A gleeful Russian Cossack skewers Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph in Galicia, the Empire's northeastern region isolated from the rest of the country by the Carpathian Mountains. The caption is a play on words echoing the name of the mountain range in telling Franz Joseph, 'it seems your soldiers took to their heels.' After twin defeats in the Battles of Gnila Lipa and Rava Russka, the Austro-Hungarian Army lost the great fortress at Lemberg, and was being driven out of Galicia and back through the Carpathians. Russia's attempts to break through the Carpathians continued through April 1915, with heavy losses on both sides. The Austro-Hungarians, with German support, held.

Parait que tes soldats se Carapathent



Seems that your soldiers took to their heels



Dix 701



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Tuesday, June 22, 1915

"The southern portion in Eastern Galicia of the whole Russian front broke away completely from the northern. For a time there was a broad empty space in Volhynia. The break-through was accomplished. On June 22nd Lemberg fell.

. . . The events which were crowned by the reoccupation of Lemberg on June 22nd, 1915, meant a great deal to the cause of the Central Powers. The threat to Hungary had been completely removed; Austria-Hungary was given the possibility of sending sufficient forces to the Italian front; Turkey was relieved from the danger of an attack upon the Bosphorus by the Russian Odessa Army; these and the pacification of Rumania and the resumption of connections with Bulgaria were the immediate and highly valuable consequences. But enough had not yet been achieved."

Quotation Context

German Commander-in-Chief Erich von Falkenhayn's summary of the effects of the Central Powers' breakthrough in the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive, specifically the reconquest of the Austro-Hungarian fortress city of Lemberg in the province of Galicia. The Russian army was split and continued to fall back before the German and Austro-Hungarian allies through the summer and into the fall.

Source

General Headquarters and its Critical Decisions, 1914-1916 by Erich von Falkenhayn, pp. 114, 115, copyright © 1920 by Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., publisher: Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., publication date: 1920

Tags

1915-06-22, 1915, June, Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive, Lemberg, Lvov