New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-09-23

the north near the point where the Duna-
jec flows in from the south. His troops
had enjoyed quiet for a long time and had
no further mission at the moment than to
! hold the sector intrusted TO them. South
of the Vistula was the army of DimtrietF,
standing behind the Dunajec, before Tar
now, and thence behind the Bala, right
down to the Carpathians. 1t, too, was
charged with defensive mission merely.
The army of Brusilof, which made juno
] ton with Dimitrieff's in the foothills Of
the Carpathians, faced south-not west,
as did the other two-and was fighting
its way into Hungary. 1t had forced the
Dukla and Lupkow passes, and its vlctorl-
Gus troops were already almost within
sight of the Hungarian Plain. 1t was this
army that was the hammer of the Russian
military establishment, and in Allied capt.
tails it was all too easily believed that,
since it had now passed the crests of the
range, the road to Budapest and Vienna
lay open to it.
Przemysl had fallen on March 90 the
Russian troops which had thus been re-
leased had in the main been sent to
Brusiloff, and on May he was still ad-
vancing; his army was still victorious, yet
It was possible to detect a slowing down.
Russian progression in the Battle of the
Carpathians was never actually ended
until the Battle of the Dunajec compelled
Brusiloff to flee field of victory to escape
ruin, in consequence of disaster elsewhere;
and yet the strain upon Russia of eight
months of campaign had been tremendous,
and Russian supplies of munitions were
already beginning to dry up, and were
presently to fail at the crucial moment.
At first only Dmitrieff's army was in
volved in the German attack. Its position
was exceedingly good. 1t had before it
the Dunajec River, and then the Biala, an
affluent coming down out of the mountains.
Both streams were in flood, as result OF
spring thaws. The lines had been very
thoroughly fortified and had withstood
heavy attacks in the past. Indeed, so sue
cessfully had they withstood attack that
Dimitrieff had been led into fatal error
and had prepared no positions to the rear,
although the Wislok and the Wistok rivers,
behind him, offered equally good fronts on
which to withstand German attack if the
Dunajec line should be forced.
Despite the belief at the time, the Rus
sian army at the Dunajec was by no means
lacking either in munitions or guns. 1t
had the fair allowance of Russian army,
but this allowance was totally inadequate
TO face the German concentration. In
addition, Dimitrieff had behind him ad-
mirable railroad and highway lines. Two
trunk lines, one connecting Cracow with
Lemberg via Tarnow, the other running
from Gorlce to Stryj, supplied his rear.
No position of the whole Russian front
seemed in the closing days Of April, 1915,
better calculated to hold on, and no general
mad a better reputation than the soldier
who had broken Turkish armies at Lule
Burgas and won new laurels in the Lem
berg campaign.
Yet on May Day this army was almost
totally destroyed by the first German at
tack. The Teutonic artillery had been con-
centrated before Gorlice, which, for the
Germans, gives its name to the battle.