The part of the Carpathians which chiefly concerns us now is neither the high, bold ridges which look towards Rumania, nor the great rocky wilderness of the High Tatra, but the "waist" which lies between Galicia and the Hungarian plain. No great range of mountains is so easily crossed as this section of the Carpathians. It consists mainly of sandstone, which, for the most part, affords easy slopes, rounded tops, and wide valleys. Here we find the five principal passes by which traffic across the range is maintained. All of these passes are low and easy. They rise from flats in the foothills, which are themselves one thousand to twelve hundred feet above the sea-level, and the highest of them does not rise two thousand feet higher. The summits of one of them, the Dukla Pass, are less than six hundred feet above the last flats of the foothills.
As these passes will occur again and again in the course of our story, it is necessary that we should know their position and something about each of them. The first of them to the east is the Delatyn Pass, the highest of all; then, going west, we reach the Beskid Pass, across which the railway from Lemberg runs down to the Hungarian plain. Still farther west is the Uzsok Pass, which is less than three thousand feet above the sea-level, and carries a good road and a railway. It is probably the most difficult of all the passes to force. The next gateway in order is the Lupkow Pass, which is not two thousand feet above the sea, and is also crossed by road and railway. About twenty miles to the west is the Dukla Pass, which is the lowest and easiest of all. Though it does not carry a railway, it is nevertheless the key to the Western Carpathians. Its saddle is only 1,500 feet above the sea; it is ten miles wide, and can be crossed even in winter by a large army. Whoever holds the Dukla Pass can turn all the passes to the east against an invader coming from either north or south.
Now let us return to the Russian armies invading Galicia. While Brussilov was seizing and holding the Uzsok, Lupkow, and Dukla Passes, Dmitrieff, commanding what I have called Army D, was pushing his way towards Cracow. As he moved westwards he had some heavy fighting to do. He carried a strongly fortified town by assault, and his men waded up to the neck in ice-cold water through the river Raba in the face of a heavy fire. One bitter day they carried trenches and wire entanglements at the point of the bayonet. They were seasoned by forty-five days of almost continuous struggle, and were in the highest spirits. By the end of the first week in December his Cossacks were in the suburbs of Cracow, and his main force was about twelve miles east of the fortress. His right was preparing to wheel round so as to close in on the city from the north, where it was hardest to defend. On 4th December it was only three and a half miles from the outer fortifications.
A month previously, when the Russians were within a hundred miles of the fortress, it was ill prepared to stand a siege. While they were retiring to the San and advancing again, the Austrians had been busy strengthening its defences by making a wide circle of trenches around the city, and putting big movable guns into them, as the French had done at Verdun.[166] No field army, however, had been placed in these trenches, because it was hoped that Mackensen's new move on Warsaw would be sufficient to cause the Russians to retire again. By the end of the first week in December it was clear that Brussilov and Dmitrieff were not going to be drawn off by any threat in Poland, but were going to leave the defence of Warsaw to the other Russian forces. The Austrians now saw that they must attack the Russians in Galicia, unless they were prepared to see Cracow fall into the hands of the enemy.
Two armies were, therefore, launched against the Russians. The first army, which consisted largely of Hungarians, pushed up from the plain to the south through the Carpathian passes in order to sweep Brussilov out of them and then threaten the Russian rear and its lines of communication. Meanwhile a second Austrian army moved from the south-west amongst the foothills of the Carpathians, and struck at the left of the Russians in front of Cracow. The two armies attacked at the same time. On 8th December, while Brussilov was heavily engaged in the mountains, Dmitrieff fought a battle on the outskirts of the city. He held his own well, but he found that the Austrian right was working its way through the higher glens so as to reach the valley of the river Donajetz[167] and threaten his rear, and that at the same time a third force from the direction of the Warta was strongly attacking his right. He was, therefore, obliged to fall back.
Position of the Russians in Galicia at Christmas.
Four days later the Austrians succeeded in seizing the broad and easy pass of the Dukla, and were in a position to pour their forces down upon Galicia, and hold up the rear of Dmitrieff's army while the other army strongly attacked it from the west. The position of the Russians was now very dangerous, and another retirement was necessary. Dmitrieff fell back behind the line of the river Donajetz and its tributary the Biala, so as to cover the mouth of the Dukla Pass. His front now curved from the Vistula to the east of its confluence with the Donajetz, Tarnow on the Biala, past Krosno, and almost to the head-waters of the river San. Brussilov continued the line south-eastwards, and covered the northern exits of the Lupkow Pass and the Uzsok Pass.
There was great disappointment in France and Great Britain when the news arrived that the Russians were again retreating. So far, however, there was no disaster. As long as the enemy could be held in the passes all might yet be well. If, however, the Uzsok Pass, which carries a railway from the Hungarian plain to Przemysl and Lemberg, could be captured by the Austrians, Brussilov would have to retire northwards, in which case the enemy would be able to regain the besieged city of Przemysl. While the struggle was raging in the mountains, the Russians heavily bombarded the city, in the hope of capturing it and setting free the troops that were around it. Unhappily, the bombardment had no effect.