When they had reached the desired position, the infantry charged along the road and the Chasseurs Alpins simultaneously whizzed down the slope on their skis. The swift flank attack did the business, and the Germans were driven for some miles down the valley of the Weiss toward Colmar.
Austrians capture of Mt. Lövchen.
One of the greatest single mountain successes of the war was the Austrian capture of Mount Lövchen, the huge black mass of rock, nearly six thousand feet high, which dominates the Austrian port of Cattaro and sentinels the little kingdom of Montenegro on the west.
Ever since the war began the Austrians have from time to time made attempts to reach the summit of this mighty rock. It is only a matter of an hour or two by winding road in peace times, but the Austrians were something like eighteen months on the job; and in all this time it is doubtful if the defenders ever numbered much more than five thousand. It was not captured until the Montenegrins had practically run out of ammunition and of reasons for holding the position. The rest of their kingdom was overrun, and they were to all intents and purposes out of the war.
Russians in the Carpathians.
The Russian campaign in the Carpathians, before the great German drive of a year ago pushed the Czar's armies back into their own country, also illustrates how the mountain warfare of to-day grew by natural tendencies from the tactics of Bourcet into the trench warfare of northern France.
In the first weeks of the war, when the great offensive movement of the Austrian army toward Lublin was crushed by the Grand Duke Nicholas, and the broken hosts of the Dual Monarchy were sent flying through Galicia and the Carpathians, a cloud of Cossack cavalry followed them and penetrated into the plains of Hungary. This last operation was merely a raid, however, and the Cossacks were soon galloping back through the mountain passes.
Then the Russians laid siege to Przemysl, and occupied the whole of Galicia up to the line of the San. Later they pushed on westward to the Dunajec, threatening Cracow. This was their high tide. On their left flank was the mass of the Carpathians, pierced by a number of passes. The more important of these, from west to east, are the Tarnow, Dukla, Lupkow, and Uzsok.
The Carpathian passes.
The Austrians were rallied after some weeks, and put up something of a fight for these "contracted places." The Russians, following the precepts of Bourcet, threatened the passage which seemed most desirable, because of the railroad facilities, and delivered a heavy blow at the Dukla Pass, the least important of the four. Here they pushed through to Bartfeld, on the Hungarian plain. Then, however, Mackensen's fearful blow smashed the Russian line on the Dunajec and poured the German legions across Galicia in the rear of the Carpathian armies, forcing the Muscovites to abandon the passes and scurry home.