As they retired, the Austrians destroyed bridges behind them. But they were not able to destroy all, otherwise a few days' rest might have been vouchsafed the First Army. By quick work the Russians seized and maintained a hold on the bridge at Kreszov, on the frontier a few miles west of Tarnograd. As an official communiqué from Petrograd put it: "The Russians leaped across the river on the very shoulders of the retreating enemy."
The victory on the San, September 12-19, 1914, may well be considered one of the most important of the campaign. There is no way of estimating the Austrian losses, over and above the 30,000 prisoners the Russians say they took, but they probably were heavy. Still more important was the fact that the Russians had broken down the barrier which the Austrians had sought to put between themselves and the invaders. Save for the fact that the Austrians were now in touch with their railroads, and for the moment within reach of security, being under the shelter of Cracow, their position within the triangle formed by the Vistula was no more safe than it had been when they were above it.
The Russians reported that within that triangle they seized an enormous amount of supplies of every kind. Moreover, with the advance on Krzeszov, the last of the invading Austrians had been forced from Russian soil. No longer was an enemy left in the provinces of Podolia or Volhynia.
It must be recalled also that Russian troops which were based on Ivangorod also had intercepted German reenforcements on the left of the Vistula as they hastened across Poland to the aid of Austria. The guns of the Russians also had shelled the transports of the Austrians as they retired along the right bank. The Russian right, pressed on the retiring Austrians, had been able to spare a large number of troops, and these it had thrown across the Vistula at Josefow. These, acting as reenforcements of the Russian troops already on that side of the river, had hurried southward, paralleling the advance of the main army on the right bank and brushing aside whatever forces of the enemy they met.
In this way they were able to prevent any help from that quarter coming to the Austrians. Also, when their comrades were delivering a final blow to the Austrians at the crossing of the San, they were busy on the opposite side of the Vistula driving back a large Austrian force and occupying the important place of Sandomierz. They encountered and overcame near Sandomierz the Second German Landwehr Corps under General Woyrsch. In the neighborhood of and at the town they reported that they had taken 3,000 prisoners and 10 guns.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER LXVIII
SUMMARY OF OPERATIONS OF SEPTEMBER, 1914
Let us now briefly summarize the Russian strategy during this month of portentous development, September, 1914, which concluded with the advance down the left bank of the Vistula and the occupation of Sandomierz.
It will be recalled that, being more or less prepared, Russia had found herself invaded by armies operating in three different directions over an extended front. These armies contained in all about a million men. The weakness of this advance, the Russians saw, consisted in this: that the farther two armies of invaders, advancing in divergent lines, proceed, the farther they become separated. Thus it is more difficult for them to act in harmony or for either to protect the flanks of the other.
For this reason the Russians were satisfied to allow the First or northern Army of the Austrians to advance almost without resistance until it came within artillery range of its first main objective—that is Lublin and the railway line to Ivangorod and Warsaw.