WAR- CHRONICLE

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heavy guns. The Guards alone had taken 12,000 prisoners, 3 guns
and 45 machine guns. In close cooperation with Mackensen, the
troops commanded by the Arch-Duke Joseph Ferdinand effected a
crossing of the Wisloka on 6th May. The X. Austrian Division,
commanded by General von Mecenseffy, which had already greatly
distinguished itself, was successful in capturing the town of Brzostek
on 7th May, after bitter and violent street fighting, as the Russians
there offered obstinate resistance. The centre and left wing of the
Austrian army threw the enemy out of various rear positions, which
were bitterly contested, and continued their advance. The troops
commanded by the Arch-Duke had captured 16,000 prisoners, 6 guns
and 31 machine guns by the evening of this day.
V.
The Capture of Jaroslau.
When Prince Radko Dimitriew, the defeated Russian General,
had lost 140,000 prisoners and almost 100 guns and 300 machineguns
in the course of the fighting, in which the Russian lines were
penetrated and the pursuit which followed up to the 12th of May,
he commanded a retreat along the Lower San, which was to be
defended and held at all costs as far as Przemysl. According to
reports made by officer prisoners, the troops were to take up a
position on the western bank of the river, which was to be held
at all costs. An army order commanded attacks which were to
be carried out against the enemy at different points. Such a plan
of defence was probably possible from a theoretical point of view,
as the Russians had consolidated their positions and built out strong
bridge-heads in the course of the last few months on the Vistula-
San sector near Sieniawa, Jaroslau and Radymno. But the events
showed that the order was impossible in a practical sense.
The troops were so severely shaken and thrown into such confusion
owing to the defeat and hasty retreat, that it was only possible
to offer passive resistance on the San. Our troops advancing against
this river, continually came across stragglers and batches of various
units from the Russian front, and the accounts given by these prisoners
were unanimous in their admission that the Russian leaders were
endeavouring to form fresh units without any regard to precedence
or their former military activity.—Reinforcements were brought up
by rail from wherever it seemed possible to remove them to the
Lower San, so that the pursuers were to be opposed by no less
than 23 different infantry divisions. But Prince Radko Dimitriew
seemed to have lost confidence in the power of opposition and
resistance, of a large part of the troops that had been employed
at Gorlice-Tarnow and removed the units which had suffered most
severely far beyond the San. Our airmen on 12th and 13th May
reported that long columns of Russians were marching from the
Lower San towards East and North East.