As we have seen, the Russian offensive began definitely on September 4, 1914. According to the Russian official announcement, two days later, "the enemy's center, lying in the region West of Krasnostaw (this being almost due north of Zamosc, about halfway to the center of a line drawn from Lublin to Kholm) was particularly disorganized. The Forty-fifth Austrian Regiment including the colonel, forty-four officers, and 1,600 men were surrounded, and surrendered." The same announcement stated that "a German division, coming to the aid of the Austrians, was attacked on the left bank of the Vistula." Presumably, the Russian troops there had come from Ivangorod.
After the Austrian First Army began to retire, it was followed by the Russian forces along its line. And this line, at first, was approximately eighty miles. As it retired, the left wing being hemmed in by the River Vistula, and the right feeling steady pressure from Russian forces on the right, where direct retreat was prevented by the swampy nature of the country, the front was contracted until it was less than forty miles.
This had been accomplished by the time the army reached the San, where it was necessary to effect a crossing by four or five bridges at different points. Dankl was highly praised for the manner in which he handled his army during this retreat, and saved it from destruction. In Russia, it had been assumed that the retreat would degenerate into a panic and the fate of the First Army was regarded there as practically sealed. Russian strategists themselves speak in high terms of the way Dankl handled his army in this crisis.
The Austrian advance on this front had its high mark on a line drawn from Opolie on the Vistula, through Krasnostaw to Grabiowiec, whence the line curved southward toward Tyszowce. And it was in the region of the latter place that the Austrians claimed a big success, though this was denied by Petrograd.
After the Russian advance on this front from Lublin and Kholm, as we have seen, had begun with the "disorganization" of the Austrian center at Krasnostaw, the next attempt was to strike at the Austrian left, starting at Opolie and developing thence along the entire line as far as Turobin.
It was on this wing of the Russian army that the chief strength had been assembled, the other parts of the line being left comparatively weak. Reasoning that even if the Austrians were able to break through the front, where it was weaker, it would only make more certain their being surrounded finally, all new troops that arrived were shifted over to the right wing.
On September 5 and 6, 1914, the Russians attacked the Austrian army at Tomaszow, situated northeast of Krubessiow and southeast of Rawa-Russka. The Austrian army retired.
Near Frempol, the Russian cavalry rushed big convoys of the enemy in the direction of Lublin. Troops and convoys which were moving in the direction of the road leading from Josefow to Annopol were dispersed by Russian artillery on the left bank of the Vistula.
Detachments of the Fourteenth Austrian Army Corps attempted an attack near Rawa-Russka, during the night of September 7, but were repulsed. Near Tomaszow the Russians took an enemy aeroplane.
Aerial battles were not infrequent. Captain Nesteroff, one of the most daring of Russian aviators, sacrificed his life in a successful attempt to destroy an Austrian aeroplane. He was returning from the front after an aerial reconnaissance when he saw an Austrian aeroplane hovering over the Russian forces with the intention of dropping bombs.
The Russian aviator immediately headed straight for the Austrian machine at full speed and dashed into it. The force of the impact caused the collapse of both machines, which plunged to earth, both aviators meeting instant death.
The fortress of Nikolaieff, twenty miles south of Lemberg, was taken by the Russians after severe fighting. The fortress was one of the most modern military strongholds in Austria, being supplied with all the newest forms of defense and offensive weapons. It had steel cupolas, masked ranges of earthworks, and guns of modern type and heavy caliber.
The Nikolaieff fortress commanded the passage of the River Dniester. At the fortress forty guns of the heaviest type and stores of all kinds were captured. Like Lemberg, the fortresses had been well stocked with provisions, which fell into the Russians' hands.
After occupying Nikolaieff the Russians undertook, after allowing their soldiers only two hours of rest, a night march for the purpose of attacking new positions occupied by the enemy. A Russian battery, placed on the Vistula River, engaged with success an Austrian steamboat armed with rapid-fire guns.
About the same time troops were sent by train from the east of Lemberg to near Chelm, and put in action against Austrian infantry intrenched on a long line, which included the village of Michailowka. The Russians entered the village the same night, the Austrians having fallen back to a half circle of small, steep hills which overlooked the town. Some houses had been set afire, but the flames had been extinguished by the villagers themselves.
At three o'clock the following morning the attack on the hills began. The Austrians occupying them numbered 15,000, of which a large number were in a deeply wooded gorge. The Russian artillery swept the crest of the hill and shelled the gorge with shrapnel. The Austrians replied strongly.
At noon the position was stormed. The Russians, at the word of command, rose with cheers and rushed the hill. Austrian guns to the left cut them down badly. Later, after a desperate, brave fight, the position was taken. The gorge was full of dead men lying in heaps. Officers said they had never seen so many dead lying in a single place. The troops gave the place the name of "The Valley of Death."
It was reported that the Austrian general commanding the defense watched some of his men being disarmed after the battle. Presently the Austrian standards were brought up from the gorge. At this sight, it was said, the Austrian general drew his revolver and shot himself dead.
On September 5, 1914, Austrian troops which had been stationed behind the Grodek Lake district passed the railway lines of Rawa-Russka and Horynier, and on the next day advanced to Kurniki. On the following day a heavy battle began between these forces and a strong Russian force advancing northward. Two days later the Austrians opened their offensive on a forty-mile front, having the better of the conflict until September 11, especially on the southern wing near Lemberg.
The Austrians then retired because of the necessity which had arisen for a new grouping of their forces, the north wing of their army near Rawa-Russka being threatened by superior Russian forces near Krasnik and between Krasnik and the battle fields of Lemberg.
The attack by the Russians on the Opolie-Turobin section of the line seems to have been a powerful one and the Austrians retired southward, paralleling the course of the Vistula. For nineteen miles the Russian cavalry was engaged with the rear guard of the retreating forces. There was particularly fierce fighting at Suchodola and also at Krasnik. At Frampol, there was a strong Russian cavalry charge. From this point, the Austrians were forced back on the left into the morasses about Bilgoraj and the right and the center were crowded together as they drew near the San. By that time, Russia claimed to have sent 10,000 prisoners back to Lublin. These movements were all the first days of September, 1914.
CHAPTER LXVI
BATTLE OF RAWA-RUSSKA
During the time that Auffenberg's army had been retaining the position before Lemberg, a new line of defense had been instituted in his rear. This line ran from Grodek to Rawa-Russka, and thence along the railroad line toward Narol. As the Russian forces between the armies at Tomaszow had not as yet gotten as far as Tarnograd, the far left of Von Auffenberg's troops, or those of the Archduke, which were a continuation of Von Auffenberg's army at this point, were for a brief time almost in touch with the fringe of Dankl's army on its way to the San. But there was no combined and determined stand at any time. The entire army fell back, set upon getting across the river.
It is probable that on the line from Grodek