A Popular History of The Great War/Volume 1/Page 196

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RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE IN GALICIA


ths line it had taken up in tlie d^ection of Lublin and Kholm. The Russian army opposing Dankl had beeii strengthened by withdrawing some of RennenkampFs forces in East Prussia, and on August 26, the Russian right wing advanced against DankF^ army near Krasnik. As the attack was not driven home, the Austrians claimed the victory. Buttheactionhadtheeffectintended. GeneralDankl wasmadeanxious. Toincreasehisstrengthhebroughtacross the Vistula part of the Austrian force operating round Kiclce in expectation of German support in a movement towards War- ,sawandIvangorod. Thisweakenedthesubsequentoutflanking attack delivered oir the other side of the river at Ivangorod, Even more immediately important was the check to General DankPsadvancetowardsLublin. Inconjunctionwiththeattack that afterwards followed on Ivangorod, the progress of DankPs army along the other bank of the Vistula would have endangered the entire Russian position. It would have cut in two the Russian armies in Prussia, Poland, and Galicia. Dankl was so placed as to be extremely dangerous to the Russians,*- who there- fore turned their main attention to him. Such were the circumstances in which the decisive stage of the battle opened on Friday, August 28. Far in the south, at the extreme right wing of the tw'o hundred mile battle-front, General Russky and General Brusiloff w^ere then fiercely engaging the Lembergarmies. Topreventanytroopsbeingshiftedfromthe Austrian left wing or centre to the suj^port of the overwhelmed right wing, the Russian commander-in-chief strongly attacked all along the line. The centre, by Tomashov, close on the frontier and near the railway running to Lemberg, was the point from which reinforcements could most easily have been moved. So there the Russian attack was pressed with most violence, with the result that the 15th Hungarian division, holding this important sector, was routed. The general battle raged for a week between the Vistula and theBugwithoutanydecisionbeingreached. Thefactwasthat this period of the conflict was not important from the standpoint of the'Russian commander. He wished only to hold back Dankl, and to prevent him from helping the Austi'ian armies in Galicia. There, at Zloczow, Halicz, and Lemberg, General Russky and General Bnisiloif and General Radko Dmitrieff were breaking through the southern Austrian right wing, and thus turning the

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