Battle of Chyrów

The Battle of Chyrów was one of the hardest-fought battles of the autumn 1914 campaign in Galicia. After the relief of Przemyśl the Austro-Hungarian 2nd and 3rd Armies tried to break through the positions of General Aleksei Brusilov’s Russian 8th Army, which stretched from the area of Przemyśl across the hills near Chyrów to Stary Sambor and the foothills of the Carpathians. For three weeks bloody attacks and counter-attacks raged on the wooded hills between the San and the Dniester and in the valley of the Strwiąż. Neither side broke the front, and at the beginning of November the Austrians had to withdraw, because the fate of the campaign had been decided by the defeat of the Central Powers on the Vistula.

Name and dates

On this page we use the dates 13 October – 2 November 1914. We take the starting date from the British chronology of the war, which records the beginning of the Battle of Chyrów under 13 October. On that day the Austro-Hungarian armies began a general offensive against Brusilov’s positions. The end date is given by the 1922 Encyclopaedia Britannica, based on Austrian studies. On 2 November the whole 2nd Army was still attacking, but during the night of 2–3 November the Austro-Hungarian forces began to withdraw.

The Austrian official history speaks of the Battle of Przemyśl and Chyrów and divides it into two phases: from 10 to 23 October and from 23 October to 2 November. The first clashes had in fact begun on 9–10 October, when the leading units of the 2nd Army ran into the Russians in the defile at Chyrów. In Russian and English-language historiography this fighting is usually treated as part of a wider battle on the San, lasting from early October to early November. Brusilov in his memoirs simply called it the Battle of Przemyśl, which “went on without a break for a month”.

Background

At the beginning of October 1914 the Austro-Hungarian armies went over to the counter-offensive in Galicia, at the same time as the German march on Warsaw and Dęblin. The Russians did not accept battle in central Galicia. They lifted the siege of Przemyśl and north of the fortress withdrew behind the San. South of it Brusilov’s 8th Army occupied a previously prepared front from Przemyśl to Stary Sambor, barring the road to Lviv.

The Austro-Hungarian command hoped that here, on the southern wing, it would be able to crush the weaker Russian forces and get behind the armies defending the San. From the south, from the Carpathians, came the 2nd Army of General Eduard von Böhm-Ermolli. Its right wing, General Tersztyánszky’s IV Corps, retook the Uzhok Pass and reached Turka. The southern wing of General Svetozar Boroević’s 3rd Army was to attack from the west and from the Przemyśl area.

Forces

On the Austro-Hungarian side fought the main forces of the 2nd Army, VII and XII Corps and Tersztyánszky’s IV Corps, supported by several cavalry divisions, as well as corps from the southern wing of the 3rd Army: III and XI Corps and the Hungarian 23rd Honvéd Infantry Division, detached from the Przemyśl garrison. From the direction of the Eastern Carpathians, towards Stryj, General Peter Hofmann’s corps was advancing.

Brusilov initially had only two corps on this sector, VIII and XXIV. They were soon joined by XII Corps, recalled from Przemyśl, and by VII Corps, taken from the 3rd Army. On the right wing, by the fortress, stood the weaker second-line divisions of the newly formed 11th Army. According to Brusilov his troops were fighting an enemy almost twice as numerous, but they were defending fortified positions on the hills, while the Austrians had to attack over very difficult ground, along few mountain roads.

Course

9–12 October. On 9 October the leading division of the 2nd Army reached Krościenko and ran into the Russian XXIV Corps, which had closed the defile at Chyrów. The Austrians had to deploy for an attack on the fortified Russian positions on the hills south of Stary Sambor and facing the wing of Boroević’s army.

13–18 October. On 13 October both Austro-Hungarian armies launched a general offensive. VII and XII Corps attacked the hills around Czyszki and Stara Sól, and Tersztyánszky’s group advanced from Turka down the Bystrzyca valley towards Sambor. The Russians responded with strong counter-attacks on the left wing of the 2nd Army. The heaviest fighting took place on the hills south of Stary Sambor and at the villages of Błożew Górna and Towarnia, where the Russians tried to break through towards Chyrów and Dobromil. The Austrians had to throw all their reserves into the fight, and on 16 October they brought III Corps from Boroević’s army into the battle. Even so, during the night of 17–18 October the Russians broke into the Błożewka valley and pushed back some of the Austro-Hungarian divisions. On 18 October they also struck from the area of Borysław into the flank of Tersztyánszky’s group, which had to fall back.

19–23 October. Boroević brought up another corps, XI Corps, to Przemyśl, which threw the Russians back around 19 October. The 44th Infantry Division took the Magiera hill by storm, a dozen or so kilometres south-east of Przemyśl, and its defenders then beat off Russian attempts to retake it. At the same time Hofmann’s corps took Stryj and moved on Drohobycz, threatening the rear of the 8th Army and the road to Lviv. Brusilov sent a division from the San there by rail, and after a two-day fight it recovered Stryj around 22 October. Around 23 October the 2nd Army command, in view of Russian superiority on its right wing, pulled IV Corps back to the hills near Turka.

24 October – 2 November. On 24 October General Anton Denikin’s 4th Rifle Brigade, known as the “Iron Brigade”, without any artillery preparation captured the village of Łużek Górny, which housed the headquarters of one of the Austro-Hungarian groups, and forced the staff to flee in haste. On 26 October the general offensive of the 3rd Army, weakened by cholera and a shortage of ammunition, almost completely collapsed. On the same day the Russians nearly broke the front between the corps of the 2nd Army, but were repulsed by General Krautwald’s group, sent from the 3rd Army to help. By 31 October the Austrians had driven the Russian VII Corps from a fiercely defended hill, where a breakthrough had nearly occurred. On 2 November the whole 2nd Army went over to the attack, and XII Corps approached Stary Sambor.

Retreat

Just when the battle seemed to be turning in the Austrians’ favour, the order to retreat came from the high command. As early as 27 October the high command had warned the army commanders that the situation on the Vistula was bad. At Dęblin and Warsaw the Germans and Austrians had been defeated, and their armies were falling back to the west. The armies fighting on the San, at Przemyśl and at Chyrów were threatened from the north and could no longer hold their positions. During the night of 2–3 November the Austro-Hungarian forces began to withdraw, for many soldiers quite unexpectedly. Brusilov, whose airmen reported long columns of supply trains heading west, immediately ordered a pursuit.

Losses

The exact losses in the Battle of Chyrów itself are hard to separate from those of the whole autumn campaign on the San, which by some estimates cost Austria-Hungary more than 200,000 soldiers. The scale of the losses is shown by the figures of individual units. The 2nd Battalion of the 7th Honvéd Infantry Regiment of the 23rd Division, fighting at Magiera, numbered 830 rifles on 16 October and only 264 on 5 November. The Russians also suffered heavy losses. Brusilov wrote that this was the last battle in which his army still fought as a regular army, trained in peacetime. After three months of war most of its professional officers and soldiers had already been lost.

Significance

The Battle of Chyrów showed that the Austro-Hungarian army, after the defeats of August and September, was no longer capable of breaking a fortified Russian front, despite its numerical superiority on this sector. Brusilov held his positions and covered Lviv and the left wing of the entire Russian front. The retreat at the beginning of November cancelled out the gains of the counter-offensive. Przemyśl was encircled for the second time, and the Austro-Hungarian armies fell back to the line of the Dunajec and into the Carpathians.