Austria-Hungary launches a counter-offensive in Galicia

At the beginning of October 1914 the Austro-Hungarian armies, which after their defeat in the Battle of Galicia had halted on the Dunajec and the Biała, went over to the counter-offensive. They advanced east to recover the lost lands of Galicia and to relieve the besieged fortress of Przemyśl. The British chronology of the war gives 4 October as the start of the attack; Austrian studies say the troops set out as early as 1 October.

Conrad’s plan

The counter-offensive was closely linked to German operations. On 28 September the new German Ninth Army of General Paul von Hindenburg and his chief of staff Erich Ludendorff set out from Silesia and the Częstochowa area across the Kingdom of Poland towards the middle Vistula, towards Warsaw and Dęblin. The Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, wanted to exploit this thrust, which threatened the flank and rear of the Russian armies in Galicia.

On the northern bank of the Vistula, alongside the Germans, marched General Viktor Dankl’s Austro-Hungarian First Army. South of the river, from the Dunajec, advanced Archduke Joseph Ferdinand’s Fourth Army and General Svetozar Boroević’s Third Army. Furthest south, at the foot of the Carpathians, General Eduard von Böhm-Ermolli’s Second Army attacked. The main objective was the San and Przemyśl, which lies on it.

The Russians behind the San

At first the attack went well, although autumn rain and sodden roads slowed it badly. The Russians did not accept battle in central Galicia. Surprised by the German march on the Vistula, they began moving a large part of their forces north, to Warsaw and Dęblin, while the remaining armies fell back behind the San. Within a few days the Austro-Hungarian troops recovered a large part of the country, right up to the river.

On 5–8 October the Russian Third Army made one more bloody assault on Przemyśl, but the garrison repulsed it. With Boroević’s army approaching, the Russians withdrew from the fortress. On 9 October Austro-Hungarian cavalry entered Przemyśl, followed over the next days by the main relief forces.

Deadlock on the San

On the San the offensive stalled. The Russians dug in on the eastern bank of the river and held bridgeheads, and the fighting quickly took on a positional character. In the north, on the lower San, the Battle of Rudnik (PL) was fought from 14 October for the crossings around Rudnik and Nisko. On the night of 17/18 October the Russians forced the river and established bridgeheads on its left bank, and both sides suffered heavy losses. South of Przemyśl the armies of Boroević and Böhm-Ermolli attacked General Aleksei Brusilov’s Russian Eighth Army around Chyrów and Stary Sambor without success. The general attack begun on 13 October was repulsed.

The legionnaires

Units of the Polish Legions took part in the counter-offensive. Józef Piłsudski’s units, operating alongside Dankl’s army, got as far as Dęblin and on 22–26 October fought the hard Battle of Laski and Anielin. A second group of legionnaires, the future II Brigade, was fighting at the same time in the Eastern Carpathians.

Failure

The fate of the counter-offensive was decided on the Vistula. In the first half of October the Germans reached the outskirts of Warsaw, but the Russians had concentrated superior forces there and went over to the counter-attack. At Dęblin Dankl’s army was defeated and at the end of October began to fall back, and Hindenburg ordered the Ninth Army to retreat. Conrad’s armies on the San, threatened from the north, could no longer hold their positions. The Battle of Rudnik lasted until 2 November, and at the beginning of November the Austro-Hungarian troops again withdrew west to the line of the Dunajec and the Biała, from which they had set out a month earlier.

The counter-offensive brought Austria-Hungary only temporary relief and further heavy losses. During the relief the garrison of Przemyśl managed to replenish its supplies only in part. In November the Russians surrounded the fortress again, and their troops approached Kraków. The second siege of Przemyśl ended with the garrison’s surrender in March 1915.