This occurred on May 15, 1915. On the same day, with all his available strength, he swung furiously with Opatow as an axis from both north and south, catching in bayonet charge the Twenty-fifth Division on the road between Lagow and Opatow. Simultaneously another portion of his command swept up on the Fourth Division coming from Ivaniska to Opatow. "In the meantime a strong force of Cossacks had ridden round the Austrians and actually hit their line of communications at the exact time that the infantry fell on the main column with a bayonet charge, delivered with an impetuosity and fury that simply crumpled up the entire Austrian formation. The Fourth Division was meeting a similar fate farther south, and the two were thrown together in a helpless mass, losing between 3,000 and 4,000 casualties and nearly 3,000 in prisoners, besides a large number of machine guns and the bulk of their baggage. The remainder, supported by the Forty-first Honved Division, which had been hurried up, managed to squeeze themselves out of their predicament by falling back on Uszachow, and the whole retired to Lagow, beyond which the Russians were not permitted to pursue them, lest they should break the symmetry of their own line." It is admitted by the Austrians themselves that their losses were very severe in this battle. An Austrian source at the time stated that on May 16, 1915, not a single officer and only twenty-six men were left of the entire Fourth Company, First Battalion of the Tenth Austrian Infantry Regiment. By the 17th of May the Austrians had withdrawn more than twelve miles from the scene of the disaster. During the following night, May 25, 1915, an Austrian division was moving from the line of advance of General Bredow's troops along the Lagow-Opatow road where it is separated by a spur of the Lysa Gora, the highest mountain group in Russian Poland. The Russians, elated over their recent victory, crossed the mountains by a forced march, and fell on the right flank of the German formation, while other troops opened a general frontal attack against it. Bredow was compelled to fall back in haste in the direction of Bodzentyn and to call for assistance from the adjoining Fourth German Landwehr Division. The sudden withdrawal of that division had the effect of weakening the German line southwest of Radom near the Radom-Kielce and the Konsk-Ostroviec railway crossings. The opportunity of thinning the enemy's line in that sector was too good to be lost, for a Russian communique of May 17, 1915, states that "near Gielniow, Ruski-Brod, and Suchedniov our sudden counterattacks inflicted severe losses on the enemy's advance guards." Having thus checked the German advance for the time being, the Russians ceased from further troubling to await developments on the San. * * * * * CHAPTER XXXIII BATTLE OF THE SAN