Przemysl was the greatest fortress in the Austrian empire.  Hill, rock, marsh and river combined to give it strength and the work of nature had been supplemented by the labors of the finest military engineers in central Europe.  The gallant defense which the garrison put up for days is recorded as Austria’s most noteworthy contribution to the war.  For a long time the fortress had faced famine.

With the fall of Przemysl the only important fortified town in Austrian Galicia which was not in the hands of the Russians was Cracow, close to the German border.  A large Russian army with artillery was released for action.  The Russian left wing stretched from the province of Bukowina on the southeast to Tarnow and the Vistula River near Cracow on the west.  ON THE EASTERN FRONT

On the eastern front of the stupendous battle line in March the most sanguinary fighting of the war occurred.  Losses on both sides were appalling, while the gains in territorial acquisition amounted to little or nothing.

Describing the enormous losses on both sides in Poland, a neutral observer, Mr. Stanley Washburn, said in the American Review of Reviews: 

“The German program contemplated taking both Warsaw and Ivangorod and the holding for the winter of the line between the two formed by the Vistula.  The Russians took the offensive from Ivangorod, crossed the river, and after hideous fighting fairly drove Austrians and Germans from positions of great strength around the quaint little Polish town of Kozienice.  From this town for perhaps ten miles west, and I know not how far north and south there is a belt of forest of fir and spruce.  Near Kozienice the Russian infantry, attacking in flank and front, fairly wrested the enemy’s position and drove him back into this jungle.  The Russians simply sent their troops in after them.

“The fight was now over a front of perhaps twenty kilometers; there was no strategy.  It was all very simple.  In this belt were Germans and Austrians.  They were to be driven out if it took a month.  Then began the carnage.  Day after day the Russians fed troops in on their side of the wood.  Companies, battalions, regiments, and even brigades, were absolutely cut off from all communication.  None knew what was going on anywhere but a few feet in front.  All knew that the only thing required of them was to keep advancing.

“Yard by yard the ranks and lines of the Austrians were driven back, but the nearer their retreat brought them to the open country west of the wood the hotter was the contest waged.  The last two kilometers of the woody belt are something incredible to behold; there seems hardly an acre that is not sown like the scene of a paperchase—­only here with bloody bandages and bits of uniform.  Men fighting hand to hand with clubbed muskets and bayonets contested each tree and ditch.  The end was, of course, inevitable.  The troops of the dual alliance could not fill their losses, and the Russians could.