End of the battles of Masłomęcz and Grabowiec

On 18 July 1915 the fighting that the German list of battles calls the battles of Masłomęcz and Grabowiec came to an end. For four days the German Bug Army of General Alexander von Linsingen had stormed the positions of the Russian Thirteenth Army between Hrubieszów and Grabowiec. According to the Austrian official history, by the evening of 18 July it had not managed to break through them anywhere. The Russians abandoned them only during the night of 18–19 July, when to the west, near Krasnystaw, the front of the neighbouring Third Army gave way. In Russian historiography this fighting is called the Battle of Hrubieszów and is dated 15–21 July (2–8 July in the Julian calendar).

At Masłomęcz

The Bug Army, which had taken up its starting positions a few days earlier, attacked on the morning of 15 July, a day before the rest of the forces of Field Marshal August von Mackensen. On the right flank, between the Huczwa (PL) and the Bug, south of Hrubieszów, the XXIV Reserve Corps of General Friedrich von Gerok advanced. Its 107th Infantry Division took the strongly fortified Werbkowice and the wood near Terebiniec, while the Bavarian 11th Infantry Division attacked at Masłomęcz and Metelin. Facing them stood the Russian XXIX Corps. Its 77th Infantry Division gave way under the first attacks, but a counter-attack by the neighbouring 81st Division against the German flank stopped the advance. One of its regiments lost half its men and four out of five officers in this fighting. On 17 July Gerok committed the Prussian 1st Infantry Division. A communiqué of the Russian Supreme Commander’s staff reported, however, that on the evening of that day the Russians had driven the enemy out of all the trenches it had previously taken between the Huczwa and the Bug.

At Zaborce and Grabowiec

On the left flank of the Bug Army the Beskid Corps of General Georg von der Marwitz advanced. At Zaborce its 35th Reserve Division struck the Russian 3rd Guards Infantry Division, and at Bereść and Grabowiec its 4th Infantry Division attacked the Caucasian Grenadier Division. The Russians sat in solid trenches with dugouts and overhead cover, but almost without artillery ammunition. The commander of the Keksholm Life Guards Regiment recalled that on his sector the Germans fired about 10,000 shells on 15 July, while the Russian batteries along the whole line fired at most 500. The fire buried trenches together with men and machine guns. The Germans broke into the position at Zaborce, but the guardsmen held the second line and with counter-attacks recovered the trenches they had lost. When the Keksholm Regiment was relieved on the evening of 16 July, its commander formed one battalion out of three, and only nine officers were left. The Volhynia Regiment lost about half its men.

According to the Austrian official history, the Beskid Corps took the cemetery hill at Zaborce and part of Bereść, but got no further. At Bereść the Caucasian grenadiers several times repulsed attacks by German regiments that tunnelled under their trenches at night. A Russian communiqué of 18 July reported that four violent attacks, made on a broad front with the support of hurricane artillery fire, had been repulsed that day in the Grabowiec area.

Retreat

The Russians won the defensive battle at Hrubieszów, but could not stay in their positions. To their west, near Krasnystaw, the German Eleventh Army had driven deep into the front of the Third Army, and the Prussian Guard had already crossed to the eastern bank of the Wieprz, threatening the rear of the positions on the Wolica and the Wojsławka. During the night of 18–19 July the Thirteenth Army broke contact with the enemy and, covered by rearguards, fell back to a new line of defence through Uchanie and Wojsławice, a dozen or so kilometres to the north. On the same day, 18 July, the Austro-Hungarian First Army, covering the advance from the east, took Sokal on the Bug after heavy fighting. The fighting for the road to Chełm went on for another two weeks.