ldiers and
civilians found themselves may be faintly imagined. Gorlice was an
inferno in a few hours. When the German infantry dashed into the town
they found the Russians still in possession. Fighting hand to hand,
contesting every step, the Russians were slowly driven out.

We have mentioned that German troops were moving on Senkova, southeast
of Gorlice, by night. During the last two days of April the Bavarians
captured the Russian position in the Senkova valley. A further move
was made here during the night of May 1-2, 1915, preparatory to
dislodging the Russians from the ground they still held. At seven
o'clock in the morning the big howitzers started to "prepare" that
ground. By ten o'clock it was deemed that every living thing had
perished, when the "fire curtain" was drawn behind the Russian
position. Infantry were then thrown forward--some Bavarian regiments.
To their intense astonishment they were received with a most murderous
fire from Russian rifles, and machine guns. The first attack failed
and many were killed, few getting beyond the wire entanglements.
Cautiously other troops advanced to the battered Russian trenches cut
off from the rear by the artillery screen behind. Yet here again they
met with strenuous resistance in the Zamczysko group of hills. The
Austrian artillery shelled the heights, and the Bavarians finally took
possession. The Tenth Austrian Army Corps had meanwhile conquered the
Magora of Malastow and the majority of the heights in the Ostra Gora
group. On Sunday, May 2, 1915, the Austro-German armies pierced the
Dunajec-Biala line in several places, and by nightfall the Russians
were retreating to their last hope--the line of the Wisloka. The
operations round Gorlice on that day resulted in breaking the Russian
defenses to a depth of over two miles on a front of ten or eleven
miles. Mr. Stanley Washburn wrote from the battle field at the time:
"The Germans had shot their last bolt, a bolt forged from every
resource in men and munitions that they could muster after months of
preparation." Of the Russian army he said, "it was outclassed in
everything except bravery, and neither the German nor any other army
can claim superiority in that respect."

With the center literally cut away, the keystone of the Russian line
had been pulled out, and nothing remained but to retire. Ten miles
north of Ciezkovice lies the triangle formed by the confluence of the
Dunajec and Biala rivers and the Zaklic