As night approached, Rudolph also stopped his offensive, refusing to lay casualties on the Russian logistics. For the rest of these rabble, he can completely break through from the center and destroy the command of the Russian army in one fell swoop.

The 17 Chasseur Battalion was ordered to come overnight, the 79 Brigade, and the baggage, artillery, and combat vehicles were left far behind, Rudolph was not sure if the Russians had spotted the troop, and both the reconnaissance planes and the 79 Brigade said that no Russian troops appeared.

At four o'clock in the morning on February 11, the 17th battalion arrived, and in order to conceal themselves, they walked for 8 hours in a row, covering a distance of 30 kilometers. The 17th Battalion was already exhausted, and yesterday they walked 35 kilometers with the main force, and in the afternoon they marched until the next morning. The officers and men had been marching continuously for almost a day, and they had only taken a brief break on the way.

Rudolph called the commanders of the units to the meeting. They were to attack at 6 o'clock, the 50th Regiment feinted as a diversionary force, the 133rd Regiment opened the enemy lines, and the 17th Battalion occupied the city.

Rudolph took the city map of Lemberg and specially explained several locations of the 17th battalion commander Christian, which may be the headquarters of the Russian army, and the 17th battalion needs to break through in these directions with all its might. In order to prevent them from getting lost, more than a dozen guides were specially attached.

Early in the morning, the 50 regiment began to exchange fire with the Russian troops. However, the intensity of the attack was not large, and they were divided into several directions, prompting the Russian army to mobilize its forces.

By 8 o'clock, there was fighting on all fronts. The 133 regiment went on a truck and attacked along the road to Lemberg. Although the Russian army focused on deploying defenses here, it still retreated three kilometers under the rapid advance of the 133rd Regiment. In order to prevent the 133 regiment from flanking the line from this depression, Lieutenant General Sergei sent all the reserves.

The 133rd Regiment turned to the flanks to raid, but was firmly blocked by the Russian troops in their positions. The 17 battalion arrived at the front, and the 133 regiment, using its mobility, sent a battalion along the road to attack the city. The Russian army naturally had a corresponding defense on the road, and after discovering the Austrian attempt, the Russian army transferred its troops to the vicinity of the road for defense.

Now the Russian army is basically in a state of operation, and what remains in front of the 17th battalion is only the alert troops that are better than nothing. The ready-to-go hunting battalion immediately rushed towards Lemberg, and they quickly routed several platoons in front of them. It was not until they reached the outskirts of the city that the Russian command discovered the army.

Two Russian infantry companies on the outskirts of the city were caught off guard and had no choice but to surrender in front of Austrian troops four times their size.

The 17th Battalion fought their way into the city, where they encountered the last resistance of the Russian army. The Russian army has amassed thousands of troops in the city, but most of them are logistics personnel with rifles. They used barricades to block the elite 17 Chasseur Battalion. The Russian soldiers retreated under the attack, and these soldiers, who only knew how to shoot, fired at the front at will, leaning against the buildings, hindering the speed of the Austrian advance.

There was no suspense in the battle, the Russian soldiers were headless and armed with rifles, and they could not even detect the enemy. Many times when they hear gunshots, their comrades fall down, and in this atmosphere of terror, panicked Russians either shoot indiscriminately and are killed, or hide behind the wall, waiting to raise their hands in surrender. They were like cannon fodder, separated and placed in different neighborhoods, but they still used their lives to buy more than an hour.

Lieutenant General Sergei kept ordering the troops on the outskirts of the city to come back to support, and the Russian troops on the front line were pinned down by the Austrian offensive and were helpless. And before the reinforcements that had been assembled with great difficulty had returned to the city, they were blocked by the Austrian troops on the flank, unable to move.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, Captain Erich, with the 5th Company, captured the Russian command in the market square. Lieutenant General Sergei and his officers had already been evacuated from the railway station, and only one lieutenant colonel was left in the command to liaise with the troops at the front. They forced the Russian telegraph man to give the order to the front: Lemberg was lost, Sergei fled, and immediately laid down his arms and surrendered.

But Lieutenant General Sergei was still remotely controlling the troops on the train, and some Russian troops were still stubbornly resisting. Soon after, all the Russian commanders had confirmed that Lemberg was under the control of the Austrians, and they had lost their way back. These patchwork units began to surrender, and although some of the Russians also tried to break through, by half-past four, the flames of Lemberg were all extinguished.

The officers and soldiers held a simple ceremony to enter the city, and Rudolph walked into the recovered city amid the cheers of the soldiers and the people.

He first met with government officials, and the city of Lemberg was in good condition, but the city of 360,000 people had an influx of nearly 100,000 refugees. There was no food shortage, but the townspeople and refugees ran out of food rations, and the city officials asked Rudolph to open the Russians' warehouses and give them relief.

Rudolph did not agree, and he did not know whether the Russians' stocks were sufficient. Now he had recaptured only an isolated city, and the Austro-Hungarian and Russian armies were fighting each other in the west, and the lines of communication had been broken a day earlier. Since learning of Rudolph's existence, the 12th Army was completely blocked. Lemberg is actually out of the encirclement now, but the Russian army in the west is unable to protect itself and is struggling to support it under the attack. They were retreating to the north, but the Russian Third Army did not break through Boroyevich's defenses, and the retreat at Shharmna was cut off by the 36th Regiment. According to the latest intelligence, two Russian corps were withdrawing towards Lemberg, and they blocked the 12th Army.

Rudolph guessed Brusilov's idea that his 8th Army would go north to support, and the 24th Army would support from the direction of Lemberg. Rudolph had to admire his decisiveness, although the Russian army and the 8th Army on the front line would cut off Rudolph's supply lines and block him from the 2nd Army. But the Russian army on the front line was likewise cut off from the rear by Rudolph.

Ermolly repeatedly assured Rudolph that his troops would defeat the Russians as soon as possible. It was only a matter of time before the Second Army defeated the Russian army, and the command had already put in reserves, which were supposed to form the Seventh Army, but they were now all going to move to the southern front to attack the Russian 8th Army southwest of Lemberg.

Russia had already lost at this time, and their 7th and 12th armies were doomed to be wiped out. Even if Rudolph was destroyed, Austria-Hungary would have lost nothing more than a division. Even if the Russian army occupies Lemberg, it is still a question whether they will be able to hold on to it from exhaustion. If Lemberg had been in Rudolph's hands, the two Russian armies that had lost their supplies might have been annihilated more quickly, or even surrendered. Under the rapid collapse of the northern front, the Russian 8th Army in the south will also be careless, losing everything and falling into encirclement.