Recapture of Lviv

The recapture of Lviv was the crowning achievement of the great offensive that the Central Powers had opened at the beginning of May 1915 by breaking through the front at Gorlice. After retaking Przemyśl and breaking another Russian line at Mościska and Lubaczów, the armies of General August von Mackensen’s group faced the last major position covering Lviv. It ran along the Wereszyca (PL) river and its ponds, through Gródek, and further north across the hills at Magierów towards Rawa Ruska. Within a few days the German Eleventh Army broke through at Magierów and the Austro-Hungarian Second Army forced the Wereszyca. On 22 June 1915 the Russians abandoned the capital of Galicia, which they had held since September 1914.

Name and dates

On this page we adopt the dates 17–22 June 1915, following the British chronology of the war on which our timeline is based. Under these days it records the third battle of Lemberg. In this numbering the first was the fighting on the Złota Lipa and Gniła Lipa in August 1914, after which the Russians took Lviv, and the second was the Battle of Gródek and Rawa Ruska in September 1914. To Polish readers this fighting is known above all as the recovery or recapture of Lviv.

The Austrian official history divides it into two parts. It begins the “Battle of Gródek and Magierów” on 16 June, when after their defeat at Mościska the Russians withdrew to the Wereszyca line, and ends it during the night of 19–20 June, when that line fell. It describes the “capture of Lemberg” on 20–22 June separately. The date of 17 June corresponds to the day on which the Central Powers’ troops ran into the main Russian position and began fighting for it. On the end of the battle the sources agree: on 22 June 1915 Austro-Hungarian troops entered Lviv. In Russian documents, written according to the Julian calendar, this is 9 June.

The battlefield was largely the same as nine months earlier. On the Wereszyca, at Gródek and on the hill near the village of Stradcz, the Austrians had tried in vain to retake Lviv in September 1914. Now they were attacking the same positions from the same side, but this time with German support and against an exhausted, bled-white enemy.

Background

At the beginning of June 1915 Mackensen’s forces, reinforced by new German divisions, were preparing a thrust towards Lviv. Mackensen now commanded not only his Eleventh Army but a whole army group, which also included the Austro-Hungarian Second Army of General Eduard von Böhm-Ermolli and the Fourth Army of Archduke Joseph Ferdinand. On 12–15 June this group broke through the front at Mościska and Lubaczów. According to the 1922 Encyclopaedia Britannica, since the start of the spring campaign in Galicia the Russians had lost about 391,000 men as prisoners alone, and more than 300 guns.

The commander of the Russian Eighth Army, General Aleksei Brusilov, had nothing left with which to fight a battle in the field. According to the Austrian official history, many of his divisions now numbered only 2,000–3,000 bayonets, and some regiments had dwindled to the strength of a battalion or even a company. The commander of the South-Western Front, General Nikolai Ivanov, ordered him to stop the enemy on the roads to Rawa Ruska and Lviv. Brusilov therefore pulled his corps back to a position that had been prepared for months. In the south it rested on the Dniester and ran along the Wereszyca, through Komarno, Gródek and a chain of ponds as far as Janów. Further north it was extended by the heavily fortified hills between Magierów and Rawa Ruska, defended by Brusilov’s right wing. North of them, on the Tanew, stood the Russian Third Army of General Leonid Lesh.

The plan

Mackensen wanted his tired troops to give the Russians no time to man the new line. The main blow was to be struck by the German Eleventh Army: it was to break through the front west of Magierów on a width of about 20 kilometres, throw the Russians back north-eastwards beyond the road from Lviv to Rawa Ruska, and so cut their deployment north of Lviv in two. In the centre of the Eleventh Army attacked the German Guard Corps and the Austro-Hungarian VI Corps of General Arthur Arz von Straussenburg, to their right the German XLI Reserve Corps, and to their left the XXII Reserve Corps. The left flank was covered by the group of General Otto von Emmich, facing north.

The Austro-Hungarian Second Army was to force the Wereszyca from the Dniester to Janów, take Lviv and push the beaten enemy eastwards. Attacking in it, from the south, were V, XVIII, XIX and IV Corps, and on the left wing the German Beskiden Corps of General Georg von der Marwitz. The Fourth Army, positioned on the San and the Tanew, covered the whole thrust from the north.

Course of the battle

Pursuit, 16 June. In the morning it turned out that the Russians had abandoned their trenches at Mościska. The Central Powers’ troops set off in pursuit. Airmen reported that the roads to the east were jammed with columns of troops and supply trains, and that villages and manor farms were burning behind them. During the night Infantry Regiment No. 102 from Benešov, part of the Austro-Hungarian 9th Infantry Division, broke into the western part of Gródek. The German Guard Corps took Niemirów after a fight, and on the northern wing the Germans occupied Lubaczów after a fierce battle with Siberian units.

Before the Russian position, 17 June. On this day both armies ran into the main defensive line. In Gródek street fighting went on all day, and only in the evening did the 9th Infantry Division, together with units of the 1st Landsturm Brigade, also break into the eastern part of the small town. In the south, at the mouth of the Wereszyca and near Komarno, the Austrians struggled to approach the river. North of the railway to Lviv, XIX Corps clashed with the Russians at Wielkopole, while IV Corps and the Beskiden Corps reached the positions at Janów. The Eleventh Army too, advancing across wooded and roadless hills, came up at about 1 p.m. against strongly held trenches on the hills near Horodysko and further north. On the same day the Russian commanders held a conference in Chełm on the further conduct of the war. According to the Austrian official history, the front was short of more than half a million rifles and more than half of the planned ammunition. It was decided that the army had to go over to the defensive, and the abandonment of Lviv was considered.

Preparations, 18 June. Mackensen concluded that the Russian position could not be taken on the march, and gave his troops one day to prepare a deliberate attack. The infantry closed up to the Russian trenches, while in the rear the heavy artillery was brought forward, struggling along sandy roads. In Gródek and at the isthmus between the ponds near Kiernica the fighting continued. On the southern wing the Austro-Hungarian V Corps crossed the Wereszyca below Lubień Wielki and by evening held the whole section of its eastern bank.

Breakthrough at Magierów, 19 June. In the morning, under a cloudless sky, the artillery shelled the Russian positions for two hours, and at 7 a.m. the infantry of the Eleventh Army went into the attack. The most heavily defended sector lay opposite VI Corps and the Guard, with a hill dominating the surrounding country and the village of Horodysko, which the Russians had turned into a field fortress. The first assault of the Austro-Hungarian 12th Infantry Division stalled 150 paces in front of the Russian breastwork, and the bombardment had to be resumed. At about 11 a.m. Infantry Regiment No. 63, fighting alongside the Hungarian 39th Honvéd Division, went in to the assault from the eastern edge of the village of Wiszenka, followed by the whole corps and the right wing of the Guard. In the early afternoon the Russian XXVIII Corps gave up the position, leaving 2,500 prisoners behind. The Guard broke through even further, and its advance guards reached the road from Żółkiew to Rawa Ruska at Dobrosin.

The Austro-Hungarian Second Army fought heavy battles on the Wereszyca all day. After more than two days of fighting XVIII Corps finally took the whole of Gródek, but just beyond the town more Russian regiments barred its way. In the evening five divisions of XIX and IV Corps launched a general assault on the Russian trenches between Kamienobród and Janów, and the fighting went on late into the night. At about 3 a.m. on 20 June both corps took the main Russian position, and at 4 a.m. the Viennese 43rd Rifle Division captured the hill near Stradcz, which had also been fought over in 1914. The Wereszyca line had fallen. At dawn the depleted Russian regiments were falling back towards Lviv.

Retreat to Lviv, 20–21 June. On the morning of 20 June the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, ordered all surplus military equipment to be removed from Lviv and a retreat of the Galician armies to the north and east to be prepared. Brusilov pulled his corps back to a belt of field fortifications surrounding the city from the west and north-west, between Sokolniki, Zimna Woda, Rzęsna Polska (PL) and Brzuchowice. North of the city the Russian positions ran through Zarudce to Żółkiew, and then along the railway to Rawa Ruska. The Austro-Hungarian Second Army followed the retreating enemy step by step and by evening already stood before the Lviv redoubts. The advance guards of the German XXII Reserve Corps occupied Rawa Ruska.

Mackensen, however, did not want to lead the Eleventh Army against Lviv itself. As early as 19 June he had announced that his troops would not cross the Lviv–Rawa Ruska road, but would prepare to wheel north, between the Bug and the Vistula. The chiefs of the general staff, Erich von Falkenhayn and Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, agreed on 20 June that they would decide on this manoeuvre only after the city had been taken. The capture of Lviv thus fell to Böhm-Ermolli’s army, while the Germans were only to threaten it from the north, through Żółkiew and Kulików. On 21 June the Russian VIII and XVII Corps defended themselves there with great tenacity, while at Lviv the heavy artillery began ranging on the Russian redoubts. A bombardment was set for 4 a.m. on 22 June, to be followed by an assault.

Capture of Lviv, 22 June. During the night of 21–22 June the Russians abandoned the hills west of Żółkiew, and at dawn the Beskiden Corps stormed their positions at Kulików. At the same time the Austro-Hungarian corps advanced on Lviv. At 5 a.m. the Viennese Rifle Regiments No. 1 and No. 24 took the redoubt at Rzęsna Polska at the cost of heavy losses. At 9 a.m. the Viennese 43rd Rifle Division took Brzuchowice, at 10.30 a.m. German Bohemian soldiers of the 29th Infantry Division captured the redoubt at Skniłów south-west of the city, and soon afterwards Infantry Regiment No. 34 from Kassa broke into the fortifications on Łysa Góra. The ring of fortifications from north-west to south-west of the city had been broken. Brusilov, whom the loss of Żółkiew and Kulików threatened with encirclement from the north, had already ordered the city to be abandoned. According to the Austrian official history, shortly after noon the first Austro-Hungarian cavalry patrols rode into Lviv from the west, while at the same time the last Russians were leaving it to the east. At about 4 p.m. General Böhm-Ermolli arrived in the city with his staff. The inhabitants, who had lived under Russian rule for almost ten months, greeted him joyfully.

On the same day the Russians also broke off the fight south of Lviv, where in the morning they had still been defending themselves stubbornly on the hills east of Szczerzec and at Sokolniki. South of the Dniester the German-Austrian South Army was preparing to cross the river, which it began to do during the night of 22–23 June. We describe its fighting of the previous weeks as the Battle of the Stryj.

Losses

There is no complete account of the losses in this fighting. The Austrian official history gives only figures from individual sectors. At Horodysko 2,500 prisoners were taken on 19 June, and the 39th Honvéd Division took another 856 on 20 June. From 21 to 25 June the Austro-Hungarian Second Army took about 11,000 prisoners in total. The attackers’ losses were also high, especially in the assaults on the positions at Horodysko, on the Wereszyca and on the Lviv redoubts, but the sources give no aggregate figures.

Significance

The recapture of Lviv was one of the Central Powers’ greatest successes in the east since the start of the war. According to the Austrian official history, its moral effect exceeded even its military importance. Throughout the Habsburg monarchy the news of the capture of the capital of Galicia was received with relief and with hope for a victorious end to the war. In the Balkans it strengthened the supporters of neutrality in Romania and Greece, and Bulgaria resumed negotiations on joining the Central Powers. Mackensen, the victor of Gorlice, was promoted to field marshal by Kaiser Wilhelm II in these days, and Conrad received the rank of colonel-general.

For Russia the loss of Lviv meant the final end of the plans with which it had entered Galicia in August 1914. Even before the city fell, the Russian high command had decided to give up almost all of Galicia and concentrate on the defence of the Kingdom of Poland. On 24 June at Baranovichi, in the presence of the Tsar, a plan for a gradual retreat was adopted, intended to give the army time until the autumn, and the North-Western Front of General Mikhail Alekseyev took over two armies and a group of corps previously subordinate to Ivanov. This was the prelude to the Great Retreat of the Russian army, which in the summer of 1915 took in all the Polish lands.

The war, however, did not end at Lviv. On the evening of 22 June the Central Powers were already issuing orders for further operations. Mackensen’s Eleventh and Fourth Armies wheeled north, towards Lublin and Chełm, while the Second Army and the South Army advanced eastwards, to the Gniła Lipa and Złota Lipa.