End of the Battle of the Stryi

The British chronology of the war records under 11 June 1915 the end of the battle on the Stryi, which had been going on since 24 May. In those less than three weeks General Alexander von Linsingen’s German–Austrian South Army took the town of Stryi, reached the Dniester and entered Stanisławów. The last days of the battle, however, brought it a serious crisis. On 11 June Linsingen tried to master it with a new attack along the Dniester towards Żydaczów.

After the Russian counter-offensive

General Dmitry Shcherbachev’s Russian Eleventh Army, reinforced by the fresh VI Corps, struck on 8 and 9 June near Żydaczów and Mikołajów. It routed several brigades of General Sándor Szurmay’s corps and came within 12 kilometres of Stryi, and at Bukaczowce it broke through the front on the northern bank of the Dniester. During the night of 9–10 June General Felix von Bothmer’s German corps withdrew from the bridgehead at Żurawno to the southern bank of the river. The gains of the previous week had been lost.

Linsingen quickly regrouped his army. Bothmer, with the German 3rd Guard Infantry Division, 1st Infantry Division and 48th Reserve Division, the Hungarian 40th Honvéd Division and the Austro-Hungarian 1st Cavalry Division, was to strike along the Dniester upstream, into the flank of the Russians attacking Szurmay. General Friedrich von Gerok’s corps, with the bled-white 38th Honvéd Division, now down to only about 1,100 rifles, and half of the Austro-Hungarian 19th Division, was to guard the Dniester between Ostrów and Żurawno. At Stanisławów and Halicz there remained only General Marschall’s group with the German 5th Cavalry Division and General Peter Hofmann’s corps, about 7,000 men strong. The Austro-Hungarian high command sent General Berndt’s 4th Cavalry Division, reinforced with several infantry battalions and batteries, to help the army’s left wing.

10 and 11 June

On 10 June the Russians, exhausted by the fighting of the previous days, hardly moved. On the left wing Berndt pushed them back towards Litynia (PL), and Bothmer, who had taken his troops back across the Dniester unhindered, went into the attack from the line Żurawno – Nowe Sioło. Gerok took up positions on the river behind him.

On 11 June Bothmer moved closer to Żydaczów. The German 1st Division stormed the Russian bridgehead opposite Hołeszów, and the Guard and the 40th Honvéd Division advanced north through Ruda, covered on the other side of the Stryi river by the 1st Cavalry Division. To their left the Hungarian 128th Honvéd Brigade, reduced to the strength of a battalion, gained some ground north-east of Tejsarów (PL). The 1922 Encyclopaedia Britannica describes the day somewhat differently and writes that the 1st Division took Żurawno that day. The Austrian official history, on which our account is based, places Żurawno already behind the advancing troops.

The same day, on the army’s right wing, the Russians, forewarned moreover by an intercepted radio message, attacked Marschall’s cavalry. According to the Austrian official history they pushed it back as far as the outskirts of Stanisławów; according to the Britannica all the attacks were beaten off. Linsingen was not much troubled by this, because from the south his flank was covered by General Karl Pflanzer-Baltin’s Austro-Hungarian Seventh Army, which after the retreat of the Russian Ninth Army had turned north towards the Dniester.

What came next

The Battle of the Stryi therefore did not end in any clear decision on 11 June. The next day Bothmer took Żydaczów, and Szurmay’s corps again went over to the attack. At the same time, a few dozen kilometres to the north-west, a new offensive by Mackensen began, which was to decide the fate of Lviv and the whole of eastern Galicia. The fighting on the Dniester, however, went on. The South Army crossed the river at Żurawno for good only in the second half of June.