ve miles from the latter river. Strong hopes were
entertained that the Russians would be able to stem the Germanic
torrent by a firm stand on the Wisloka.

A fierce battle raged on the third and fourth of May, 1915, for the
possession of the wooded hills between the Biala and the Wisloka. The
Prussian Guard stormed Lipie Mountain and captured it on the third; on
the fourth they took Olpiny, Szczerzyny and the neighboring hills at
the point of the bayonet.

The Thirty-ninth Hungarian Division, now incorporated in the Eleventh
German Army under the direct command of Von Mackensen himself, had
advanced from Grybow via Gorlice on the Biecz railway line, and were
making a strong attack on the Russian positions on Wilczak Mountain
with a tremendous concentration of artillery. It seems the Russians
simply refused to be blown out of their trenches, for it required
seven separate attacks to drive them out. That accomplished, the fate
of Biecz was decided and the road to Jaslo--the "key" to the Wisloka
line of defense--was practically open to General Arz von
Straussenburg. Lying at the head of the main roads leading into
Hungary through the Tilicz, Dukla, and Lupkow passes, Jaslo is the
most important railway junction in the whole region between Tarnow and
Przemysl. It was at Jaslo that Dmitrieff had held his headquarters for
four months.

Just south of him, barely fifteen miles away, General von Emmich and
General Martiny, with the "Bayonet Bavarians" and the Tenth
Austro-Hungarian Army Corps, went pounding and slashing a passage
along the Bednarka-Zmigrod road and the auxiliary road from Malastow
to Krempna. They were striving hard to reach the western passes before
Brussilov had time to withdraw. He began that operation on the fourth.
On the same night Von Emmich and Martiny reached Krempna, and the last
line of retreat for the Russians around Zboro was imperiled. They have
yet to cross the range from Hungary back into Galicia. So subtly
potent and effective was the pressure on a flank that the whole
line--be it hundreds of miles long--is more or less influenced
thereby, as witness:

On the same night, May 4, 1915, the retreat spread like a contagion to
the entire west Galician front, compelling the Russians to evacuate
northern Hungary up to the Lupkow Pass; in that pass itself
preparations are afoot to abandon the hard-earned position. It is not
fear, nor the precaution of cowardice that prompted this wholesale
removal