DEFEAT IN EARLY MAY.
[By The Associated Press.]
VIENNA, May 13, (via Amsterdam to London, May 14.)—An official statement issued here tonight after recalling that in November and December at Lodz and Limanowa the Austro-Germans compelled the Russians to draw back on a front to the extent of 400 kilometers, (about 249 miles,) thereby stopping the Russian advance into Germany, continues:
From January to the middle of April the Russians vainly exerted themselves to break through to Hungary, but they completely failed with heavy losses. Thereupon the time had come to crush the enemy in a common attack with a full force of the combined troops of both empires.
VICE ADMIRAL JOHN M. DE ROBECK—
Commanding the Allied Fleet Operating Against the Dardanelles—
(Photo © American Press Assn.)
FIELD MARSHAL BARON VON DER GOLTZ—
Commander of the First Turkish Army, Formerly Military Governor
of Belgium—(Photo from Paul Thompson.)
A victory at Tarnow and Gorlice freed West Galicia from the enemy and caused the Russian fronts on the Nida and in the Carpathians to give way. In a ten days' battle the victorious troops beat the Russian Third and Eighth Armies to annihilation, and quickly covered the ground from the Dunajec and Beskids to the San River—130 kilometers (nearly 81 miles) of territory.
From May 2 to 12 the prisoners taken numbered 143,500, while 100 guns and 350 machine guns were captured, besides the booty already mentioned. We suppressed small detachments of the enemy scattered in the woods in the Carpathians.
Near Odvzechowa the entire staff of the Russian Forty-eighth Division of Infantry including General Korniloff, surrendered. The best indication of the confusion of the Russian Army is the fact that our Ninth Corps captured in the last few days Russians of fifty-one various regiments. The quantity of captured Russian war material is piled up and has not yet been enumerated.
North of the Vistula the Austro-Hungarian troops are advancing across Stopnica. The German troops have captured Kielce.
East of Uzsok Pass the German and Hungarian troops took several Russian positions on the heights and advanced to the south of Turka, capturing 4,000 prisoners. An attack is proceeding here and in the direction of Skole.
In Southeast Galicia strong hostile troops are attacking across Horodenka.
BERLIN, (via London,) May 13.—The German War Office announced today that in the recent fighting in Galicia and Russian Poland 143,500 Russians had been captured. It also stated that 69 cannon and 255 machine guns had been taken from the Russians, and that the victorious Austrian and German forces, continuing their advance eastward in Galicia, were approaching the fortress of Przemysl. The statement follows:
The army under General von Mackensen in the course of its pursuit of the Russians reached yesterday the neighborhood of Subiecko, on the lower Wisloka, and Kolbuezowa, northeast of Debica. Under the pressure of this advance the Russians also retreated from their positions north of the Vistula. In this section the troops under General von Woyrech, closely following the enemy, penetrated as far as the region northwest of Kielce.
In the Carpathians Austro-Hungarian and German troops under General von Linsingen conquered the hills east of the upper Stryi and took 3,650 men prisoners, as well as capturing six machine guns.
At the present moment, while the armies under General von Mackensen are approaching the Przemysl fortress and the lower San, it is possible to form an approximate idea of the booty taken. In the battles of Tarnow and Gorlice, and in the battles during the pursuit of these armies, we have so far taken 103,500 Russian prisoners, 69 cannon, and 255 machine guns. In these figures the booty taken by the allied troops fighting in the Carpathians and north of the Vistula is not included. This amounts to a further 40,000 prisoners.