic] troops in the nights preceding the attack had pushed forward closer to the enemy and had assumed positions in readiness for the forward rush. In the night from May 1 to 2 the artillery fired in slow rhythm at the enemy's positions. Pauses in the fire served the pioneers for cutting the wire entanglements. On the 2d of May at 6 A.M. an overwhelming artillery fire, including field guns and running up to the heaviest calibres, was begun on the front many miles in extent selected for the effort to break through. This was maintained unbroken for four hours.

At 10 o'clock in the morning these hundreds of fire-spouting tubes suddenly ceased and the same moment the swarming lines and attacking columns of the assailants threw themselves upon the hostile positions. The enemy had been so shaken by the heavy artillery fire that his resistance at many points was very slight. In headlong flight he left his defenses, when the infantry of the [Teutonic] allies appeared before his trenches, throwing away rifles and cooking utensils and leaving immense quantities of infantry ammunition and dead. At one point the Russians themselves cut the wire entanglements to surrender themselves to the Germans. Frequently the enemy made no further resistance in his second and third positions. On the other hand, at certain other points of the front he defended himself stubbornly, making an embittered fight and holding the neighborhood. With the Austrian troops, the Bavarian regiments attacked Mount Zameczyka, lying 250 meters above their positions, a veritable fortress. A Bavarian infantry regiment here won incomparable laurels. To the left of the Bavarians Silesian regiments stormed the heights of Sekowa and Sakol. Young regiments tore from the enemy the desperately defended cemetery height of Gorlise and the persistently held railway embankment at Kennenitza. Among the Austrian troops Galician battalions had stormed the steep heights of the Pustki Hill, Hungarian troops having taken in fierce fighting the Wiatrowka heights. Prussian guard regiments threw the enemy out of his elevated positions east of Biala and at Staszkowka stormed seven successive Russian lines which were stubbornly held. Either kindled by the Russians or hit by a shell, a naphtha well behind Gorlise burst into flames. Higher than the houses the flames struck up into the sky and pillars of smoke rose to hundreds of yards.

On the evening of the 2d of May, when the warm Spring sun had begun to yield to the coolness of night the first main position in its whole depth and extent, a distance of some sixteen kilometers had been broken through and a gain of ground of some four kilometers had been attained. At least 20,000 prisoners, dozens of cannon and fifty machine guns remained in the hands of the allied troops that in the battle had competed with one another for the palm of victory. In addition, an amount of booty to be readily estimated, in the shape of war materials of all sorts, including great masses of rifles and ammunition, had been secured.

WORK OF GERMAN ARTILLERY.

(German Press Headquarters in Galicia, May 4, 1915.)

Reports of prisoners are unanimous in describing the effect of the artillery fire of the Teutonic allies as more terrible than the imagination can picture. The men, who were with difficulty recovering from the sufferings and exertions they had undergone, agreed that they could not imagine conditions worse in hell than they had been for four hours in the trenches. Corps, divisions, brigades, and regiments melted away as though in the heat of a furnace. In no direction was escape possible, for there was no spot of ground on which the four hundred guns of the Teutonic allies had not exerted themselves. All the Generals and Staff Officers of one Russian division were killed or wounded. Moreover, insanity raged in the ranks of the Russians, and from all sides hysterical cries could be heard rising above the roar of our guns, too strong for human nerves. Over the remnants of the Russians who crowded in terror into the remotest corners of their trenches there broke the mighty rush of our masses of infantry, before which also the Russian reserves, hurrying forward, crumbled away.

GERMAN TEAM WORK.

(Wolff Telegraphic Bureau, Vienna, May 7, 1915.)

_From a well-informed source at the Royal and Imperial Chief Command, the War Press Bureau has received the following communication:_

While by those concerned in conducting the operations of the armies individual achievements and isolated developments of distinction are regarded as excluded from particular mention, in the public press not infrequently certain successes are assigned to certain personalities. This, too, has been the case frequently with reference to the recent happenings in Galicia. The suggestions and plans made in the war are always the result of the co-operation of a number of persons. The Commander in Chief then assumes the responsibility for them. So far as the present operations in Galicia are concerned, these had in March already been similarly planned, and at that time such forces as were available were put into position for a penetrating thrust in the direction, by way of Gorlice, through the chain of valleys toward Zmygrod. These forces, however, proved to be numerically too weak, in spite of initial successes at Senkorva and Gorlice, to break through the enemy's stubbornly defended front. Only the proposal made by General von Falkenhayn and sanctioned by the German chief command, to bring up further strong German forces for a forward drive, supplied the foundation for the brilliant success of May 1 by the armies of Mackensen, Archdukes Joseph and Frederick and Boroevic.

ADVANCE IN MIDDLE GALICIA.

(Wolff Telegraphic Bureau, Berlin, May 26, 1915.)

We learn from the Great Headquarters the following concerning the progress of the operations of the Teutonic allies in Middle Galicia:

In barely fourteen days the army of Mackensen has carried its offensive forward from Gorlice to Jaroslaw. With daily fighting, for the most part against fortified positions, it has crossed the line of three rivers and gained in territory more than 100 kilometers in an airline. On the evening of the fourteenth day, with the taking of the city and bridge-head, Jaroslau, they won access to the lower San. It was now necessary to cross this stream on a broad front. The enemy, though, still held before Radymo and in the angle of San-Wislok with two strongly fortified bridge-heads the west bank of this river. For the rest he confined himself to the frontal defense of the east bank.

While troops of the guard in close touch with Austrian regiments gained, fighting, the crossing of the river at Jaroslau, and continued to throw the enemy, who was daily receiving reinforcements, continually further toward the east and northeast, Hanoverian regiments forced the passage of the river several kilometers further down stream. Brunswickers, by the storming of the heights of Wiazowinca, opened the way and thereby won the obstinately defended San crossing. Further to the north the San angle was cleared of the enemy that had still held on there. One Colonel, fifteen officers, 7,800 prisoners, four cannon, twenty-eight machine guns, thirteen ammunition wagons, and a field kitchen fell into our hands. The rest found themselves obliged to make a hasty retreat to the east bank.

These battles and successes took place on the 17th of May in the presence of the German Emperor, who, on the same day, conferred upon the Chief of Staff of the army here engaged, Colonel von Seeckt, the order _pour le mérite_, the commander of the army, General von Mackensen, having already received special honors. The Emperor had hurried forward to his troops by automobile. On the way he was greeted with loud hurrahs by the wounded riding back in wagons. On the heights of Jaroslau the Emperor met Prince Eitel Friedrich, and then, from several points of observation, for hours followed with keen attention the progress of the battle for the crossing.

In the days from the 18th to the 20th of May the Teutonic allies pressed on further toward the east, northeast, and north, threw the enemy out of Sieniawa and took up positions on the east bank of the river upon a front of twenty or thirty kilometers. The enemy withdrew behind the Lerbaczowa stream. All his attempts to win back the lost ground were unsuccessful, although in the days from the 13th to the 20th of May he brought on no less than six fresh divisions to stem our advance at and beyond Jaroslau.

Altogether, the Russian command had since the beginning of the operation thrown seven army corps from other areas of the war against the front of the army of von Mackensen and against the centre and right wing of the army of Archduke Joseph Ferdinand. These were the Third Caucasian, the Fifteenth, and a combined army corps, six individual infantry regiments, the Thirty-fourth, Forty-fifth, Fifty-eighth, Sixty-second, Sixty-third, Seventy-seventh, and Eighty-first Infantry, and the Thirteenth Siberian division, not counting a cavalry division, which entered the field already in the earliest days. With the combined army corps there appeared a Caucasian infantry division, the Third, made up of Armenians and Grusinians, which till January had fought in Persia, was transferred in April to Kars, and later to Odessa, where it formed part of the so-called Army of the Bosporus. Before our front now also appeared Cossacks on foot, a special militia formation, which hitherto had fought in the Caucasus. Finally, there came on the outermost left wing of the Russians the Trans-Amoor border guards, a troop designed purely for protection of the railway in North Manchuria, whose use in this part of the area of war was probably not foreseen even in Russia.

Yet the Russians still held along the lower San the bridge-head of Radymo on the west bank. The problem of the next ensuing battles was to drive him also from this point.

APPROACHING PRZEMYSL.

(By The Associated Press.)

_VIENNA, June 1, (via Amsterdam and London.)--The following official communication was issued today:_

East of the San our troops were attacked Monday night along the entire front by strong Russian forces. This was especially true on the lower Lubaczowka, where superior forces attempted to advance. All the attacks were repulsed with severe losses to the enemy, who at some points retreated in disorder.

On the lower San, below Sieniawa, Russian attacks also failed.

On the north front of Przemysl Bavarian troops stormed three defenses of the circle of forts, capturing 1,400 prisoners and 28 heavy guns.

South of the Dniester the allied troops penetrated the enemy's defensive position, defeated the Russians and conquered Stry, the enemy retreating toward the Dniester. We captured 53 officers and over 9,000 prisoners, 8 cannon, and 15 machine guns.

On the Pruth and in Poland the situation is unchanged.

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_BERLIN, June 1, (via London.)--The German General Staff gave out the following report today on the operations in the eastern theatre of war:_

In the eastern theatre of war, near Amboten, fifty kilometers, (about thirty miles,) east of Libau, (Courland,) German cavalry defeated the Russian Fourth Regiment of Dragoons. Near Shavli, hostile attacks were unsuccessful.

Our booty in the month of May, north of the Niemen River, amounts to 24,700 prisoners, seventeen cannon, and forty-seven machine guns; south of the Niemen and the Pilica, 6,943 prisoners, eleven machine guns, and one aeroplane.

In the southeastern theatre of war: In front of Przemysl Bavarian troops yesterday stormed Forts 10-A, 11-A, and 12, west of Dunkowiczki, capturing the remainder of a garrison of 1,400 men, with eighteen heavy and five light cannon. The Russians attempted to escape their fate by an attack in masses against our positions east of Jaroslau, but failed, an enormous number of dead covering the battlefield before our front.

The conquerors of Zwinin (a ridge in the Carpathians)--the Prussian Guard under command of the Bavarian General, Count Bothmer--stormed a strongly fortified place on the Stry, and broke through Russian positions near and northwest of Stry. Up to the present time we have captured in this region fifty-three officers, 9,183 men, eight cannon, and fifteen machine guns.

According to an unofficial report from Piotrkow, Russian Poland, the Russians have evacuated Radom, in Poland, to the south of Warsaw.

MORE DEFENSES TAKEN.

_VIENNA, June 2, (via Amsterdam and London.)--The official statement issued by the Austrian War Office tonight reads as follows:_

The Russians have renewed their strong attacks against the allied troops on the eastern bank of the San. Desperate attacks everywhere have been repulsed with heavy Russian losses.

On the northern front of Przemysl two additional fortifications have been taken by storm, and we have maintained the conquered ground.

South of the Dniester our attacks are making successful progress. Hostile positions between Stry and Drohobycz were stormed yesterday.

Strong Russian forces, which yesterday attacked our position near Solowina, in South Galicia, suffered severe losses. They retreated and, at some points, took to flight.

Besides the booty mentioned in the German communication as having been captured during the month of May from the Russians we took 189 ammunition wagons and a quantity of other war material, such as 8,500 rounds of artillery ammunition, 5,500,000 cartridges, and 32,000 rifles.

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_BERLIN, June 2, (via London.)--The following report on the operations in the eastern theatre of war was issued today by the German General Staff:_

Successful engagements occurred against minor Russian divisions at Neuhausen, fifty kilometers (about thirty miles) northeast of Libau, and at Shidiki, sixty-nine kilometers (about forty miles) southeast of Libau. The same thing happened further south in the district of Shavli, and on the Dubysa, southeast of Kielmy and between Ugiamy and Ejargola. At Shavli we took 500 prisoners.

Further Russian intrenchments situated around Dunkowiozki (near Przemysl) were taken by storm yesterday. After the victory at Stry the allied troops advanced yesterday in the direction of Medenice.

In the month of May 863 officers and 268,869 men were taken prisoners in the southeastern theatre of war, while 251 cannon and 576 machine guns were captured. Of these numbers, the capturing of 400 officers, including two Generals, 153,254 men, 160 cannon, including twenty-eight heavy ones, and 403 machine guns, is to the credit of the troops under General Mackensen.

Including prisoners taken in the eastern theatre of war, as well as those announced yesterday, the total number of Russians who have fallen into the hands of the Germanic allied troops during the month of May amounts to about 1,000 officers and more than 300,000 men.

PRZEMYSL RECAPTURED.

_VIENNA, June 3, (via Amsterdam and London.)--The following official communication on the Przemysl victory was issued in Vienna today:_

In the Russian war theatre the German troops last night stormed the last positions on the north front of Przemysl and entered the town at 3:30 o'clock this morning from the north.

Our Tenth Corps entered the town from the west and south and reached the centre of the town soon after 6 o'clock.

The importance of this success cannot yet be estimated.

The attack of the allied troops in the sector north of Stry is making successful progress.

_Following is the Berlin official announcement of the fall of Przemysl, dated June 3:_

The fortified town of Przemysl was taken by us early this morning, after the fortifications on the northern front, which still held out, had been stormed during the night. The amount of booty taken has not yet been ascertained.

PETROGRAD ADMITS DEFEAT.

_PETROGRAD, June 3.--Petrograd admits the loss of the fortress in the following official bulletin:_

As Przemysl, in view of the state of its artillery and its works, which were destroyed by the Austrians before their capitulation, was recognized as incapable of defending itself, its maintenance in our hands only served our purpose until such time as our possession of positions surrounding the town on the northwest facilitated our operations on the San.

The enemy having captured Jaroslau and Radymno and begun to spread along the right bank of the river, the maintenance of these positions forced our troops to fight on an unequal and very difficult front, increasing it by thirty-five versts, (about twenty-four miles,) and subjecting the troops occupying these positions to the concentrated fire of the enemy's numerous guns.

Przemysl was bombarded with heavy guns up to 16-inch calibre, and the enemy delivered his principal attack against the north front in the region of Forts 10 and 11, which the Austrians had almost completely demolished before the surrender of the fortress.

When we repulsed these attacks the enemy succeeded in taking several of our guns, which had bombarded the enemy's columns until the latter were close to the muzzles, and the last shell was spent. According to supplementary information we took two hundred prisoners and eight quick-firers.

In Galicia on Monday between the Vistula and Przemysl stubborn fighting developed, our troops gaining somewhat important successes on the left bank of the lower San, taking several villages, some with the bayonet. On the right bank of the same river we were successful near the village of Kalukouve, taking a base south of the village, capturing 1,200 prisoners, including twenty-two officers and eight quick-firers.

RUSSIAN RETREAT FROM PRZEMYSL.

_VIENNA, (via London,) June 4.--The Austrian War Office this evening issued the following official communication announcing the retreat of the Russians from Przemysl, their stand at Medyka, ten miles to the east, and their defeat at other points:_

During the day Przemysl was cleared of the enemy, who is retreating in an easterly direction, offering resistance on the height southwest of Medyka. The allied troops there are attacking.

Meanwhile the army of the Austrian General Eduard von Boehm-Ermolli has succeeded in breaking through the Russian defensive positions from the south, and advanced in the direction of Mosciska, on the railroad to Lemberg, ten miles beyond Medyka, within a short distance of which our troops now hold positions. In these engagements we have captured numerous prisoners.

The army under General Alexander Linsingen also has achieved fresh successes, and the Russians are in full retreat before him.

On the Pruth line, in consequence of the events on the San and the upper Dniester, further fighting has developed. Wherever the enemy attempts an attack he is repulsed with severe losses. We have captured 900 men.

Otherwise the situation on the lower San and in Poland is unchanged.

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_AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN FIELD HEADQUARTERS, (via London,) June 5._--According to information given out by the Austro-Hungarian military authorities to representatives of the press, heavy fighting is now in progress along virtually the entire Galician front, and the general situation is very favorable to the Austro-Germans. A decisive conclusion to the entire Russian campaign in Galicia is in sight.