Start of the second battle of Ivangorod

On 20 July 1915 the troops of Colonel-General Remus von Woyrsch attacked the last Russian field position in the forefield of the Dęblin Fortress, then called Iwangród (Russian: Ivangorod). On the morning of the same day the Austro-Hungarian 16th Infantry Division entered Radom. The British chronology of the war records the start of the second battle of Ivangorod under this date. The first had been fought here in the autumn of 1914, during the Battle of the Vistula River.

Woyrsch’s army detachment (German: Armeeabteilung Woyrsch) operated on the left bank of the Vistula, in the fork between the Vistula and the Pilica, on the left wing of the Central Powers’ great summer offensive in the Kingdom of Poland. Its core was General Götz von König’s German Landwehr Corps, made up of Silesian Landwehr regiments, that is, older reservists. Alongside it stood the Austro-Hungarian group of General of Infantry Hermann Kövess: XII Corps with the 16th and 35th Infantry Divisions, recruited in Transylvania, and the 7th and 9th Cavalry Divisions. According to the Austrian official history the Russians had only about five infantry divisions and one and a half cavalry divisions facing them: two corps of the 4th Army of General Aleksei Evert, XVI and the Grenadier Corps, and a wing of the 2nd Army.

The attack had begun on 17 July with the breakthrough at Sienno. The Silesian Landwehr then broke into the Russian lines on a sector of about 10 kilometres, and on the night of 18–19 July captured the crossings over the Iłżanka (PL) at Ciepielów and Kazanów. As early as 18 July the bridge over the Vistula at Solec was burning behind the retreating Russians. The Russian command had no intention of defending this area: at the beginning of July it had decided gradually to give up the left bank of the Vistula, except for the bridgeheads, and on 19 July it confirmed this decision. On 19 July three German divisions reached the Radom–Zwoleń road and took about 5,000 prisoners. The Austrians threw the Russians back from Skaryszew.

The Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, then instructed Woyrsch to wheel with a strong right wing towards Ivangorod and to prepare for a thrust across the Vistula. On 20 July the Landwehr Corps turned north-east, against a position that stretched from the Zwoleń–Nowa Aleksandria (today’s Puławy) road to Policzna. The Russians defended themselves stubbornly here, and the Landwehr fought hard all day. Only during the night did its attack begin to bear fruit. Kövess’s divisions met weaker resistance. The Russians no longer held the Białobrzegi–Jedlińsk line and fell back to the Kozienice–Policzna position. After taking Radom, the 16th Infantry Division turned east and reached Czarna. The 35th Division crossed the Jedlińsk–Białobrzegi road. The next day was to decide whether the Russians would hold on in front of the fortress.