Battle of the Złota Lipa ends

On 30 August 1914 the Battle of the Złota Lipa came to an end; in English-language literature it is often called the first battle of Lemberg. The Russian armies of Generals Nikolai Ruzsky and Aleksei Brusilov broke the defence of the Austro-Hungarian 3rd Army of General Rudolf von Brudermann on the river Gniła Lipa. The defeated Austrians withdrew beyond Lviv, the capital of Galicia.

The second line of defence

The fighting had begun on 26 August on the Złota Lipa, where Brudermann, expecting a weak enemy, had thrown his corps into an attack eastwards. He ran into two strong Russian armies and suffered heavy losses. On the night of 27–28 August his troops fell back west to the Gniła Lipa, to a line from the Lviv area to Przemyślany and Rohatyn. There they were to hold the Russians until reinforcements from the 2nd Army arrived from the Serbian front.

The breakthrough

The Russians gave the Austrians little time. On 29 August Brusilov’s corps, advancing from the south-east, halted the Austro-Hungarian counter-attacks. On 30 August the Russians attacked along the whole line and broke through the defence, especially in the sector of XII Corps. The superiority of the Russian artillery proved decisive. Brudermann’s army, exhausted by several days of fighting, began to fall back in disorder. Some units retreated in panic, abandoning equipment and guns. According to one estimate, in the fighting on the Gniła Lipa alone the Austro-Hungarians lost about 20,000 soldiers and 70 guns, though these figures are uncertain.

The Chief of the General Staff, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, concluded that the line east of Lviv could not be held. He accepted the loss of the city and ordered a retreat further west, to the river Wereszyca in the area of Gródek Jagielloński.

The fall of Lviv

Lviv was not a fortress, and no one intended to defend it. On 30 August the Austrian authorities had already begun to evacuate government offices, and unease spread through the city. On 2 September the last Austro-Hungarian units left it, and on 3 September the Russians entered the capital of Galicia without a fight. Brudermann was soon recalled, and his place was taken by General Svetozar Boroević.

For the Poles it was a shock. Lviv, one of the two main centres of Polish national life in Galicia, came under the rule of Russia, which after taking the city began attempts to Russify this part of Galicia. The Russian occupation lasted until June 1915.

We write about the first phase of the fighting in the article Battle of the Złota Lipa begins.