he moment was to hold the enemy in
check long enough to allow Przemysl to be cleared of ammunitions
and supplies, and to withdraw the troops in possession of the place.
Already, on May 14, 1915, the German troops of Von Mackensen's
army had occupied Jaroslav, only twenty-two miles north of the
fortress. Ivanoff had concentrated his strongest forces on the
line between Sieniava, north of Przevorsk, and Sambor, thirty miles
southeast of Przemysl. Here he had deployed the three armies which
had held the entire front from the Biala to Uzsok in the beginning of
May, 1915, nearly twice as long as the line they were now guarding.
These were to fight a holding battle on the center while he adopted
a series of vigorous counterthrusts on his right and left wings.
By the retirement of the center Ewarts had been compelled to fall
back from the Nida to the Vistula with Woyrsch's Austrian army
against him. When Ewarts dropped behind Kielce in Russian Poland,
Woyrsch seized the junction of the branch line to Ostroviecs in
front of the Russian line. Ivanoff decided to venture a counterattack
which would at the same time relieve the pressure on his center
and also check the move on Josefov, dangerously near to the
Warsaw-Ivangorod-Lublin line. The result of this plan was the brilliant
surprise attack on the Austrians and Germans previously described.
Along the San the troops just south of Ewarts delivered a fierce
attack and drove the Archduke Ferdinand back to Tarnobrzeg on the
Vistula. Ivanoff next drew as many reenforcements from that flank
to strengthen his center as was compatible with safety. What had
happened meanwhile on Ivanoff's extreme left--in eastern Galicia
and the Bukowina--has already been stated. These counterattacks
may be regarded as merely efforts to gain time, but the hour of
another great battle was at hand.

The battle of the San, one of the greatest of the war, opened on May
15, 1915. Jaroslav was in German hands; the Fourth Austro-Hungarian
Army (Archduke Joseph Ferdinand) reached the western side of the
San on the 14th; by the 16th the Austro-German armies held almost
the entire left bank of the river from Rudnik to Jaroslav, about
forty miles. They crossed at several points on the same day and
enlarged their hold on the right bank between Jaroslav and Lezachow
near Sieniava, which they captured. A German division arrived at
Lubaczovka, due north of Jaroslav, and half of the Germanic circle
around Przemysl wa