The Archive · 1916

A Violent Battle in Eastern Galicia

A MILLION AND A HALF OF THE ENEMY ENGAGED

London, Dec. 31.

The violence and extent of the great battle in Eastern Galicia is increasing, says an Austrian official communique, adding that the Rus: sians, yesterday attacked not only on the Bessarabian Front but also Austrian positions east of the lower and middle Strypa. The Austrian communique claims, vaguely, that the advance of the Rus sians '"'mostly'"' failed.

Petrograd, Jan. 1.

The fighting along the 200 mile front from the river Pripet to Bukhovina is continuing in places with unabated vigour.

Here the enemy has concentrated a force estimated and at 1,500,000 under the command of Marshal von Mackensen and General von Pflanzer.

The principal region of the fighting is Tarnopol, which the Germans are anxious to occupy as it is a railway centre of great strategical importance in the Galician theatre of operations. cesses, According to a German official communique ® large Russian force is advancing in the district of Zalestchiky.

[From Russian Legation, Peking.)

Petirograd, Dec. 28, In the Riga region, southward of Lake Habit, the Germans attempted to attack our trenches but were repulsed by our fire. A party of them, however, remained near our trend ches. These were then attacked by our troops and driven back to their trenches, On the front southward of the Pripet and in Galicia encounters with the, enemy are everywhere continuing and are assuming at some places a violent character.

In the direction of the coast region of Shmarden an attack was organized by 4 detachment of partians, At four o'clock in the morning they approached unperceived by the German outpost, the members of which ware quartered in huts behind " trench having the form of a horseshoe. They cut the wire entanglements at several places and rushed towards the huts, throwing hand grenades against the windows, The Germans who succeeded in running out of the huts were bayoneted, and after o brief hand-to-hand fight the outpost was almost completely annihilated. Six men were taken prisoners and a few succeeded in escaping, In spite of heavy fire which was opened by the enemy from the south, the partisans retreated in safety, their losses being insignificant, In the region of the station of Chartoriisk, at the cemetery of the village of 'N. Podcherevichi, we likewise annihilated a German outpost. Sixteen men were taken prisoners, The Black Sea: boats sank near the Bulgarian shore two sailing vessels and shelled the enemy's outposts. The attacks of the enemy submarines on the torpedo-boat Gromkii were repulsed by gunfire.

The Caucasian Front: Our troops have occupied the town of Asad-Abad, westward of Hamadan, During the engagement at the village of Rabat Kerim, twenty-six miles southwestward of Te-heron, with Persian gendarmes and ieentar} seventy-one rebels. the bands of Emir Hashmet, we

{Continued on page £6.)

Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.

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