At six o'clock in the morning the long infantry lines rose in their storming positions and advanced to the attack. The flyers reported that behind the enemy's positions they observed grazing cattle and baggage carts. The enemy seemed not to expect a serious attack. Anyhow, the Petersburg bulletin had announced that the battles in Galicia had decreased in intensity, that the Teutonic allies had practically throughout gone over to the defensive.
At six-thirty in the morning the enemy's main position in its whole extent was in the hands of the German troops. Shaken by the heavy artillery fire the enemy had made only brief resistance; he was in hasty retreat toward the east.
But just in that direction and into Radymno, whence the enemy's reinforcements were to be expected, the artillery had in the meantime turned its fire. Great clouds of smoke covered these villages set afire by the bombardment. The Russians thus did not have the chance to take permanent footing in Ostroro. The troops holding the town surrendered, leaving hundreds of guns and great quantities of ammunition in the hands of the victors.
Along the whole line the German infantry was now advancing upon Radymno and the villages connecting with this place, Skolowszo and Zamojsce. With every step forward the number of prisoners was increased. Soon one division reported to headquarters that it did not have enough men to attend to the removal of the great masses of prisoners without prejudice to the conduct of the action. Cavalry was therefore assigned to this task.
At Radymno the enemy's troops had become jammed in crowds. A wooden wagon bridge over the San had been burned down too soon. From the position of the staff directing the battle one could see the leaping flames and the clouds of heavy black smoke caused by the pouring on of naphtha. One could also see long columns fleeing eastward covering the street toward Dunkowice with their disordered crowds. As the Russian recruits which had been gathered in Radymno made only a brief resistance, this place together with all the artillery which was attempting to escape through the town to the San, was also lost. Only at the bridgehead of Zagrody did the Russian leaders, by hastily bringing up fresh reserves, finally check the attack of the Germans. On this day 70 officers, 9,000 men, 42 machine guns, 52 cannon of which 10 were heavy, 14 ammunition wagons, and extensive other booty was reported. But also on the north bank of the San a great battle had developed.
PRZEMYSL
A semi-official dispatch by the Wolff Telegraphic Bureau dated Berlin, June 6, said:
From the Great Headquarters we have received the following telegram concerning the fall of the fortress Przemysl:
When on the 2d of May the offensive of the allies in West Galicia began, few probably could have imagined that four weeks later the heavy guns of the Central Powers would open their fire on Przemysl. The Russian staff was not likely to have been prepared for this possibility. Its decision swayed this way and that, whether, as originally planned, to hold the fortress, for "political reasons" or "voluntarily to withdraw" from it. Constantly our airmen reported the marching of troops in and out of the fortress. On the 21st of May the decision seemed to have been reached to abandon it. In spite of this, eight days later the place was stubbornly defended.
