On May 3, 1915, Dmitrieff's troops were falling back farther every hour, continuously fighting rear-guard actions and compelling the pursuers to conquer every foot of ground. There was a powerful reason for this stubborn retirement: it was to gain time for Brussilov to get his men out of their perilous positions and to join the main line again with Dmitrieff's receding ranks. If this could be effected, the fatal gap between them—made by Von Mackensen's battering-ram—would be repaired, and they could once more present a united front to the enemy. It was mentioned a little farther back that the Austrians had pierced the Dunajec line at Otfinow, north of Tarnow, by which was cut in two the hitherto unbroken Russian battle front, from the Baltic to the Rumanian frontier (900 miles); the "scissors" at Gorlice had made it three; if Boehm-Ermolli's drive from the Uzsok upward along the "triangle line" to Jaroslav succeeds, there will be four separate pieces of Russian front. But from Tarnow southward to Tuchow, a small twenty-mile salient on the Biala, the Russians are still in possession on May 4, 1915, defying the Fourth Austro-Hungarian Army.
CHAPTER XXIX
RUSSIAN RETREAT
It is a matter for speculation whether the numerous successes achieved by the Russians against the Austrians and Germans in Galicia and the Carpathians during the first seven months of the war had begotten a spirit of overconfidence among the Russian commanders, or whether it was not in their power to have made more effective preparations than they had done. We have seen that Dmitrieff had not provided himself with those necessary safety exits which were now so badly needed. As no artificially prepared defenses were at hand, natural ones had to be found. The first defense was irretrievably lost; the second line was a vague, undefined terrain extending across the hills between Biala in the west and the River Wisloka in the east. Between Tuchow and Olpiny, the Mountain Dobrotyn formed one of the chief defensive positions, being 1,800 feet high and thickly covered with woods.
Southward, the Lipie Mountain, about 1,400 feet, formed another strong point. Just below Biecz, close to the road and railroad leading to Gorlice, a mountain of 1,225 feet, called Wilszak, is the strategical key to the valley of the lower Ropa. Between Biecz and Bednarka, the line of defense followed the heights of the Kobylanka, Tatarovka, Lysa Gora, and of the Rekaw; hence to the east, as the last defense of the Jaslo-Zmigrod road, lay the intrenched positions on the Ostra Gora, well within Brussilov's sector. Southward of the Gorlice-Zmigrod line lay the mountain group of the Valkova, nearly 2,800 feet high, the last defense of the line of retreat for the Russian forces from Zboro.
The Wisloka was the third line of defense, only a river, and without intrenchments. From Dembica to Zmigrod it runs roughly parallel with the Dunajec-Biala line; its winding course separates it in places from fifteen to thirty-five miles from the latter river. Strong hopes were entertained that the Russians would be able to stem the Germanic torrent by a firm stand on the Wisloka.
A fierce battle raged on the third and fourth of May, 1915, for the possession of the wooded hills between the Biala and the Wisloka. The Prussian Guard stormed Lipie Mountain and captured it on the third; on the fourth they took Olpiny, Szczerzyny and the neighboring hills at the point of the bayonet.
The Thirty-ninth Hungarian Division, now incorporated in the Eleventh German Army under the direct command of Von Mackensen himself, had advanced from Grybow via Gorlice on the Biecz railway line, and were making a strong attack on the Russian positions on Wilczak Mountain with a tremendous concentration of artillery. It seems the Russians simply refused to be blown out of their trenches, for it required seven separate attacks to drive them out. That accomplished, the fate of Biecz was decided and the road to Jaslo—the "key" to the Wisloka line of defense—was practically open to General Arz von Straussenburg. Lying at the head of the main roads leading into Hungary through the Tilicz, Dukla, and Lupkow passes, Jaslo is the most important railway junction in the whole region between Tarnow and Przemysl. It was at Jaslo that Dmitrieff had held his headquarters for four months.
Just south of him, barely fifteen miles away, General von Emmich and General Martiny, with the "Bayonet Bavarians" and the Tenth Austro-Hungarian Army Corps, went pounding and slashing a passage along the Bednarka-Zmigrod road and the auxiliary road from Malastow to Krempna. They were striving hard to reach the western passes before Brussilov had time to withdraw. He began that operation on the fourth. On the same night Von Emmich and Martiny reached Krempna, and the last line of retreat for the Russians around Zboro was imperiled. They have yet to cross the range from Hungary back into Galicia. So subtly potent and effective was the pressure on a flank that the whole line—be it hundreds of miles long—is more or less influenced thereby, as witness: