One of the German Army Corps marching into Galicia to relieve the Austrians.

day it captured, after fierce hand-to-hand fighting in which the Germans vastly outnumbered the Russian forces, Olpiny, Szczerzyny and the hills which surround these townships from the east. Farther south, the 39th Hungarian division (Corps Arz) attacked on May 3 the Russian positions on the Mountain Wilczak, near Zagorzany, close to the junction of the Grybow-Biecz railway line with the branch line from Gorlice. Although effectively supported by a tremendous concentration of artillery, the Hungarians seemed at first incapable of making any impression on the Russian positions. It was only after having delivered six unsuccessful attacks that they were able to dislodge by a seventh attack our Allies from their trenches on the Wilczak. The taking of that mountain settled the fate of Biecz and practically opened to the Austrians the road along the lower Ropa towards Jaslo. That town can be considered the key to the Visloka line, just as the district of Gorlice was for that of the Biala and Upper Ropa. It is the most important railway junction in the district between Tarnow and Przemysl, and lies at the head of the main high roads entering Hungary, between Bartfeld and the Lupkow. Jaslo had been for the last four months the headquarters of General Radko Dmitrieff, the commander-in-chief of the Eighth Russian Army. By the night of May 4 it was evident that the fall of Jaslo itself had become unavoidable. South of it the Bavarians, under General von Emmich, and the 10th Austro-Hungarian Army Corps, under General Martiny, were hacking through their way, by weight of shells and numbers of men, along the BednarkaZmigrod road and the secondary road leading from Malastow, past the Valkova Mountain to Krempna. By the night of May 4 they had approached Zmigrod and Krempna; the last direct line of retreat of the Russian troops which had advanced into the region round Zboro was threatened. The evacuation of that district had begun on the same day. On May 4 opened also a more vigorous Austrian offensive round Tuchow, and the fate of Tarnow was by then practically decided, though our Allies still held the town with great skill and stubbornness.

The retreat had spread by the end of May 4 to the entire West Galician front and compelled the Russians to evacuate Northern Hungary west of the Lupkow; even in the Lupkow itself the retreat became more and more a mere question of time. Now that the Austro

German armies were approaching rapidly the Visloka, and that even Jaslo had become practically untenable, no hope was left of any effective resistance being offered to the German concentration of artillery and men before the San and the Dniester were reached. The history of the next three weeks is mainly marked by rearguard actions, interpolated only here and there by bigger battles, which were fought in defence of specially important junctions of roads or railways or in order to gain the necessary respite for the evacuation of some big military centre.

A sudden retreat of a big army cannot possibly be effected without serious losses in prisoners being suffered. Wounded have frequently to be left behind; stragglers, or even whole detached bodies, cannot rejoin the main forces. Finally, now that even rearguard actions are fought in trenches, their occupants, who cannot hope for any fresh supplies or reinforcements, naturally have to surrender as soon as their ammunition is exhausted or when the enemy reaches their positions with vastly superior forces. The German communiqués put the approximate figure of Russian prisoners taken during the three days of May 2-4 at about 30,000. The figure does not seem unlikely, especially as it is certain to include the majority of the Russian wounded. Further, we must remember that as the defeat was caused mainly by lack of guns and ammunition, the Russians were bound to harbour whatever artillery they possessed. When an army retires which is well equipped with artillery and ammunition, its guns cover the retreat; they hold the enemy at bay to the last and are sacrificed for the sake of the men. The Russians during their retreat from West Galicia were compelled many a time to sacrifice men in order to save their artillery and in order to preserve it for a coming greater battle at some more important strategic point.

The losses suffered by the Austro-German armies during their attack against the DunajecBiala-Ropa line have never been published ; their casualty lists appear only some considerable time after the events, and it is difficult to form on that basis any, even approximate, idea about the losses suffered by them in particular battles. On the other hand, a retreating army enjoys even less than the usual facilities for forming an opinion about the casualties of the enemy. Still, it can be seen from the casualty lists of Austro-Hungarian officers that the losses which they suffered in

the first three days of the West Galician offensive must have been enormous. Occasionally the date of death is put in the Austrian lists after the name of a killed officer. As late as August the days May 2-4 continue to occur in them; and it ought to be remembered that during those early days the share which the AustroHungarian forces had in the fighting was smaller, in comparison with that of the Germans, than towards the middle of May, when the Carpathian armies, consisting mainly of Austro-Hungarian troops, were brought into the main battle line.

Hardly any fighting took place on the day of May 2 in the Carpathian Mountains, west of the Lupkow. During the preceding week the Russians seem to have withdrawn from that part some troops for the support of the western line, which was known to be threatened. All further offensive in the Western Carpathians had thus come to an end. The Austrians naturally abstained from a counter-offensive. Their forces were not sufficiently big for that purpose on the Hungarian front, and it paid them better to leave the Russians in their advanced southern positions; Mackensen's offensive from the west, if successful, by cutting their lines of retreat, was bound to create a position of extreme difficulty for the

Russian troops round Zboro and to the south of the Dukla.

Only in the extreme east, where our Allies were facing the mixed Austro-German Army of General von Linsingen, do we hear of some serious fighting taking place in the first days of May. On May 2, says the Russian official communiqué published at Petrograd on the following day, "in the direction of Stryj and south-east of Holoviecko, we captured Mount Makovka and took 300 prisoners, including ten officers." On the following night the Austrians recaptured part of these positions, but were again dislodged by the Russians on the morning of May 3. On that day the captures rose to 1,200 prisoners, 30 officers, and three mitrailleuses. Some further fighting is reported on the same day in the region round the village of Osmoloda, near the sources of the Swica and on the Upper Lomnica.

In the region east of Verchovina and Bystra the 79th Austrian Regiment belonging to the 7th Division surrendered voluntarily on grounds of bad food and bad treatment. We are told that "Austrian prisoners complain of their cruel treatment by German officers, who for the slightest misdemeanour, especially on the part of the Rumanians, inflict on them corporal punishment."

T

HE conquest of Central Galicia forms the first section of the history of the great Austro-German offensive which opened on the Eastern front in May,

1915. The drive began with the battle of Gorlice, on May 2. Its first stage closed about May 14; on that day the attacking forces reached the San, the frontier of East Galicia, and the natural southern extension of the strategical line of the middle Vistula.

On May 1 the Russian front in Western Galicia and Northern Hungary extended from the confluence of the Dunajec and the Vistula to Zboro; along the rivers Dunajec, Biala and Ropa, past the towns of Tarnow, Ciezkovice and Gorlice; from Zboro it ran on Hungarian soil, in the main in an easterly direction, past Sztropko, Krasnibrod, Virava, Nagy Polena to the Uzsok Pass. The length of that segment of the Eastern front, between the Upper Vistula and the Uzsok, amounted to about 120 miles. Along that line on May 1 at least 19 AustroGerman corps, supported by an enormous concentration of heavy artillery, were facing some eight Russian army corps, poorly provided with guns and ammunition. The district between Gromnik and Malastow was occupied by what came to be known afterwards as the "phalanx." No less than six army corps (the Vol. V.-Part 56.

11th German Army under Mackensen, including the 6th Austro-Hungarian Corps under Arz von Straussenberg, and the 10th Austro-Hungarian Army Corps, belonging to the adjoining army of Borojevic) were here concentrated on a front of about 20 miles. On May 2 Mackensen's 'battering-ram broke the Russian line in front of Gorlice. By the night of May 4 the Austro-German troops reached a line extending from the Mountain Dobrotyn (south-east of Tuchow) across the heights on the eastern bank of the Visloka in front of Jaslo, to Zmigrod on the Jaslo-Zboro road. The right wing of the "phalanx " was advancing quickest; its aim was to cut off the Russian forces which had penetrated into Hungary across the Carpathian Mountains to the west of the Lupkow. On May 5 the Austro-German forces, which were standing south of the Carpathians between Bartfeld and the Uzsok, began to exert pressure against the Russian line in Northern Hungary. On the left of Mackensen's army the Austrian troops under Archduke JosephFerdinand had by the night of May 4 occupied on the front between Tarnow and Tuchow most of the ground between the Dunajec and the Biala, and had established themselves on the right bank of the Dunajec, to the north of Tarnow, thus cutting the connexion between

the Third Russian Army and the Russian forces on the Nida.

We do not intend for the present to enter into the detail of the fighting which developed during the following days, but shall try to give merely the main strategic outlines of the AustroGerman advance through Mid-Galicia. As was pointed out in the last chapter, Mackensen broke the Russian front round Gorlice by a frontal attack from west to east, but the further advance of his main forces did not continue in the same direction. They executed between the Biala and Visloka what we have previously described as a "left incline"; they were now facing north-east and were advancing by echelons, which were, however, kept in close touch with each other. The swerve of Mackensen's army to the north-east threatened to outflank from the south the Russian forces which were offering in front of Tarnow stubborn resistance to the advance of the Fourth Austro-Hungarian Army under Archduke Joseph-Ferdinand. At the same time it made room for the Third and the

Second Austro-Hungarian Armies from across the Carpathians. We can best visualize their advance in the following way: the right end of the line-i.e., the extreme right wing of Boehm-Ermolli's army-remained fixed to the west of the Uzsok, in the district of Volosate; the left end of the line-i.c., the extreme left wing of the army of General Borojevic (the 10th Austro-Hungarian army-corps under General Martiny) advanced in close touch with the Bavarians under General von Emmich, who formed the right wing of Mackensen's army. In fact, that Austro-Hungarian corps must be included in his first "phalanx." as we have

indicated above. Mackensen's advance to the north-east was gradually drawing the two Austro-Hungarian armies across the Car

pathians.

Mackensen's "phalanx

has been оссаsionally talked of as if it had been a fixed formation. It was nothing of that kind. It was a concentration of troops along the lines on which the main resistance was expected or