On Saturday, 1 May 1915, the great German batteries were suddenly loosed; 700,000 shells were hurled into the shallow Russian trenches, completely demolishing the works and some what demoralizing the men. For the bravest of men cannot continue to fight in trenches which have ceased to exist. The awful storm of German artillery was followed by the attack of the °phalanx° which crossed the .Dunaje.c, and its tributary the Biala, on pontoons in greatly superior numbers on a 20-mile front south of Tarnow. After 48 hours, on Sunday night, the Russian defense collapsed under the terrific German pressure. Dmitriev was not routed, but he lost very heavily in men and guns as he fell back to the protection of the Wisloka River 20 miles to the east. But he had prepared no entrenchments on the eastern bank of the Wisloka so that the reinforcements which were hurried tcp were of little avail. For five days—until Friday, 7 May— his troops bravely clung to their hastily-made shallow trenches on the eastern bank of the Wisloka. But again the German artillery and Mackensen's charging phalanx made the Russian case hope less. Again Dmitriev had to fall back rapidly between the railways leading to Jamslay and Przemysl.
any attempted. Przemysl was evacuated by the Russians, on 2 June, after it had been held by them only a little more than two inonths. Gomm ko's Sixth Army was hurriedly called from the Northern Front, to save the fortress, but before it could even reach the Galician frontier Przern ysl had already fallen. Therefore, the 6th Army, without being detrained, was railed through to Lemberg. . In a three-days' battle (8-11 June) south of that city, near Stryj, Gourko supported Brussilov in such a vigorous attack that the Russians captured 15,000 prison ers and compelled the Germans t,o retire tempo rarily to the right bank of the Dniester. But Ivanov and his staff by this time seemed to have lost heart and faith in the possibility of bringing Dmitriev's retreat in the centre of Ivanovt army in Galicia seriously endangered the right wing near the Polish salient under Evart and the left wing scattered among the Car pathians under Brussilov. But Ivanov and the Grand DuIce Nicholas were quick to see the disaster which wouki follow if a wide gap were allowed to open between the centre an4 these two wings. The Rrtssian general staff, therefore, at once made up its mind to a retreat which should be as rapid but as orderly as pos sible. Skilful .counterattacks by Evart and by Brussilov against the less formidable Austrian troops on Maelcensen's flanlcs helped to check the onslaught of the German phalanx in the centre, and to preserve the contact between the different parts of the Russian front. But no
permanent stand amid be made, nor in fact was Mackensen's advance to a halt. On 20 June the strong position at the Grodek Lakes and Rawl Russica had to be abandoned after heavy fight ing. This necessitated, two days later (22 June), the Russian evacuation of Lemberg. After nine months the capital of Galicia, with its invaluable railway connections, was once more in Austrian hands. The Russians fought rear-guard actions along the rivers east of Lem berg, and finally came to a halt 20 miles east of Tarnopol near the boundary between Galicia and Russia.
Such was the first move in the Great Rus sian Retreat of 1915. By the battle of the Dunajec, Hindenburg had recovered Galicia for Austria, just as he had recovered East Prussia for Germany by the battle of Tannenberg. These were the two great decisive battles of the war on the Eastern Front. By 1 July 1915 the line of the Eastern Front had been approximately restored to its position at the beginning of the war on 1 Aug. 1914, except that at the northern end the Germans were now across the lower Niemen and in possession of the Russian terri tories of Lithuania and. Courland. But Lhough the front lines were in somewhat the same po sition there was a vast difference in the general situation. In August 1914 Germany had only very weak forces on the Eastern Front and had not established a close co-ordination with Aus tria. Russia had the advantage of the initiative, with a rapidly mobilized army and a good stock of munitions and equipment. In July 1915 Hindenburg had vast, victorious well-disci plined troops and the supreme, unified command on the Eastern Front; Russia had lost all her advantages and was suffering terribly from lack of munitions, officers and transportation facili ties, as well as from a weakened morale due to these handicaps and the forced retreat from the Dunajec. The Russian centre was still thrust forward into the Polish salient west of War saw. It was this salient which Hindenburg now proposed to "pinch" by an attack front the north upon the Narev-Niemen line and by a great flanking attack from the southeast. He had failed in the frontal attacks on Warsaw from the west in the autumn of 1914; but in 1915, owing to the changed conditions noted above, he was to succeed easily in taking War saw by art attack from the south to the east of the Vikula. But he did not succeed in enveloping and pinching into surrender the Rus sian armies within the Warsaw salient. They managed to effect the masterly second move in the Creat Russian Retreat of 1915—the with drawal from the Bzura-Rawka position 300 miles eastward to the Pripet Marshes and the meridian of Baranovichi.