When on the 2d of May the offensive of the allies in West Galicia began, few probably could have imagined that four weeks later the heavy guns of the Central Powers would open their fire on Przemysl. The Russian staff was not likely to have been prepared for this possibility. Its decision swayed this way and that, whether, as originally planned, to hold the fortress, for "political reasons" or "voluntarily to withdraw" from it. Constantly our airmen reported the marching of troops in and out of the fortress. On the 21st of May the decision seemed to have been reached to abandon it. In spite of this, eight days later the place was stubbornly defended. [Illustration: Eight German military positions about Przemysl and Lemberg.] General von Kneussl pushed the line of his Bavarian regiments from the north closer to the fortress to shut in the foe. About eleven o'clock in the forenoon the heavy batteries began to engage the forts on the north front. In the night from the 30th to the 31st of May the infantry pushed forward closer to the wire entanglements. It awaited the effect of the heavy artillery. This confined the defenders to their bomb-proof shelters, so that our infantry could step out of its trenches and from the top of the breastworks watch the tremendous drama of destruction. The lighter guns of the assailants found ideal positions in the battery emplacements formerly built by the Russians as part of their siege works when operating against the Austrians in Przemysl. So, too, General von Kneussl with his staff found shelter near, and the chief of artillery in the observation station constructed by the Russians near Batycze. From this point, distant from the line of forts only a little more than two kilometers, one could observe the whole front of Forts 10 and 11. On the 31st of May, at four in the afternoon, the heavy guns ceased firing. Simultaneously the infantry, Bavarian regiments, a Prussian regiment and a detachment of Austrian sharp-shooters, moved to the attack. The destruction of the works and advanced points of support of the fortress by the heavy artillery had such a shattering and depressing effect on its garrison that it was not capable of offering any effective resistance to the attacking infantry. The troops manning Forts 10a, 11a, and 11, such of them as did not lie buried in the shattered casemates, fled, leaving behind their entire war material, including a great number of the newest light and heavy Russian guns. The enemy replied to the assailants who pushed forward to the circular connecting road, only with artillery fire, and in the night made no counter attack of any kind. On the 1st of June the enemy threw several single battalions into a counter attack. These attacks were repulsed without difficulty.