f
this plan was the brilliant surprise attack on the Austrians and
Germans previously described. Along the San the troops just south of
Ewarts delivered a fierce attack and drove the Archduke Ferdinand back
to Tarnobrzeg on the Vistula. Ivanoff next drew as many reenforcements
from that flank to strengthen his center as was compatible with
safety. What had happened meanwhile on Ivanoff's extreme left--in
eastern Galicia and the Bukowina--has already been stated. These
counterattacks may be regarded as merely efforts to gain time, but the
hour of another great battle was at hand.

The battle of the San, one of the greatest of the war, opened on May
15, 1915. Jaroslav was in German hands; the Fourth Austro-Hungarian
Army (Archduke Joseph Ferdinand) reached the western side of the San
on the 14th; by the 16th the Austro-German armies held almost the
entire left bank of the river from Rudnik to Jaroslav, about forty
miles. They crossed at several points on the same day and enlarged
their hold on the right bank between Jaroslav and Lezachow near
Sieniava, which they captured. A German division arrived at
Lubaczovka, due north of Jaroslav, and half of the Germanic circle
around Przemysl was now drawn. The German plan was an advance in force
from the Sieniava-Jaroslav front against the Przemysl-Lemberg railway,
the most vulnerable point of the Russian line of retreat from the
fortress. Fifteen bridges were accordingly erected over the San in
that sector between May 20-24, 1915, across which the German battering
ram was to advance on Przemysl. South of the town mounted patrols came
into touch with Russian cavalry; four Austro-Hungarian and one German
army corps were standing prepared between Dobromil and Sambor; Sambor
was occupied by them. The Russians held the left bank close to the
river from Sieniava to Jaroslav, and northward of the former and to
the west as far as Tarnobrzeg. From Jaroslav their front ran in almost
a straight line for thirty miles southeastward to the outer and
northern forts around Przemysl, described nearly a complete circle
around the western and southern forts to Mosciska on the east, thence
south to Sambor, and from Sambor to Stryj. From Stryj; eastward to the
Bukowina the line remained unaltered. In that region Lechitsky and Von
Pflanzer-Baltin had been conducting a campaign all by themselves; they
were now resting, waiting, watching.

While great Germanic preparations for the capture of Przemysl