t regard the menace from this quarter as
a grave one. Announcement was made by General Sukhomlinoff, the Russian
Minister of War, on December 23,1914, that it had been stopped
"absolutely." We have said before that it was at the Austrians, rather
than the Germans, that the Russians wished at this time to strike a
telling blow.

On December 28, 1914, General Dankl's army sought to help the main
German forces by passing over the Nida near its junction with the upper
Vistula above Tarnow. The Russians suddenly were reenforced at this
point by troops who swam the ice-filled stream, attacked the Austrians
on their flank, drove them back, and took 10,000 prisoners.

It was about this time, when Radko Dmitrieff was operating so
successfully in the neighborhood of Tarnow, that General Brussilov
resumed the offensive in Galicia. He was able to feed and munition his
army from Kiev. Practically all the railroad system of Galicia could be
utilized by him for maneuvering troops and distributing supplies. His
troops numbered only about 250,000, but their strength was increased by
railway facilities. General Brussilov could afford to send a large force
under General Selivanoff to help invest Przemysl.

To the Russians, however, Przemysl was not of immediate importance. The
fortress commanded the railroad leading past Tarnow to Cracow, and would
have been badly needed, it is true, if the army of Dmitrieff at Tarnow
had been attacking Cracow. But the army of General Ivanoff had been
forced by this time to retire about fifty miles north of Cracow.
Therefore, the smaller force commanded by Dmitrieff was unable to do
anything against Cracow from the east; and so it withdrew from the upper
course of the Dunajec River and became intrenched along the more
westerly tributary of the Dunajec, the Biala.

The Russian line extended from the Biala to the Dukla Pass in the
Carpathians. Still farther eastward, all along the lower valleys of the
Carpathians, the army of General Brussilov was holding out against a
large Austro-Hungarian force. This was under the command of General
Ermolli.

The chief offensive movement of Ermolli in December, 1914, was directed
toward the relief of Przemysl. As has been indicated, his lines ran
through Grybov, Krosno, Sanok, and Lisko, thereby putting a wedge
between the army of Brussilov and that of Dmitrieff. He attacked
Dmitrieff from the east along the line of the Biala and the Dunajec. In
Christmas week Dmit