Thus we now see the Austrian army, which had been described as routed and destroyed in battles in Galicia, seemingly taking on a new lease of life, although appearing to have found an impenetrable barrier at the River San north of Jaroslav. On October 22, 1914, the Austrians retook Czernowitz, capital of the crownland of Bukowina, which had been in the possession of the Russians since early in the war. They also captured two field fortifications, situated one behind the other, to the southeast of Sambor.
For eight days a terrific fight was waged between the Russians and the Austrians on the line from Sambor, along the River San to Przemysl and Jaroslav, and then to the southward. The battle extended over a front of about sixty-five miles. The cannonading was uninterrupted. The Austrians had started the attack at Sambor, but were thrown back by vigorous Russian counterattacks. A concentration of Austrian corps then attempted an advance against Lemberg, with the intention of bisecting the Russian line. This attack was defeated with losses.
On October 31, 1914, the Austrians defeated a mixed Russian column near the Galician-Bukowinian frontier, north of Kuty. In middle Galicia by that date they had occupied Russian positions northeast of Turka, near Stryj, Sambor, east of Przemysl, and on the lower San. Several Russian attacks around Lisko were repulsed. At Lisko, Stryj, Sambor, and other points the Austrians took many prisoners. Near Stryj and Sambor the Austrians blew up a Russian ammunition depot.
On November 1, 1914, the Austrians claimed that they then had interned in Austria-Hungary, 649 Russian officers and 73,179 Russian soldiers, not including the prisoners they had taken in the fighting in the district northeast of Turka and south of the Stryj-Sambor line. The fighting in this locality was renewed with greater intensity by both sides early in the month, fortune favoring first one and then the other. On November 2, 1914, two infantry divisions and a rifle brigade of Russians were dislodged from a strongly intrenched position.
About this time the czar's forces began concentrating their main attack northeast of Kielce in an effort to repeat the tactics by which they won important victories over the Austrians in the first days of the war. It was their plan, provided they were able to break through at this point, to turn southward against the rear of the Austrian army in Galicia, just as they did two months before, after the battle of Rawa-Russka.
The line of battle in the southeast now became more definitely outlined, extending from Turka through Nadworna and Kolomea to the Russian border just east of Czernowitz in Bukowina. The renewal of Russian attacks followed the bringing up of a new levy of reserves.
The Russians now advanced with fair success along the whole Vistula front. They secured Piotrkow and other places in such positions as to suggest that the Austrians were running the risk of being cut off from Cracow, their ultimate goal of retreat. A rear-guard defense was attempted by the Austrians at Opatow but without success, and the Russians took several hundred prisoners and six Maxims with a supply train.
On the San River, where the fighting had been severe for a fortnight, the Russians adopted the method of deliberately sapping their opponents' trenches, precisely as a besieging force saps its way toward a fortress. This proved a success. When the Russian sap burst in the trenches the Austrians retreated, and the Russians, taking advantage of the confusion, stormed the fortifications in the neighborhood and took them, capturing 5 officers, 500 men, and all the Maxims.
An Austrian column which had descended the north slope of the Carpathians in the direction of Narvoda, where it had intrenched itself, was attacked and driven back. This operation, being removed by more than one hundred miles from the nearest point to the great struggle, indicated that the Austrians, confident of victory, sent forces across the Carpathians to catch the Russians in the rear when the proper moment came.
This moment, it seems, failed to arrive, and the Russians, having the support of the native inhabitants, had little difficulty in dealing successfully with successive isolated attempts of the considerable Hungarian reserve bodies sent across the Carpathians at various points.