night of May 11, 1915, and the next day they evacuated a
front of about eighty-eight miles, and retired south of the Pruth.
General Mishtchenko led his Cossacks on the Austrian trail, taking
several towns on their way to Nadvorna, which they captured after a
fierce fight. From here they took possession of part of the railway
line from Delatyn to Kolomea, and completely severed the connection
between Von Pflanzer-Baltin's forces and those of Von Linsingen lying
along the north of the range. Larger bodies of Russian troops were on
the way to Kolomea; on May 13, 1915, they stormed and carried some
strongly fortified Austrian positions eight miles north of the town,
in front of which the Austrians had placed reenforcements and all
their last reserves. By dint of great efforts they held their position
here, but from May 9 to May 14, 1915, the Russians drove them back
elsewhere on a front of over sixty miles for a distance of about
twenty miles, also capturing some 20,000 prisoners with many guns and
valuable stores of munitions. About the middle of May matters quieted
down in the eastern sector; the only fighting of importance consisted
of severe artillery combats around Czernowitz and Kolomea. The issue
of the conflict hung in the west with Von Mackensen's armies; fighting
in the Bukowina at this stage became an unnecessary expenditure of
strength and energy. The fate of eastern Galicia was being decided 140
miles away, on the banks of the River San, to which region we will now
direct the reader's attention.

CHAPTER XLIV

RUSSIAN CHANGE OF FRONT--RETREAT TO THE SAN

After the Russian troops retreated from the Lower Wisloka northward
toward the confluence of that river with the Vistula they held the two
important bridgeheads of Sandomierz and Rozvadov.

On May 14, 1915, Ivanoff's right was being forced toward the Vistula
in the vicinity of Opatow. This right wing was the army under General
Ewarts, which since December, 1914, had been stationed in strongly
fortified positions on the Nida in Russian Poland. The front extended
across the frontier into western Galicia and joined on to the right
wing of Dmitrieff's Dunajec-Biala front, which was shattered between
Otfinow and Gorlice. The retreat of Dmitrieff's army was in an
easterly direction along Tarnow, Pilzno, Dembica, Rzeszow, and Lancut
to Przevorsk on the San; from the region of Gorlice and Ciezkovice
along Biecz, Jaslo, Frysztak, Krosno to Dynow, Dubiecko, a