End of the battle of Żydaczów

On 22 June 1915, the day Austro-Hungarian troops entered Lviv, the battle of Żydaczów ended according to the British chronology of the war. The official German list of battles gives the same dates, 10–22 June. For almost two weeks General Alexander von Linsingen’s German-Austrian South Army and General Dmitry Shcherbachev’s Russian Eleventh Army had fought for the south bank of the Dniester between Żurawno and Mikołajów. The decision, however, came from the north.

Żydaczów and the Russian counter-offensive

The attack Linsingen launched on 10 June went well at first. On 12 June General Felix von Bothmer’s corps took Żydaczów and reached the railway line running east, and the corps of the Hungarian General Sándor Szurmay went over to the attack and recovered some of the lost hills. The next day, however, Bothmer got stuck at the railway east of the town. Linsingen then reported to both supreme commands that his army had only just under 20,000 German and fewer than 25,000 Austro-Hungarian rifles left, and faced a stronger enemy on a much wider front. The Germans and Austrians decided to send him two new divisions from southern Hungary.

On 14 and 15 June the Russians, reinforced according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica by two divisions of XXI Corps, struck again. They pushed Bothmer back from the railway east of Żydaczów as far as the level of Hołeszów, and on 15 June fell upon Szurmay’s divisions, by now melted down to handfuls, along the road to Stryj. The fighting was often hand to hand. According to the Austrian official history Infantry Regiment No. 37, which held the very centre, came out of the fighting 150 men strong. By evening Szurmay’s corps stood on the line Tejsarów – Wolica – Letnia (PL), and the Russians were again dangerously close to Stryj. Szurmay wrote in a report to the supreme command that not even the fighting at the Uzsok Pass could compare with the battles north of Stryj.

The Russians give up the bank

This was the Russians’ last effort on this sector. In those same days the armies of General August von Mackensen broke the front at Mościska and Lubaczów and advanced on Lviv. Further downstream General Karl Pflanzer-Baltin’s Austro-Hungarian Seventh Army reached the Dniester and on 15 June took the Russian bridgehead at Niżniów. On 16 and 17 June it was relatively quiet on the Dniester. On 18 June Szurmay’s corps and the neighbouring Hungarian 51st Honvéd Division of the Austro-Hungarian Second Army went over to the attack and forced the Russians to leave their positions. By evening the Russian VI Corps held only a few islands among the marshes in front of the bridge at Kołodruby and rearguards on the road to Żydaczów. On 19 June the troops of the Central Powers reached the Dniester everywhere. All the bridges had been destroyed.

The Russians, however, had no intention of yielding further. Their new positions were already visible on the hills surrounding Żydaczów from the north. Linsingen began preparing a crossing, for which the two German divisions promised to him were already arriving. On 21 June Szurmay’s corps returned to the command of the Austro-Hungarian Second Army and was to prepare to cross the river above Żydaczów. The main forces of the South Army were to cross the Dniester on the night of 22/23 June, between Żurawno and Halicz. The crossing succeeded on the morning of 23 June in thick fog, but beyond the river further days of heavy fighting awaited them against the Russians, who after the loss of Lviv were still holding out on the Dniester.