New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-09-23
Dotted line shows Mackensen's advance

prepared for defeat. AS 1t was, there was
! little defence, as there were no trench lines.
Brusiloff was now all but enveloped. His
position had been salient at the start, and
the Germans were almost across the neck
of the loop. He was saved because Rus
sian reserves concentrated at Przemysl
were pushed out along the upper Wistok
and succeeded in hating the German drive
for few hours. This gave Brusiloff just
time to slip out of the rapidly tightening
moose. He did not get all his troops away;
division was caught, many guns and men
were lost, but by May II his main forces
were behind the San and the Russian front
had been restored. 1t had been restored
in the sense that henceforth the Germans
were to face organized resistance-the
days after Dimitrieff's collapse when they
had no real organized force before them
were over. So also was the chance of
supreme success, the capture of the Rus
sian armies in the Carpathians. Only once
more, this time at Wilma, were the Rus
SLAMS to face so terrible a danger, and
there their escape was much easier.
The end of the second week in May,
then, sees the Russian armies once more in
line. Evarts has retired from the Nida
to conform to the retreat south of the Wis
tula. Dimitrieffs army has ceased TO ex-
list, but new army is in position from the
Nistula along the San through Jaroslav
and Przemysl to the Carpathians.
On this front was fought the Battle of
the San, which was final effort of the
Russians to beat down the German thrust,
as they had beaten down an Austrian
thrust on the same front in the previous
year. But the effort was vain. Macken-
sen had moved his "phalanx" northeast.
ward along the railroad from Gorlce to
Jaso and from Jaslo 10 Rzeszow, where
the branch line joined the main Lemberg-
Cracow trunk line. He now forced the
passage of the San at Jaroslav, and by
forcing the line of the San compelled
new Russian retreat, this time to the very
gates of Lemberg, to the famous Grodek
line, system of lakes and marshes a few
miles west of the Galician capital.
Meantime the Austro-G German army
which had been holding Brusiloff in the
Carpathians pushed north and struck in
the rear of Przemysl, seeking to encircle
it from the SOUTH as Mackensen, having
passed the San, aimed at encirclng it
from the north. In the face of this double
thrust the Russians chung to Przemysl un-
til June 2, always, however, with the clear
recognition that it must ultimately be
abandoned. Six weeks after this strong
hold had fallen to Russian arms a Bava-
rian contingent entered the town, on the
heels Of the Russian troops, who Just
slipped between the sides of the closing
neck of the salient and took the road to
Lemberg.
Meantime, counter offensives by Evarts
north of the Vistula and by Lechitsky on
the front Of Bukovina had won smart local
successes, but despite large captures of
prisoners these operations could not infu-
ence the main campaign. The first days
of June saw the Russians standing north
Of the Dniester and east of the Grodek
Lakes. All of Western Galicia had been
lost, and German troops were already
across the Russian frontier east of the