The street fight in Lemberg is a real street fight.

Since abandoning his off-field positions, Rudolph has lost the initiative on the battlefield. Hiding in the city to fight, the slightest carelessness will be cocooned. If it weren't for the big difference in strength, no one would passively choose to defend, and the counterattack of the 133rd Regiment became the final swan song.

The 41st Regiment had 3,000 men, and the 17th Battalion had less than 1,000 men, which was the only force of Rudolph with a counteroffensive. Theoretically, the other three regiments were able to make up 3,000 people, plus 5,000 volunteers. Rudolph still has tens of thousands of horses, and the Russian army has three divisions, and after a series of previous losses, there are about 30,000 more.

Judging from the numbers, it is completely possible to defend well with one enemy and three. But war is not a simple game of addition and subtraction, it needs to take into account various factors. The three crippled regiments were basically incapacitated, and according to common sense, in an attack, one-fifth of the casualties would retreat. In defensive operations, if you lose half of your casualties, the soldiers will have no intention of fighting. Rudolph's three regiments suffered two-thirds of the casualties and were now in urgent need of training. The reason why Rudolph's troops did not collapse was not that Rudolph's troops were unparalleled in the world, but more related to the Russians, the intensity of the fighting was low, and the casualties were not achieved overnight, but cumulatively. But in any case, among the three regiments, the 146th Regiment and the 50th Regiment completely collapsed, and the 133rd Regiment still has a thousand people, which can still be put into the battlefield after repairs, as for how much combat power it has, it is unknown.

If these remnants are unorganized, then the volunteers recruited by Rudolph are not organized at all. These 5,000 people are full of enthusiasm to defend their homes and country, and at the same time, they also have the ability to fight. It seems that these people who took up arms are no different from soldiers.

But in war, enthusiasm alone is not enough. Something more demanding than that, such as discipline. Physical fitness and marksmanship are impossible to learn in a short period of time, and they are only basic skills in foot combat.

Most of these supporters have only been trained in reserves, they know how to aim, they shoot, but they don't know how to fight. Rudolf lacked officers, and even less Polish-speaking officers. To do this, he had to organize the volunteers into the 41st Regiment and let them fight together. With 3,000 supporters in the 41st Regiment, including 1,000 volunteers who had been on the battlefield, Rudolph barely managed to change the ratio of military to civilian to 1 to 1.

Rudolph deployed the team on the block, so that he had only three battalions of reserves left. One was the 17 battalion, who were well versed in urban warfare and were firefighters prepared by Rudolph. The other was the 3rd Battalion of the 41st Regiment, a Romanian unit that really could not be integrated into the Poles. There was also the 133rd regiment, and after a mobilization speech, Rudolph hoped to inspire a sense of honor among these soldiers.

"Mourn our brothers, they will not be coming back. You have proven the weakness of the Russians, but they still covet the sacred land of their homeland. Polishing the bayonet, the weapon is loaded. If they come again, let them see our fearlessness and wrath. ”

Rudolph still has a lot to worry about, and this mobilization should be the work of the officers, and he simply feels it. After walking around the station of the 133 regiment and speaking a few words, Rudolph returned to the command.

It is the duty of the soldiers to fight bravely to kill the enemy, but Rudolph shoulders the fate of the army and even the country.

The city is becoming more and more oppressive, and the Russian army has not yet directly attacked the city, but shells fall from time to time, disturbing the residents of the city.

Rudolph knew that a terrible war was about to break out, and in order to reduce the number of casualties among the civilian population, he sent the inhabitants of the city to flee from the north with enough food.

This was indeed the final decisive battle, and after the arrival of reinforcements from three divisions, the defensive line of the Russian 8th Army was broken through. But the Russian army was not defeated, they chose to retreat.

Not only the 8th Army, but the entire Eastern Front was staging a great Russian retreat. The Russian Fifth Army moved north to Warsaw to reinforce the line of defense on the Vivas River. The remaining fourth, ninth and second armies, unable to resist the Austrians, also began to retreat to the east.

The Second Army, which had ended the fighting, immediately moved its troops south. The Russian army west of Lemberg was in a critical situation.

The 8th Army retreated under the attack of three Austrian divisions. The situation took a turn for the worse, and the Russians no longer had the luxury of reoccupying Galicia, they only wanted to meet the retreating three armies and establish a defensive line on the Lomberg line.

The Russian 7th and 12th armies retreated all the way to the southwest, their wounded, sick and logistical units had already arrived in Lemberg, and in the south of the city they were met by friendly forces.

The Russians now had to not only withdraw their troops, but also capture and hold Lemberg. The city is the center of the border region, and only by restoring transportation here can the Russian army be adequately supplied. Most importantly, Lemberg's ownership also determines their way out.

Now the Russian troops on the entire front have retreated to the border, and only their four armies are still on the land of Galicia. Once Austrian reinforcements arrive in Lemberg, they will be on a deadly road. The Russian army retreated on foot, but the Austrians were able to gather troops and supplies with the help of railways and kilometers. The slightest mistake could lead to the annihilation of the Russian Eighth Army.

The Russian high command may send reinforcements to support or respond to them. But now the whole front is in a hurry, and every army from the Baltic coast to Galicia is asking for reinforcements. The territory of Russia is full of troops, some are massing, some are still training, but they can only wait in distant cities due to the poor transport system.

It is estimated that the supplies of the Russian army on the front line are already stretched. The Russian Eleventh Army was in central Ukraine, but they could only move slowly westward. All roads were occupied by supplies sent to the front, and the 11th Army had to stop and stop all the way, waiting for supplies.

Even then, supplies could only be sent to Lemberg, and the 7th and 12th armies, which had suffered heavy losses in the days of fighting, and now they had run out of ammunition and food, they withdrew from the battle and withdrew all the way to the garrison of the 24th Army. The 8th Army broke off alone, resisting the sudden offensive of the Austrians.

The situation of the Russian army is not optimistic, but they still have at least two armies that are still intact, which is where the confidence of the commander of the Eighth Army, Brusilov, lies. Rudolph and his troops were almost at the point of life and death, and it was a decisive battle from any angle.

Not knowing when this force would collapse, Rudolph only wanted to delay as long as possible. Both divisions of the 24th Army suffered more or less losses, but they were fully organized. Now the reserves of a division have again arrived at the front, which almost sentenced Rudolph to death.