When the Russian offensive opened on March 19, 1915, the entire battle line still rested on the northern side of the Carpathians, and here the struggle was resumed. The Russian grand attack was directed between the Lupkow and Uzsok passes, where great forces of the enemy, concentrated for the purpose of relieving Przemysl, were stationed. In the western sector, facing Dmitrieff, the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand held the roads leading from Novy-Sacz and Grybow to Tarnow, covering Cracow; and from south of the range the two roads diverging from Zboro to Gorlice and Jaslo were in Russian possession, though the Austrians held their junction at Zboro, eight miles north of Bartfeld. Of the actual fighting that took place in this region very few details were published by the Russian official communique. One of these documents, dated April 18, 1915, announced that on March 23, "our troops had already begun their principal attack in the direction of Baligrod, enveloping the enemy positions from the west of the Lupkow Pass and on the east near the sources of the San. The enemy opposed the most desperate resistance to the offensive of our troops. They had brought up every available man on the front from the direction of Bartfeld as far as the Uzsok Pass, including even German troops and numerous cavalrymen fighting on foot. The effectives on this front exceeded 300 battalions. Moreover, our troops had to overcome great natural difficulties at every step. In the course of the day, March 23, 1915, we captured more than 4,000 prisoners, a gun, and several dozen machine guns." On March 24, 1915, the battle was in full progress: "Especially severe is the fighting for the crest of the mountain south of Jasliska and to the west of the Lupkow Pass. The forests which cover these mountains offer special facilities for the construction of strong fortifications." March 25: "The woods in the Lupkow region are a perfect entanglement of barbed wire... surrounded by several layers of trenches, strengthened by deep ditches and palisades. On this day our troops carried by assault a very important Austrian position on the great crest of the Beskid Mountains." The Russian captures for the day amounted to 100 officers, 5,600 men, and a number of machine guns. Advancing from Jasliska the Russians seriously threatened the Austro-German position in the Laborcza Valley, to which strong reenforcements were sent on March 25. With terrific violence the battle raged till far into the night of the 27th, the Russians forcing their way to within seven miles of the Hungarian frontier.