d Austrians
occupied the towns of Dukla and Tylava, and arrived at Rymanow--still
farther east--on the following day. The town of Dukla lies some
fifteen miles due north of the Galician debouchment of the pass of
that name, and Rymanow is about another fifteen miles east of that.
Hence the German strategic plan was to draw a barrier line across the
north of the Carpathians and hem the Russians in between that barrier
and the Austro-Hungarian armies of Boehm-Ermolli and Von Bojna. It
must distinctly be borne in mind that these two forces are also north
of the passes: that of Von Bojna being stationed at the elbow where
the Germanic line turned from the Carpathians almost due north along
the Dunajec-Biala front, or across the neck of our hypothetical jar.
The Dukla and Lupkow passes were still in Russian hands; these were
the only two that the Germanic offensives of January, February, and
March, 1915, had failed to capture; all the others, from Rostoki
eastward, were held by the Austrians and Germans. It was through the
Dukla and Lupkow that the Russians obtained their foothold in northern
Hungary, and it was the only way open to them now to get back again.
Around the Laborcza district stood the Seventh Austro-Hungarian Army
Corps under the command of the Archduke Joseph, who now began to
harass them, aided by the German "Beskid Corps" under General von
Marwitz. This was the only section in the range where the Russians
held both sides. Boehm-Ermolli had forced the Rostoki and Uzsok, but
hitherto had been unable to get very far from their northern
exits--not beyond Baligrod. During the fighting on the Dunajec these
three armies merely marked time; it was their object to keep the
Russians in Hungary and in the two passes until Von Mackensen had
thrown the right of his "phalanx" across their only avenue of escape.
That time was now rapidly approaching, and Von Bojna was gradually
squeezing Brussilov from the west, while Boehm-Ermolli was following
from the east and south. It appears that the commanders of the Twelfth
Russian Army Corps and the Third Russian Army, which stood on
Hungarian soil from Zboro to Nagy Polena, did not grasp the full
significance to them of the Dunajec catastrophe.

Germanic troops were building a wall against their exits before they
had seriously thought of withdrawing. Escape was impossible for many
of them; some had managed to get across the Dukla in time, while those
left behind would either hav