Besides the menace from the northwest of Von Mackensen's swiftly approaching right, a third blade was gradually growing on the deadly scissors, in the shape of Boehm-Ermolli's and Von Bojna's forces, threatening to grind them between two relentless jaws of steel. It is Sunday, the second day of May, 1915; to all intents and purposes the battle of the Dunajec, as such, was over, and the initial aim of the Germanic offensive has been attained. The Russian line was pierced and its defense shattered. Von Mackensen's "Phalanx" was advancing two mighty tentacles guided by a master mind, remorselessly probing for the enemy's strongest points. Its formation comprised, in the northeastern tentacle, the Sixth Austro-Hungarian Army Corps and the Prussian Guards; in the southern, the Bavarians under Von Emmich and the Tenth Austro-Hungarian Army corps under General Martiny. On May 3, 1915, Dmitrieff's troops were falling back farther every hour, continuously fighting rear-guard actions and compelling the pursuers to conquer every foot of ground. There was a powerful reason for this stubborn retirement: it was to gain time for Brussilov to get his men out of their perilous positions and to join the main line again with Dmitrieff's receding ranks. If this could be effected, the fatal gap between them--made by Von Mackensen's battering-ram--would be repaired, and they could once more present a united front to the enemy. It was mentioned a little farther back that the Austrians had pierced the Dunajec line at Otfinow, north of Tarnow, by which was cut in two the hitherto unbroken Russian battle front, from the Baltic to the Rumanian frontier (900 miles); the "scissors" at Gorlice had made it three; if Boehm-Ermolli's drive from the Uzsok upward along the "triangle line" to Jaroslav succeeds, there will be four separate pieces of Russian front. But from Tarnow southward to Tuchow, a small twenty-mile salient on the Biala, the Russians are still in possession on May 4, 1915, defying the Fourth Austro-Hungarian Army. CHAPTER XLI RUSSIAN RETREAT It is a matter for speculation whether the numerous successes achieved by the Russians against the Austrians and Germans in Galicia and the Carpathians during the first seven months of the war had begotten a spirit of overconfidence among the Russian commanders, or whether it was not in their power to have made more effective preparations than they had done. We have seen that Dmitrieff had not provided himself with those necessary safety exits which were now so badly needed. As no artificially prepared defenses were at hand, natural ones had to be found. The first defense was irretrievably lost; the second line was a vague, undefined terrain extending across the hills between Biala in the west and the River Wisloka in the east. Between Tuchow and Olpiny, the Mountain Dobrotyn formed one of the chief defensive positions, being 1,800 feet high and thickly covered with woods.