Ivanoff's chief object for the moment was to hold the enemy in check long enough to allow Przemysl to be cleared of ammunitions and supplies, and to withdraw the troops in possession of the place. Already, on May 14, 1915, the German troops of Von Mackensen's army had occupied Jaroslav, only twenty-two miles north of the fortress. Ivanoff had concentrated his strongest forces on the line between Sieniava, north of Przevorsk, and Sambor, thirty miles southeast of Przemysl. Here he had deployed the three armies which had held the entire front from the Biala to Uzsok in the beginning of May, 1915, nearly twice as long as the line they were now guarding. These were to fight a holding battle on the center while he adopted a series of vigorous counterthrusts on his right and left wings. By the retirement of the center Ewarts had been compelled to fall back from the Nida to the Vistula with Woyrsch's Austrian army against him. When Ewarts dropped behind Kielce in Russian Poland, Woyrsch seized the junction of the branch line to Ostroviecs in front of the Russian line. Ivanoff decided to venture a counterattack which would at the same time relieve the pressure on his center and also check the move on Josefov, dangerously near to the Warsaw-Ivangorod-Lublin line. The result of this plan was the brilliant surprise attack on the Austrians and Germans previously described. Along the San the troops just south of Ewarts delivered a fierce attack and drove the Archduke Ferdinand back to Tarnobrzeg on the Vistula. Ivanoff next drew as many reenforcements from that flank to strengthen his center as was compatible with safety. What had happened meanwhile on Ivanoff's extreme left--in eastern Galicia and the Bukowina--has already been stated. These counterattacks may be regarded as merely efforts to gain time, but the hour of another great battle was at hand.