While fortune was steadily following the efforts of the czar's troops in the Lupkow-Uzsok sector, the German War Staff were preparing their plans for the great decisive blow that was soon to be struck. South of the Carpathians, barely thirty miles away, formidable reenforcements were collecting; they arrived from the East Prussian front, from Poland, and even from the west, where they had faced the French and British. There were also new formations fresh from Germany. General von der Marwitz arrived in the Laborcza Valley with a whole German army corps. These gigantic preparations were not unknown to the Russians; they, also, strained every nerve to throw all available reenforcements behind and into the battle line, strengthening every position _except one_. South of the Lupkow the Germanic forces opened their counteroffensive on April 6, 1915. Official reports on the first day's fighting differ somewhat. The Russians admit a slight German advance, but assert that they were able to withstand all further attacks. The Germans, on the other hand, claim great successes and the capture of 6,000 Russian prisoners. The Germanic armies in this case, however, certainly did advance, for the Russians withdrew from the Virava Valley, which they had entered four days earlier. The first object of the counteroffensive was to save the Austrians who were holding the frontier south of Lupkow from being enveloped and cut off. But on April 9, 1915, the Russians again moved forward, and recovered part of the Virava Valley. By this day the whole mountain crest from Dukla to Uzsok, a distance of over seventy miles, had been conquered by the Russians. By the same night they had repulsed a counterattack near the Rostoki and captured a battalion of Austrian infantry. The Russian report sums up thus: "We seized Height 909 (909 meters=3,030 feet) with the result that the enemy was repulsed along the entire length of the principal chain of the Carpathians in the region of our offensive."