In a word, this series of desperate attacks and counter-attacks resulted in the total failure of the Austrian army, though stiffened by its German supports, to “hold” their terrible opponents. But it was no easy victory. Both sides fought with devoted courage and stubborn tenacity. Much of the ground was cut up with marshy streams and belts of treacherous swamp land, and one of the harrowing features of this battle was that numbers of dead lay unburied among the morasses or half sunk in the shallow streams and hundreds of wounded wretches died among these abandoned dead, undiscovered by the peasants of the district until it was too late.
In the close fighting the Russian losses were necessarily heavy, but the Petrograd official estimates of the Austro-German casualties from the capture of Lemberg up to and including this hard-won triumph on the Vistula simply stagger the imagination, and suggest that the computation was somewhat loosely made. These were the figures:
Killed and wounded, 250,000 men.
Prisoners, 100,000 men.
Guns captured, 400.
The last of these figures is probably nearest the truth. It would include the numerous guns secured by the surrender of Mikolaiev, as well as those taken on the battle-field. In the great battle the Russian artillery is said to have outnumbered that of the enemy in the proportion of two to one, and the Austrians had to abandon many batteries among the marshes when the retreat began. Amongst these were some of their formidable field-howitzers.
Amongst the Russian corps commanders specially distinguished during these days of battle, and decorated by the Tsar with the Cross of St. George for his part in the victory, was the Bilarian Radko Dimitrieff. He has had a remarkable career. Born in 1859, passed out of the Military School of Sofia as a lieutenant at the age of twenty, and then studied for a while in the Staff College at St. Petersburg. He had rejoined the Bulgarian army as a captain when there came the withdrawal of the Russian officers who held the higher commands, and the sudden attack by Servia. Dimitrieff, though only a captain, acted as a general at the victory of Slivnitza, and there laid the foundation of his career. The Bulgars called him “little Napoleon,” partly on account of a certain personal resemblance to the “little Corporal,” partly as a tribute to his genius for command. He served for ten years in the Russian army, and on his return to Bulgaria was appointed first chief of the General Staff, and then to the command of a district. In the war of the Balkan League he commanded the 3rd Bulgarian Army, won the first victory at Kirk-Kilisse and shared the after-triumphs of the campaign in Thrace. On the outbreak of the present war he at once offered his services once more to Russia.
In the official record of these operations special mention is made of the uniformly good work of the Cossack and other cavalry, who appear to have established as thorough a personal ascendancy over the enemy’s mounted troops as did that of the Franco-British army in the western theatre of war.
A similar remark may be applied to the achievements of the Russian air-craft in this region. The Grand-duke seeks out for special commendation in this connection the work of Air-Scout Tkarchoff. While returning from a reconnaissance his machine was shot at and a bullet penetrated the oil-tank. With wonderful nerve and resource, the brave Tkarchoff managed to plug the bullet-hole with his foot, in that way stopping the flow of the oil and preventing a collapse. At last he was able to descend, though under heavy fire from the enemy, and eventually he saved his aeroplane with the help of two soldiers.
The Russian forward movement was very naturally speeded up by the quickened retirement of the foe. Having crossed the Lower San River without encountering any resistance, Russky’s army entered the town of Gorodek and Mosciske, which brought them within one day’s march of Jaroslav. When the Austrian Government reorganised the defences of Galicia more than twenty years ago it was at first intended to make Jaroslav instead of Przemysl the eastern stronghold of the province. The fortifications were begun and then left in an unfinished state, but on the outbreak of the war these incomplete works were taken in hand and made the basis of a strong system of entrenchments. It is an important place, some twenty miles north of Przemysl, and covering the junction of the eastern railways of Galicia with the main line to Cracow. Strong redoubts, to the number of more than twenty in all, had been erected on both banks of the San. The reduction of the place would greatly minimise the value of Przemysl to the Austrians and enable two railways to be used both in connection with the siege of that fortress and the operations against Cracow. The progress of the Russian advance had by this time—the third week of September—given them possession of other eastern lines of railway with large quantities of rolling-stock, tanks of naphtha, benzine, and large stores of wood and other material. On every side, as the advance converged upon Jaroslav, were seen evidences of the disorder of the recent Austrian retreat in the amount of arms and material of war abandoned in the swamps or by the roadside.
Anything like full details of the garrison of Jaroslav and its actual preparedness at the time of the onslaught are not available. This is partly owing to the Russian habit of lumping together the numbers of prisoners and guns captured at various points, and partly because a portion of the garrison succeeded in escaping. But it seems clear that a vigorous night-attack took two of the most important works, and that this rendered inevitable the early fall of the place.
In point of fact, the actual investment lasted only three days. Its reduction was semi-officially described as “a pleasant surprise,” for it left open the Cracow road, while the undoubted strength and importance of a town of 20,000 inhabitants and protected by a score of well-equipped forts, could not be over-estimated. Moreover, the only railway to Przemysl now left open to the enemy was a small single line. The officers deemed to have been most distinguished in the success of the operation were Generals Ivanoff, Alexieff, and Dragomiroff, who were all decorated. Between September 11-14 the vast captures included a general, 535 officers, 83,531 men, 637 guns (38 German), 44 machine-guns, seven flags, and 823 ammunition-wagons.