Battle of Tarnawka ends
- Category:
- Military operations
- Front:
- Eastern Front
- Date:
- 9 September 1914
- Author:
- Natalia
- Battle:
- Battle of Tarnawka
On 9 September 1914 the three-day Battle of Tarnawka, fought in the fields a dozen or so kilometres south of Lublin, came to an end. The Austro-Hungarian First Army of General Viktor Dankl, broken by superior Russian forces, began to withdraw southwards, towards Kraśnik and the San.
The breakthrough
The fighting at Tarnawka, Giełczew and Zakrzew had flared up on 7 September. The Russian Fourth Army of General Aleksei Evert, reinforced by the elite Guards Corps and the Grenadier Corps, attacked the Austro-Hungarian V Corps and the German 4th Landwehr Division supporting it. According to Russian accounts, on 8 September the Guards regiments broke through the defence around Tarnawka. The next day Dankl’s army, which only two weeks earlier had been victorious at Kraśnik, was no longer able to hold its positions.
Dankl’s position was also deteriorating on his right wing. Between his army and the Austro-Hungarian Fourth Army, fighting far to the south-east at Rawa Ruska, yawned a wide gap into which the Russian Fifth Army was advancing. This threatened to cut the First Army off from the rest of the forces.
The retreat
Dankl decided to retreat. General Remus von Woyrsch’s German Landwehr men covered the withdrawing Austrians, and then themselves crossed back to the left bank of the Vistula and fell back towards Sandomierz. On 11 September the chief of the general staff, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, ordered the whole Austro-Hungarian front to retreat behind the San. With that the entire Battle of Galicia was lost, and Dankl’s August victory at Kraśnik had come to nothing.
The fields at Tarnawka, Giełczew and Zakrzew were covered with the graves of soldiers of both armies, among whom there was no shortage of Poles. The fallen were buried in war cemeteries that have survived to this day.
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Related events
(04)The same battle, people or subject.
- 7 September 1914 · Eastern FrontBattle of Tarnawka beginsOn 7 September 1914 the Battle of Tarnawka broke out south of Lublin. The reinforced Russians struck Dankl's Austro-Hungarian army and forced it to retreat.
- 25 August 1914 · Eastern FrontEnd of the Battle of KraśnikOn 25 August 1914 the Austro-Hungarian First Army took Kraśnik and the Russian Fourth Army fell back towards Lublin. It was Austria-Hungary's first victory.
- 20 October 1914 · Eastern FrontBattle of Dęblin endsThe British chronology ends the Battle of Ivangorod, or Dęblin, on 20 October 1914. In reality the fighting there went on for another week.
- 2 September 1914 · Eastern FrontBattle of Komarów endsOn 2 September 1914 Plehve's Russian Fifth Army slipped out of encirclement towards the Bug. The Battle of Komarów ended in an Austro-Hungarian victory.