Battle of the Stryj

The Battle of the Stryj was the south-easternmost link in the great Central Powers offensive in Galicia in the spring of 1915. While the German Eleventh Army and the Austro-Hungarian armies fought for Przemyśl, the German-Austrian South Army of General Alexander von Linsingen attacked the Russian Eleventh Army of General Dmitry Shcherbachev, which was defending the Carpathian foothills between Drohobycz and Dolyna. After a week of failed assaults the Germans took Stryj on 31 May, and in the first days of June they reached the Dniester and crossed it at Żurawno. The Russians replied with a powerful counter-offensive that pushed Linsingen’s troops back across the river and for several days threatened Stryj itself.

Name and dates

On this page we adopt the dates 24 May – 11 June 1915 from the British chronology of the war on which our timeline is based. It records the “Battle of the Stryj” in Galicia between exactly these days, separately from the “Battles of Stryj and Drohobycz”, which according to it began on 18 May and ended on 3 June. The name comes from the river Stryj, a right-bank tributary of the Dniester, on which the town of the same name stands.

According to the 1922 Encyclopaedia Britannica, the South Army began a two-day artillery preparation on 24 May, and the infantry went in to the assault on 26 May. Britannica describes the Battle of Stryj together with the fighting on the Prut and the Dniester, up to mid-June. The Austrian official history does not single out one battle. It describes the capture of Stryj as part of the fighting for Przemyśl, and the subsequent operations from 5 June as part of the advance into eastern Galicia. The closing date of 11 June can also be justified by the course of the fighting: after the Russians had thrown Linsingen’s troops back across the Dniester, the South Army regrouped near Żurawno on 10 and 11 June, and its further operations were already tied to Mackensen’s thrust on Lviv.

Background

The South Army was formed in January 1915 from German and Austro-Hungarian divisions. All winter it fought in the Eastern Carpathians, as part of the Winter Battle in the Carpathians, and only in April did it take the fortified Zwinin ridge on the road to Stryj. After the breakthrough at Gorlice the Russians had to leave the Carpathians, and in mid-May the South Army came down into the foothills. It took Skole and Bolechów, passed the burning oil wells of Borysław and ran into a new Russian defensive line running from near Perehińsko across the approaches to Dolyna and Stryj to the hills east and north of Drohobycz.

Attacks by individual corps between 16 and 20 May brought no decision. Around 19 May Linsingen therefore decided to concentrate his forces in one place. The main blow against Stryj was to be delivered by the corps of the German General Felix von Bothmer, with the German 1st Infantry Division and part of the 3rd Guards Infantry Division, reinforced by the Hungarian 38th Honvéd Division from the corps of General Sándor Szurmay and a brigade of the German 48th Reserve Division. On the left wing, near Drohobycz, stood Szurmay’s corps; on the right, near Bolechów and Dolyna, the corps of Generals Hofmann and von Gerok.

The German Supreme Command attached great importance to this attack. On 23 May the Chief of the General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, reminded Linsingen that the fighting at Przemyśl was going slowly and that the Russians had freedom of manoeuvre in eastern Galicia. After Italy’s entry into the war there were also fears that Romania would strike at the Central Powers. Linsingen wanted, after breaking through, to reach the Dniester and wheel east to relieve the Austro-Hungarian Seventh Army of General Karl Pflanzer-Baltin, which was repelling attacks by the Russian Ninth Army on the Prut.

Sources assess the balance of forces differently. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Linsingen’s eight infantry divisions and three independent brigades faced five Russian divisions. The Austrian official history states that the Russians had more infantry, about 100,000 rifles against 70,000, but were weaker in artillery and short of ammunition. Their positions, partly hidden in the forests, were protected by deep belts of wire and flanking fire positions.

Course of the battle

First assault, 24–27 May. After two days of shelling the infantry advanced on the morning of 26 May. The Hungarian 40th Honvéd Division of Szurmay’s corps made some progress near the village of Gaje, the 38th Honvéd Division west of Stryj gained little, and the German assault group almost nothing. Near Dolyna the left wing of von Gerok’s corps broke into the Russian trenches at the cost of very heavy losses, but the next morning a counter-attack took back all its gains. The Austrian official history judged the results of the attack as hardly satisfactory, while the Encyclopaedia Britannica wrote of a successful first day. Both sources agree that on the second day the attack stalled and it became necessary to turn to slow sapping towards the Russian lines.

Russian counter-attack at Bolechów, 28–30 May. To relieve his wing on the Dniester, Shcherbachev threw into a counter-offensive the XVIII Corps, reinforced by a brigade of Finnish rifles sent by the neighbouring Ninth Army. On 28 May three Russian regiments struck the centre of Hofmann’s Austro-Hungarian corps in the forests east of Bolechów and pushed it back across the river Świca. On the morning of 30 May the Russians crossed the river and were stopped only at the railway line just short of Bolechów. Hofmann’s corps lost more than 4,000 men in this fighting.

Capture of Stryj, 31 May. Despite the crisis at Bolechów, Linsingen renewed the attack on Stryj. On 31 May, after a short artillery preparation in which Austro-Hungarian 30.5 cm mortars also took part, the 3rd Guards Infantry Division, supported by part of the 1st Division, broke into the town, with the 38th Honvéd Division attacking alongside it. More than 9,000 Russians were taken prisoner. Eight guns and, according to Britannica, 15 machine guns were also captured. On the left wing the 40th Honvéd Division broke into the Russian positions.

Pursuit to the Dniester, 1–4 June. On 1 June the 40th Honvéd Division drove the Russians from Gaje and Słońsko and reached Letnia, while the 38th Division broke through further north of Stryj. During the night of 1–2 June the Russian units still holding out east of Drohobycz abandoned their positions, and the Austro-Hungarian 7th Infantry Division set off after them through Litynia. The Guards pursued the Russian XVIII Corps towards Żydaczów. The Russians, however, held a bridgehead on the south bank of the Dniester at Mikołajów, covering the rear of their armies fighting at Przemyśl. On 4 June they also began to withdraw on the sector south-east of Stryj.

Żurawno and Kałusz, 5–8 June. Linsingen now ordered the simultaneous capture of Kałusz, Halicz and the crossing at Żurawno. On 5 June the 38th Honvéd Division and the right wing of the Guards broke into the bridgehead at Żurawno held by the Russian XVIII Corps. They gave the Russians no time to destroy the bridges and crossed the Dniester together with the retreating enemy. On 6 June they took the hills on the north bank, and on 7 June they threw the Russians back near Nowoszyny. On the army’s right wing, in heat broken by downpours that turned the forest roads to mud, the German 48th Reserve Division took Kałusz during the night of 6–7 June. Hofmann’s corps took more than 3,000 prisoners near Wojniłów on 7 June, and on 8 June von Gerok’s troops entered Stanisławów without a fight. According to the Austrian official history, from the end of May the South Army took more than 40,000 prisoners and about twenty-four guns.

Russian counter-offensive, 8–9 June. The Russians understood well that the crossings at Żurawno and Mikołajów were the most vulnerable point of the front in Galicia. They brought up the fresh VI Corps from the Warsaw area, and on 8 June they struck near Żydaczów and Mikołajów at Szurmay’s corps, which was stretched over more than 50 kilometres. On the same day they also attacked the Guards and the 40th Honvéd Division on the north bank of the Dniester and threw them back to Nowoszyny. The Hungarian division lost 2,000 men. On 9 June the crisis deepened. Szurmay’s brigades at Mikołajów and Żydaczów lost half their strength or more in hand-to-hand fighting and had to fall back. Linsingen, who had driven up to the nearby hills at dawn, could see the Russians only 12 kilometres from Stryj. In the evening the Russians broke through the positions of the 38th Honvéd Division and the Austro-Hungarian 1st Cavalry Division near Bukaczowce. Bothmer, who was in danger of being cut off from the crossing at Żurawno, proposed a retreat, and Linsingen agreed. During the night the troops crossed back to the south bank of the Dniester.

New attack, 10–11 June. Linsingen quickly regrouped his army. Bothmer, with the Guards, the 1st Division, the 48th Reserve Division and the 40th Honvéd Division, was to strike upstream along the Dniester into the flank of the Russians attacking Szurmay, while von Gerok guarded the river between Żurawno and Ostrów. On the left wing help came from the Austro-Hungarian 4th Cavalry Division, sent by the Supreme Command. On 10 June the Russians, exhausted by the fighting of the previous days, barely moved, and Bothmer attacked from the Żurawno – Nowe Sioło line. On 11 June he drew close to Żydaczów, and the German 1st Division took the Russian bridgehead opposite Hołeszów. Żydaczów fell the next day.

Casualties

No complete casualty figures for this battle have been compiled. According to the Austrian official history, the South Army took more than 40,000 prisoners from the end of May to 8 June, more than 9,000 of them in Stryj alone. Central Powers losses were also high. Hofmann’s corps lost more than 4,000 men at Bolechów, and the 40th Honvéd Division about 2,000 on 8 June alone. Some brigades of Szurmay’s corps melted away in the fighting on the Dniester to the strength of a battalion, and by 10 June the 38th Honvéd Division had only about 1,100 rifles left.

Significance

The capture of Stryj and the advance to the Dniester ended for the Central Powers the fighting for the foothills of the Eastern Carpathians that had gone on since January. The Russians lost an important railway junction and the Drohobycz and Borysław oil field, and their Ninth Army had to withdraw from Stanisławów. The counter-offensive at Żurawno and Mikołajów showed, however, that the Russian army, though bled white and short of ammunition, could still deal dangerous blows, and that crossing the Dniester would not be easy.

The fate of the campaign was ultimately decided by events further north. After retaking Przemyśl, Mackensen broke through the front at Mościska and Lubaczów on 12–15 June and advanced on Lviv, which the Central Powers recovered on 22 June. The South Army crossed the Dniester at Żurawno only on 23 June, during the battle of Bukaczowce and Bóbrka.