A Popular History of The Great War/Volume 1/Page 193

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ADVANCING ON LEMBERG


The nearer they drew to Lemberg the fiercer the fighting became. ButithadalreadybeenapparentatZIoczowthatthe Ivnssian guns ruled the battlefield, and on September i, just as General Brusiloft was winning at Halicz, General Rust^ky succeeded in driving the main Galician army beneath the shelter of the Lemberg forts. The Russian troops w^ere then very tired, but, exultant at the prospect of victory, they fought even better than before. For two more days the battle flamed and thun- dered round the forts, both armies being terribly swept by shrapnel from the opposing guns.

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But the Russian howitzer batteries had also been tlirowing Jieavy shells at the steel cupolas and concrete walls of the forts. All that the Belgians had suffered in Liege and Namur, all that the French were then enduring in Maubeuge against the long- range Skoda howitzers, was a^^cnged on the garrisons of tlie fortress towns in Galicia. Dearly did the Austrians pay for the helptheygaveinsiegeartillerytotheGermans. Fortheirown forts were rapidly battered in by high-angle shell fire^jfom the concealed and mobile howitzers made by the French for the Russian armies. In a couple of days the Russians had smashed or wrecked thegnusandarmour-plateddefenceworksofLemberg. Astlic

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